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How a 5,000-year-old, 11-string, fretless Middle Eastern ancestor of the lute found its way into the jazz tradition In the Arabic world, it’s been the most ubiquitous musical instrument for millennia, depicted in ancient artworks and folktales and widespread today throughout the Middle East, North Africa and the Mediterranean. In the West it’s still an outlier, an exotic curiosity, a rare sight and sound that occasionally turns up on world music or ethnic folk recordings. The oud (which rhymes with either “food” or “wood,” depending on the speaker’s accent), a pear-shaped, 11-string, short-necked, fretless beauty, will probably never join the saxophone, trumpet or piano as a major jazz instrument. And in year-end jazz polls, where the “Miscellaneous Instrument” category serves as a repository for players brandishing banjo, cello, accordion and harmonica, it’s perennially shut out. In recent decades, however, the oud has slowly but steadily nudged its way into jazz as more cultural cross-fertilization has taken place. “When I was 13 I had a really good guitar teacher who played me a Simon Shaheen record,” says Gordon Grdina, an oud and guitar player from Vancouver, B.C., referring to the Israel-born oudist considered one of the contemporary masters of the instrument. “My teacher wanted me to hear the slide guitar player, but what grabbed me right away was [Shaheen’s] oud. The tone and sound of it blew my mind.” That tone is melodious, robust and resonant, but at the same time more delicate than that of an acoustic guitar. Because of its intrinsic lack of volume, the oud has traditionally been relegated to quieter settings, used most often to accompany a vocalist, or in a small orchestra the way a piano might be used in the West. Throughout most of its history, the idea of the oud serving as a lead instrument was unimaginable. “As a solo instrument it was very strange,” says the Tunisian oudist Anouar Brahem, “so the audience was very small in the beginning; it was underground music. But now it’s become something very usual and there are a lot of famous oud players who have big audiences.” One reason for that expansion is technology. Over the past half-century, advances in amplification have made it possible for the instrument to be more audible in a jazz setting. And just as Indian instrumentation and textures have made an impact on jazz, the influence of the Arabic oud on this most American of musics may just be on the cusp of a heyday. No one knows precisely when the first oud was created, but artworks from as far back as 3000 B.C. depict musicians holding stringed instruments that resemble the oud. The name may derive from either of two words: the Arabic al-’ūd , which translates to “the wood” (the word also later morphed into “lute”), or the Persian rud, for “string.” Regardless of the origin, as the Arabic people traded more frequently with the West, the oud spread, eventually losing its frets and taking on a straight pegbox atop its compact, tapered neck, replacing the bent pegbox of the ancient instrument. “What we know is that some time around the 12th century, there was a famous court musician from Baghdad called Ziryab who brought the oud to Spain,” says Brian Prunka, a New York-based guitarist and oud player familiar with the instrument’s history. “Until about the 1400s it seems that ouds mostly did have frets, although there might have been more than 12 notes to the octave. At some point the oud and the lute diverged. Arabic music became a very sophisticated exploration of subtle microtonal variations of notes, tiny differences in pitch having different emotional and musical effects. Western music, meanwhile, became interested in chords and harmony and counterpoint.” Just as there are different guitar designs, there is no single type of oud. Turkish ouds differ somewhat from Arabic ouds (the latter is slightly larger and resonates more), and even among the Arabic instruments there are subtle differences. But overall the construction and sound of the oud have remained relatively consistent for centuries, as have the methods of building the instrument—although today’s tools are, naturally, more sophisticated than those the ancients had at their disposal. “It’s very difficult to make because of the bowl,” says Yaron Naor, a luthier from outside of Tel Aviv. “The neck and the pegbox is an ordinary process, but the bowl, the belly, is difficult because it’s combined by 23 strips and you have to bend each one on a mold and glue every one to the first one. Then you take the mold out and you have a nutshell. You put the soundboard, the neck and the pegbox together and do the finish and the bridge.” The soundboard, Naor says, must be made out of spruce or cedar, as they are lightweight and flexible woods, whereas maple, rosewood or even mahogany are best for the rest of the body. Each oud has 11 strings: five pairs doubled up, with a single bass string on the upper side. All ouds are played with a plectrum that is somewhat larger than a guitar pick. Because of the tranquility inherent in its sound, and because its lack of frets makes playing chords on an oud impractical, the instrument evaded jazz for the first half of the music’s existence. As more jazz musicians began looking to the music of the East for inspiration, however, and as modal jazz came into vogue, it was inevitable that the oud would find a place. By all accounts, the first musician to make a serious attempt at adapting the oud to jazz was Ahmed Abdul-Malik, a double-bassist of Sudanese extraction born in New York. Abdul-Malik played bass in Thelonious Monk’s quartet in the late ’50s, appearing on the pianist’s classic Misterioso album from 1958 and at the 1957 performance that became 2005’s Thelonious Monk Quartet With John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall. Also in ’58, Abdul-Malik released his debut as a leader, Jazz Sahara, on which the oud is not only featured prominently but is also pictured on the cover. Featuring Monk bandmate Johnny Griffin on tenor saxophone, the Riverside release [see sidebar] was one of the first notable East-meets-West fusions and is fondly considered a template by jazz oud aficionados even today. Abdul-Malik revisited the concept on several subsequent solo recordings, utilizing oud alongside traditional jazz instruments. He has also been credited with contributing the instrument to John Coltrane’s landmark 1962 Live at the Village Vanguard, although in recent years some diligent researchers have suggested that the sound heard on that album is more likely that of a tamboura, an Indian drone instrument, than an oud. (Abdul-Malik may have played tamboura at the gig, although he wasn’t schooled in it and there appears to be no written or photographic record of him playing it.) The oud continued to turn up sporadically into the ’60s and ’70s, usually in folk (Sandy Bull), world music (Marcel Khalife, Hamza El Din, Bassam Saba) or classical (Munir Bashir) settings, until the ’80s and ’90s, when such musicians as Brahem, Dhafer Youssef, Amos Hoffman and Rabih Abou-Khalil further integrated the instrument into jazz. The Israeli jazz musician Omer Avital, who moved to New York in 1992 and is known primarily as a bassist, has played oud both on his own recordings and with others. In his home country, the instrument’s popularity dipped significantly before it made a comeback that is still in effect. “The Jewish immigrants from Arabic countries had orchestras and clubs. They were basically playing classic Arabic music and folk music and continuing their own traditions from Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, etc.,” he says. “There was a big scene in the ’50s and ’60s. By the second and third generation [of post-independence Israelis], it started dying out. We heard it here and there, on TV and radio, but by the late ’70s, ’80s, we heard music with guitars and keyboards and the oud itself lost its prominence. It was always there—Arabic musicians have always used it—but my dad’s generation had a lot more contact with it. When I picked it up he was very surprised. Then in the mid-’90s, it started to become very common.” For Middle Eastern and North African musicians to whom the oud was a part of daily life, jazz was the stranger, not the instrument. Abou-Khalil, from Lebanon, remembers his introduction to the music he would come to ***wholly embrace. “I went to a shop where some records were on sale,” he says, “and I bought three LPs: one by Thelonious Monk, which I thought was incredibly funny, very humorous music—I just bought it ’cause I liked the name—and then [the Mothers of Invention’s] Freak Out! and Charlie Christian.” Abou-Khalil was already well versed in the oud by that time, having begun playing when he was 4, and as he was exposed to more jazz in adulthood, his own compositions started to take on jazz elements. It wasn’t until he tried to get a record deal that he realized he was doing something unusual. “I never really cared much about whether it was jazz or not jazz,” he says, but record labels, he soon found out, required a defined category by which to sell product. Even Enja, the company that would ultimately release the majority of Abou-Khalil’s albums from the mid-’90s on, initially balked. “When I went to [Enja] at first, they asked me what my name was. I said, ‘Rabih Abou-Khalil,’ and they said, ‘What?!’ Then they asked, ‘What instrument do you play?’ I said, ‘The oud,’ and they laughed. No record company would take it. So I actually managed to borrow some money from a bank and did my first and second recordings on my own.” Brahem focused on traditional music while learning the instrument, but, like Abou-Khalil, as his exposure to jazz increased, he became intrigued by the possibilities of marrying Arabic melodic tenets to jazz theory. “Jazz sounded very strange to me, but at the same time it was something very close,” says Brahem, who has recorded for the ECM label for more than two decades. “I couldn’t see a lot of connection between jazz and Arabic music, but at the same time, the importance of improvisation and the way to improvise was very close to my culture. So when I started to compose, I wanted to compose not only for oud but for different instruments, like saxophone.” Whatever commonalities there may be between jazz and Arabic music, they are not evident; it’s taken imagination and the efforts of curious musicians to fuse the disparate cultural characteristics into a coherent new whole. “The oud and Arabic music have a tradition of improvisation,” explains Joseph Tawadros, a young oud player who was born in Egypt but moved to Australia during his childhood. “However, [Arabic music] is based on modes called maqams that do not usually follow chord progressions like in jazz pieces. There’s a form in Arabic music called taqsim [or taksim], and that is a free-time modal improvisation. With my collaborations I usually compose sections where there will be room for this.” “Structurally they’re not similar,” says Grdina. “There are similarities harmonically because [Arabic music] is a monophonic music. There aren’t chords, per sé, but there are a lot of harmonies going on. But it’s not like you’re playing changes. I found the abstract harmonic sense [in jazz] similar to the Arabic sense of modulation, where you set within a tonal structure and then the upper parts will hint at all these harmonic possibilities and spaces and tones and the colors fly by and come in and out of existence. They use quartertones in Arabic music, which really pushes harmonic sensibilities; as soon as you hear it, it pushes you in directions. That’s like Ornette Coleman—when he’s playing, the quartertones are pushing a certain way. It’s almost like willing the temperate scale to move more organically to different harmonic states. “Sometimes for a joke I’ll play bebop tunes on the oud, but it doesn’t really make a lot of sense. It sounds kind of funny,” he adds. “It’s more [about] hearing different ways to make the instrumentations work together. The improvisation leads to wide-open spaces. It’s not an easy instrument; you can’t be lazy on an oud.” Adds Prunka, “Trying to play a jazz standard on the oud doesn’t usually work that well. Part of that is because of the way jazz standards tend to move around and modulate to different keys, and part of it is because the way the picking technique works on the oud it’s difficult to swing in the same subtle way that you want to in playing straight-ahead jazz. You can do it but you’re not really using the instrument for what it’s good at. It’s kind of like using a screwdriver to hammer in a nail.” For most of the great oudists in jazz—as is the case with any jazz artist—collaboration with simpatico players is the key to successful music-making, and some of the inspired matchups to be found on record have yielded tremendously innovative results. In addition to teaming with musicians from the Middle East and North Africa, virtually all of the best known oud players within the jazz realm have at some point sought out and worked with marquee jazz names from the United States and Europe. One of Tawadros’ recent releases, The Hour of Separation (Enja), features John Abercrombie on guitar, John Patitucci on double bass and Jack DeJohnette on drums; Simon Shaheen was featured on saxophonist/flutist Henry Threadgill’s 1993 Too Much Sugar for a Dime album and, more recently, the oudist Tarik Benbrahim was a fixture in Threadgill’s group Zooid; the crown jewel in Grdina’s catalog might just be Think Like the Waves (Songlines), cut with bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Paul Motian; and Brahem’s brilliant 1998 ECM release Thimar put him in the company of double-bassist Dave Holland and soprano saxophonist/bass clarinetist John Surman. In fact, choosing collaborators takes precedence over all else for most of these musicians; the composers craft their works around the participants, rather than attempting to match a player to existing parts that might not suit that musician. “That’s how I’ve always worked,” says Abou-Khalil, whose collaborators have included harmonica ace Howard Levy, bassist Steve Swallow and saxophonist Sonny Fortune. “I hear a musician and I invite him because I feel he’s open, and then he brings in his own style and the music changes and adapts to it. When somebody tells me the oud works fine with jazz, or the oud is great with piano—no, it’s not; it’s good in this context with these guys. That’s how music always works, how it steps forward. It was never the instrument and never the style; it was the individuals. Choosing musicians for my band was like choosing people you’d want to invite for dinner.” “I never choose the musicians before we start,” says Brahem, who counts among his chief influences fellow ECM artists Keith Jarrett and Jan Garbarek. “I always need to write the music and then I start to think about the instruments. It takes me a long time to make the final decision. Manfred [Eicher, ECM founder and producer] helps me a lot—he’s a fantastic adviser and has a lot of experience with the musicians. But I always have to find the best connection. I need to work with musicians who have a special sensitivity and special sound.” “It really comes down to who you play with,” agrees Tawadros. “I’m very selective when doing collaborations and have to be 110 percent sure that the musicians will complement the music and understand what it is about. When you have this, the rest is easy. My musical collaborations usually stem from epiphanies: seeing or hearing a musician and having an ‘I have to have that’ moment.” “It’s a taste thing too,” adds Avital. “You don’t want to make it sound like it’s thrown together. You have to pick the right keys and the right modes. You can’t modulate so much. It has to be from the modern world of that music: Arabic, African, Turkish and Persian.” To be sure, jazz featuring the oud is still a niche music. But like any development in jazz’s century-long history, it’s another color on the mural. “This is new and unexplored territory,” says Prunka. “But there’s a younger generation of people like me, Amir ElSaffar and Tareq Abboushi, who are jazz musicians involved in the Arabic tradition. For us it’s more about reconciling different facets of our experience into one kind of music, rather than a self-conscious or overt attempt to bring two things together.” “I want to respect the vast tradition of Arabic music, but I can’t be an Arabic musician,” says Grdina. “All I can do is study it as intensely as I can. I also can’t neglect the fact that I started off playing rock and blues music and jazz and improvisation. I’m just trying to play what I hear so all of those influences come together.” “I don’t see the oud belonging to any ethnicity,” says Tawadros. “It’s about breaking down genres and seeing the oud as a general instrument, not one that is just a symbol of the Middle East. It’s beyond that, and that’s what I’m interested in exploring.” Adds Threadgill, “With all instruments, you take [a composition] and you try to figure out what’s in it. When I’m orchestrating music, I hear a particular sound or color and I might not be certain at first what’s in that mix. All instruments have their peculiarities, and you have to be cognizant of that when you mix instruments, especially instruments that aren’t used that frequently and instruments that are unamplified. [The oud] has a very unique sound, and you can either improvise on it or you can’t improvise on it. That’s going to be true whether it’s the piccolo, the zither or anything else.” As it’s always been throughout jazz history, it’s the experimentation, the forging of hybrids, that moves the music forward. “Somebody wrote once that my music doesn’t swing, it sways,” says Abou-Khalil, “and I kind of like that. Any music can be taken to places other than it’s been taken to.” Tomorrow: Five essential oud albums Originally published in July/August 2012

Summary: Who was ultimately responsible for Jesus going to the Cross? "The Architect of the Cross" I was reading through this week from Matthew chapter 21 the account of Jesus entering into Jerusalem in triumph - the event that we celebrated last week on Palm Sunday - and my attention was drawn to verse 10, where it says: "And when He had come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying ’WHO IS THIS?’. So the multitudes said, ’This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth of Galilee.’" Note - "The whole city was moved". That word "moved" is a word used in other places in the New Testament to describe the shaking that takes place when there is an earthquake. The city was shaken by the entry of Jesus. All of Jerusalem said: "Who is this ?", as the multitudes with Him proclaimed His coming to the Holy City with shouts of "Hosanna to the Son of David" and "Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord". A triumphal procession. It was Sunday - the first day of the week. BUT by the end of that week the acclamation would turn to accusation ... arrest, trial and crucifixion. His followers fled; the Prophet Zechariah had foretold, "I will strike the Shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered". They’d seen Him work miracles - they’d heard Him teach with authority - they were drawn to Him - and so, no doubt, as they celebrated His coming into Jerusalem they were quite sure that He was the awaited Messiah, and that He was coming to the capital now to lead a revolution to overthrow the Roman oppressors. But what happened? Instead of rallying support for a revolution, instead of challenging the Romans, Jesus went straight to the Temple and challenged the Jewish leaders. NOT a good political move - NOT a good start to the revolution. The multitude was still with Him at this stage, but He clearly wasn’t doing what was expected of the Messiah. Jesus then went outside Jerusalem to Bethany where He stayed while He taught on the Mount of Olives. He returned on Thursday to eat the Last Supper with His disciples. But all week the Jewish leaders had been scheming and lobbying the city against Him. In the middle of the night He was arrested by the mob in the Garden of Gethsemane, dragged before Annas the High Priest, then before Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin. All this examining and cross-examining took place through the early hours of the morning (Jesus hadn’t slept for at least 24 hours). Then, when they felt it was a reasonable enough hour of the morning, Jesus was brought to Pontius Pilate (the Roman Governor) for his rubber stamp approval on what the Jewish leaders had determined should happen. The accusations they made before Pilate were that Jesus was plotting against Rome - treason punishable by death. Pilate was reluctant - he could smell a rat. He said: "I find no fault in this man". But finally he relented to appease the locals, and crucifixion was ordered. By late afternoon Jesus was dead. WHO was responsible for Jesus dying on the Cross? The Romans? Pontius Pilate? The Jewish mob? Herod? Judas Iscariot? Was it Satan himself? Perhaps you say it was US!? All of sinful mankind - for if it weren’t for our sin He would not have needed to die. That’s right.

OU Executive Vice President, Emeritus Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb delivered the keynote address on Tuesday, December 25 at a program at Great Neck Synagogue, on the tragedy in Newtown, CT. Rabbi Weinreb spoke on the topic of “Answering Unanswerable Questions, Replacing Despair With Hope.” He stated prior to his address, “I will speak from a psycho-spiritual and Jewish perspective on how to respond to the immediate event, what to say to children, how to respond in the longer range, how to place the event in the broader context of personal suffering, contemporary American society, and Jewish history. I will stress the heroism of the teachers, and mention issues of mental illness.” RABBI WEINREB, IN KEYNOTE ADDRESS ON NEWTOWN TRAGEDY, DECLARES ‘GOD STANDS FOR LIFE AND THIS ENTIRE ACT REEKS OF DEATH’; GIVES ADVICE ON HOW TO DEAL WITH CHILDREN IN FACE OF TRAGEDY; CALLS FOR ‘THOROUGH’ GUN CONTROL By Stephen Steiner Combining the sadness of Tisha B’Av, the soul-searching of Yom Kippur, the remembrance of Rosh Hashanah, and the renewal of Rosh Chodesh, Orthodox Union Executive Vice President Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, speaking to the Great Neck, Long Island Jewish community, called the mass murder of children and adults in Newtown, CT “a profanation of the name of God. God stands for life and this entire act reeks of death.” Speaking at the OU member Great Neck Synagogue on the night of December 25, before an audience of Orthodox, Conservative and Reform Jews, with the Orthodox attendees including Chabad, Rabbi Weinreb delivered the keynote address of the program, “A Great Neck Community Evening of Reflection: Responding to the Tragedy of Newtown.” The program included the personal reflections of Great Neck native Rabbi Shaul Praver of Congregation Adath Israel in Newtown; ministering to the one Jewish family involved in the tragedy, that of Noah Pozner, and joining with his fellow Newtown clergy as a comforter in times of great despair, Rabbi Praver has become a nationally known figure. It was left to Rabbi Dr. Weinreb, however, to put the event in context of the times Americans live in as well as of Jewish history, providing the insights of a rabbi along with those of a clinical psychologist. His address ranged from thoughts on the media, to the need for gun control, to how to deal with children in face of tragedy, and even to the music of Gustav Mahler. Rabbi Weinreb spoke for slightly more than a half hour, but provided the wisdom of the ages, going back at least to Rabbi Akiva. And yes, drawing on Jewish tradition, he provided hope. Rabbi Weinreb expressed pride at the actions of Rabbi Praver, explaining “By the way he carried himself and came across in the media, he made a Kiddush Hashem,” a sanctification of God’s name. Noting the psychologically protective tendency of people to distance themselves from tragedy by saying “tragedy happens to the other,” Rabbi Weinreb declared that “by coming together tonight we are sending a message. It is not ‘the other’ – this didn’t happen to someone over there, it happened to us. This is us.” The teachings of the sages emphasize this point, Rabbi Weinreb said. Rabbi Akiva, “who knew tragedy,” dying as one of the ten martyrs mourned on Yom Kippur, said, “‘How precious is the human being, created in the image of God. We are all connected in some way, connected in the image of God, in the commonality of mankind.’ A tragedy like this, Rabbi Akiva would say, ‘should make us aware that we are all tzelem Elokim,’ in the image of God.” Noting the stages of grief that people experience, and that in the first stage “the proper response is silence” – as Aaron was silent following the death of his two sons (Leviticus 10:3) — Rabbi Weinreb criticized the media for being too intrusive with the families in the early days after the shootings, when they should have been emphasizing “how we are all joined face to face by unspeakable horror.” Rabbi Weinreb devoted a large portion of his presentation to how to deal with children in the face of tragedy, by emphasizing the Jewish concept of “Kiddush HaChaim,” the sanctity of life. The distinguished clinical psychologist provided a list of ten practical suggestions on how to talk to children about an horrific event. They include: - “Get a clear picture of where that child is coming from; you cannot give the same answer to every child. You need some sense of who they are, where they come from. Then you can gauge that child’s level of understanding, what they can accept.” - “Listen carefully to their thoughts, keep quiet, listen to each other.” - “Adjust your response to the child’s needs — if the child is younger or older or precocious.” He referred to the young girl who played dead and ran out of the school building telling people, “All my friends are dead” as an example of a precocious child. - “Assure your child that he or she is safe. How can you do that with the environment filled with possible murderers? A lie sometimes helps. “Judaism teaches an important message, that you don’t always have to tell the truth. You can tell them ‘You’re safe, it won’t happen again, we’ll keep you safe.’” Rabbi Weinreb referred to Janosz Korczak, the doctor who ran an orphanage in the Warsaw Ghetto for two hundred children and who preserved an environment in which the youngsters, all of whom died in Treblinka, could feel safe until they were taken away. When saying that the tragedy won’t happen again, Rabbi Weinreb declared, “The way to do that is not by arming other people. Gun control is an absolute necessity,” he said, dismissing the notion that “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” The rabbi called for “rational, sensible, thorough gun control,” which would lead to “creating an environment which is pure, creating a sense of mutual trust. Mutual trust in our lifetime has been eroded. We must create a new sense of trust.” He continued with his suggestions: - “Let children express their feelings.” - “It is important to begin healing, to go on with life – but not immediately.” Noting that we sit shiva for seven days, but that at the end of shiva, when the mourners “walk around the block or go to the park, they are returning to life.” - Finally, “If necessary, seek professional help in dealing with grief.” Music can play a part in healing, Rabbi Weinreb said, referring to the Jewish-born composer Gustav Mahler’s song cycle, Kindertotenlieder – songs on the death of children. “First there is silence, but at some point you return to the ability to compose songs,” Rabbi Weinreb said. He noted that Mahler’s five-song cycle was set to the poems of another individual who had lost his children; after Mahler lost his own four-year-old child several years later, he said that he could not have composed the songs. Turning to hope and renewal, Rabbi Weinreb declared, “Our mission as a Jewish people is to be a light to the nations.” He quoted Rav Kook who referred to “the mystical secret sanctity of life,” and who “advocated a life that was appreciated intrinsically for all it has to offer, and not because death is inevitable.” Rav Kook said, “Life is the essence of spirituality, life is the essence of God.” Again quoting Rabbi Kook, Rabbi Weinreb urged, “It is possible to prepare the world for a full understanding of what a meaningful life means – a life of joy, of compassion, of accomplishment. But an individual person cannot do this alone. The nation of Israel can do it.” Rabbi Weinreb called for fulfilling the Jewish mission of emphasizing life. “This is something we can do as a group, with Divine assistance, each of us in our own way to change the world. We can do it. We have to do it. We have to do it.” And there was silence, soon broken by applause. Photo Credit: Breitbart

Posted by Ann Rabinowitz One day in Ottawa, Canada, a former Polish schoolboy got it into his head to investigate what his origins were. In 2001, Cezary Fudali was given a closely guarded secret from one of his family members. It was the kind of secret that sticks in the back of your mind until you figure out a way to resolve it. He had been told in utmost secrecy by a relative of his family that his mother had been adopted. The relative felt it was time to tell Cezary, especially as he was leaving the country and they were old and did not expect to see him again. This was shocking news to Cezary and, all the more so, due to the circumstances of the adoption which occurred during World War II. Sometime in July, 1942, according to Cezary’s relative, his mother, who was a baby of about one month old, and her mother had been at the train station in Rozwadow. The town was located in southeastern Poland and originally the name meant “uncoupling”. It referred to the town’s position as a major rail junction point where the Polish and Russian railroads met. It was known to have a significant Jewish population as did several surrounding shtetls. On July 21, 1942, the final deportation of the Jewish population was made from the train station. The destination of the Jews was to Debica and then to further killing camps from there. It is a possibility that this was the exact day that Cezary’s grandmother and mother were at the train station. If it was that horrible day, then Cezary’s grandmother probably knew that this was her last chance to save her child before they were both taken away and killed. She looked around and saw a middle-aged couple standing on the railway platform nearby and went up to them. She asked if they had some change for milk for her baby who was crying from hunger. After they agreed, she asked them also if they were Polish. After they confirmed this, the grandmother must have sighed in relief as any Rozwadower Jew could not have helped her in her quest to save the baby as they would have been in the process of being deported too and deprived of food and shelter. The husband went off to get the milk and Cezary’s grandmother asked the wife if they would adopt her child as it was impossible for her to keep her. After an initial hesitation, the couple, who had no children of their own, agreed to the adoption. When quizzed by the couple, the mother refused to tell them anything about herself or the baby in order to preserve the security of the child. Allegedly, she told the couple that it was better for them and the baby that way. The couple then took the baby back to their farm in a small village called Koziarnia which was nearby to Rudnik nad Sanem, about 20 miles east of Rozwadow, where they raised her as their own. They named the baby Bronislawa (Isa) Schiffer and never told the child that she had been adopted. They further distanced themselves from the scene of the adoption as they moved away from the village right after World War II was over. What happened to the child’s biological mother was never known either, but she probably met her end in one of the German concentration camps shortly after her departure from the train station. Given this history, and the timing of it, Cezary felt that his mother might indeed be Jewish and a hidden child as well. He read all he could as he wanted to know more about his mother and her situation. This brought him to DNA testing and all that it might do to help identify family connections. And so, in 2003, he intrepidly made contact with FamilyTreeDNA. His inquiry focused on whether he could test for the identity of his mother’s father to determine if he were Jewish. Little did he realize that it was his mother’s maternal ancestry that would enable him to be considered halachically Jewish and establish his identity. The inquiry was an unusual one which grabbed the attention of Bennett Greenspan, the President of FamilyTreeDNA. After discussing the matter with Cezary, he advised him to take the initial mtDNA test (HVR1) which would provide a close first glance at his maternal ancestry. The results proved that he matched with Ashkenazi Jews. When additional people were tested for the HVR1 and were added to the database, a few non-Jews appeared as matches to Cezary. Later, he did the mtDNAPlus test (HVR2) and the response was again Jews with some non-Jews of English/Irish origins. As the tests got more complex, he came closer to knowing his true maternal origins. He was still keen on knowing, for sure, what his maternal origins were and he took a final test which was available. This last test was an mtDNA Full Mitrochondrial Sequence test. At that level, he found that he only matched with and clustered with Jews. In particular, he had an identical match with Gerson Kaplan, whose family was originally from Slovakia, now part of Czechoslovakia, which was an area some miles south of Rozwadow, Poland. Due the fact that Cezary did not know where his grandmother and mother were actually from and their real names, it made it impossible to be certain how Gerson was related to him and how closely. This might remain a mystery until future explorations into DNA technology would bring about more precise answers. The major thing which Cezary learned was that he was definitely Jewish by his maternal ancestry – the DNA could not lie. This was a real accomplishment for the son of a hidden child, albeit a bittersweet one. He realized as well that things he had heard about hidden children were true, that they “stuck out like a sore thumb”. This too he had heard about his own mother from her relative and now he knew why. As the mtDNA database grows and others hear his story, Cezary hopes to find more identical matches and perhaps some elusive someone who might know of his family. Someone who might even know who his grandfather might have been and certainly someone who might recognize his mother’s photo and see a resemblance with their family. This article is part of a special monthly series on DNA success stories. These stories offer family researchers encouragement and greater understanding of DNA testing, which has become a popular part of the genealogical research world since its inception. If you have had success with DNA testing, we would love to publish your story. Please email us by clicking here. To view past DNA Success Stories, please click here.

23 November 2016 It just goes to show that the US electoral system can put a monkey in the White House!! 11 October 2016 Putin is the new Hitler. Short of war, and that’s what the Russians are counting on, we and all civilised nations must completely isolate the Russians diplomatically, economically and socially. No World Cup, no inclusion of their teams in any sports events, no invitation to any international event anywhere in the world. Withdrawn ambassadors. Throw out Russian ambassadors from ALL civilised nations. Indict Putin and Assad for war crimes and try them in absentia. Issue a world arrest warrant for their arrest. They can never leave their countries without facing justice. 12 June 2016 Having watched a number of outside broadcasts of people being questioned on their preference on membership of the European Union, it would seem that leaving the EU is the panacea of all ills! Everything from the future economy of this country to the state of the roads, quality of the fish and chips from the local "Chippie," the price of take away food and the weather. I sometimes question the intelligence of my fellow citizens. Can people really be that thick? It would seem so! Let me make a prediction. I predict that if the people of Britain vote to come out of the EU, these same people, within two years, will be throwing their toys out the pram because all these problems have not been miraculously solved!! There is an elephant in the room. If there is a vote to come out, I further predict that the SNP will have a second vote to leave the United Kingdom and this time it will pass. I will, of course, say, "I told you so." A vote out of the EU is also the road to the end of the UK. 4 June 2016 I have never been an overwhelming friend of the European Union. It has very many faults that need to be changed. Nevertheless, I favour the United Kingdom remaining in the EU on economic grounds. I remember President Clinton's maxim "It's the Economy Stupid." Those against membership have lost the economic argument so they have fallen back on the let’s all hate Johnnie foreigner. The British are better than that. We have heard from the Bank of England, IMF, OECD, seven previous heads of NATO, the USA, our Commonwealth colleagues, previous heads of MI5 and MI6, all of whom are against us coming out. What do we have on the other side – a Buffoon (Boris Johnson), a non-entity (Ian Duncan Smith) and a fool (Michael Gove). It’s a no brainer. REMAIN!! If the EU wanted Britain out of the community the bureaucrats in Brussels could not have done more than by dumping a £1.7 billion bill on us for the ineffectual, non-actions of France and other members. I have always been in favour of the EU as a trading organisation and this is what I originally voted for back in the 70’s. This is no longer the organisation we voted to join. Financially the Community has been a disaster. Not one single year’s accounts have been signed off. It is totally inefficient and questionably corrupt. I am rapidly coming round to the conclusion that it is time to leave. An exit would probably be beneficial to such countries as Greece, Italy and Spain. With their own currencies they can let them float and not be chained to the inflated German Euro. The massive problems of a couple of years ago have not been solved. The can has merely been kicked down the road – unfortunately the road is running out. It’s like the man who jumped off the Empire State Building. As he passed the 25th floor he was heard to say, “So far, so good!” The United States of Europe has not and will not work and was never the original intention of the founders of the Community. The Community has been a success in some areas but these could have been agreed within a trade organisation. It did not need this monster of a juggernaut. I have spent some time this last week taking in the various speeches in the Labour Party Conference. It is amazing how naive seemingly intelligent people can be. Promises from the Boy Miliband, Balls and Burnham with no indication on how these will be paid for seemed to be their discredited theme. We know that the economy and immigration, two of the main topics which interest the British people, were "forgotten" by the Boy in his keynote speech. Sadly, that is several hours of my life I will not get back. Should the British electorate be so deluded to votes for this rag-tag band of failed politicians, or for UKIP, which amounts to the same thing, God help us all!! With the Scottish referendum over and Scotland back in the fold of the United Kingdom, it is reasonable to thank those who worked hard to keep the nation together. The Boy Miliband did that yesterday at the Labour Party conference. He lauded the efforts of six Labour politicians including the Scottish Labour leader, Johann Lamont and, of course, Alistair Daring who headed up the Better Together campaign. There was, however, one glaring and significant omission – Gordon Brown!! God knows, anyone who has followed my rants in the past will know that Gordon Brown would not win my vote for Man of the Year, or any vote for that matter. Nevertheless the guy did make a dramatic and vote swinging intervention into the campaign in the last two weeks before the R day. He virtually took over the NO camp with good old passionate hustings speeches from the heart. He punched fists, shouted and even bellowed his message. This all appears to have escaped the attention of the Boy Miliband. When this matter was raised a Scottish Labour source said any omission was likely to have been accidental – Yes, course it was!!!! Perhaps that says more about Miliband than old, grizzled Gordon. I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that the price for keeping Scotland in the Union is too high. Let them have their independence, then they will only have them self to blame when it all goes pear shaped! Salmond will, of course, blame everyone else. Not being allowed to keep the pound; not being allowed to join the EU; not being able to borrow the money to finance all their promises. Salmond is a political thug whose tactics are intimidation, lies and threats. The Scots are welcome to this nationalistic, bigoted, egotistical cretin together with his female poodle. Scotland could be a foreign country in two weeks time. The first thing England will have to do is erect a new Hadrian's wall. The border with Scotland will constitute a major weak point in keeping illegal immigrants out of the UK. Scotland will not be a member of the EU and so any citizen of Scotland will need a visa to enter England. Every road crossing the border will have to be blocked or controlled. The independence nutters will be building a whole economy on a depreciating asset - North Sea oil and gas. They will be condemning future Scottish generations to poverty and a Balkan type state. Every large company will move out of Scotland, naval shipbuilding will move to Portsmouth or Barrow in Furness as will the nuclear submarine base. In a few years the only exports Scotland will have will be whiskey, a falling amount of oil and gas, Tourist, grouse and haggis. One big advantage in Scottish independence is that the rest of the UK will never have to suffer another Labour government as they supply over 40 Labour MPs to Westminster. Why am I warning against it? With this last thought, I wish I had a vote to support it!!!! At least we will get rid of all these winging nationalist. Alex Salmond sees himself as a latter day William Wallace and we all know what happened to him - hanged, drawn and quartered. It was one of the few thing Mel Gibson got right in Braveheart. Where's Edward I when we need him?? Never trust a Russian political! Russia has only experienced a very brief period of democracy immediately after the collapse of Communism. The rest of its history has been under a totalitarian regime of one sort or another. We should ban all traffic from Russia both in the form of people and trade; freeze all Russian assets in the West; dismiss them from the Security Council of the United Nations. Putin is nothing more than a secret service thug. I find it amazing that, one assumes, sensible people can vote to join a dictatorship and throw away their freedom! The Russian government is run by the old KGB and the economy is permeated by the Russian Mafia. The country is politically, socially and financially riddled with corruption. If anyone thought the “Cold War” was over – think again!! It is so sad to hear of the death of Phil Everly. Part of my youth has gone. With his brother he was arguably, viewed for the long term, more influential than Elvis. I still listen to their music and have a CD on my iplayer. Few of my generation can help joining in when they hear that beautiful harmony. His passing will be sadly seen as the end of that great transition that heralded the Beatles, Gee Gees and so on. Rest in Peace. The US seems to be intent on diplomacy with a sledge hammer. Logic and common sense suggests that the only way to peace in Pakistan is by negotiations with the Taliban. Military means will never defeat the Taliban. So what does the US do when peace talks are on the horizon? They kill the Taliban leader; an attack carried out on the land of another sovereign state. It’s as if the US wants to keep the region in chaos. You may not like the people you are dealing with. Let’s face it, Putin isn’t a very nice person, but you still have to negotiate with him. So it is with the Taliban. The UK brought about peace in Northern Ireland by talking. Perhaps the US needs to stop being so arrogant in its foreign policy. Its control fixation needs to end. There are other interests in the world other than that of the US. It is acts like this that make the US so unpopular in certain parts of the world. America is seen as domineering, interfering and arrogant. It may not be intended; it may not even be perceived at home, but that is how it is perceived abroad. There is a saying in the rest of the world, "For the American, if it doesn't happen in the US, it doesn't happen!" The ordinary American needs to realise there is a whole world out there and there are other ways of doing things other than the American way. If power is to be successful it has to be exercised with restraint and sensitivity, not as a blunt force tumour! I am a friend of the US; there are many wonderful elements to the country but it must listen more and act less. Ordinary Americans must look outward. Europeans are all part of a larger entity and have, over a thousand years of history, had to work with others to live. Alright, we haven't always got it right - in fact we have frequently got it wrong but we have managed to learn from our mistakes. The perception from the outside is that Americans regard themselves as isolated, independent, singular, even insulated. They are not. The Americans want to be liked and it comes as a shock when they realise that in many parts of the world, they are not. Think first, act with restraint and, above all, talk! I see that today the boy Milliband has purges the remaining Blairites from his shadow cabinet – just as he was instructed to do a couple of months ago by his boss, red Len McCluskey. It must be very satisfying for the unions to know they have the Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition on the end of a rope! This afternoon the Labour Party has moved from left of centre to just left. Ralph Milliband, that well known Marxist, must be so proud of his son, Comrade Ed!! “Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer, /We’ll keep the red flag flying here.” Get used to it because that’s what’s coming if Labour get back into power brothers and sister! Every US citizen should email, telephone or write to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Andrew Boehner, demanding a vote on the budget. He and, it would appear to an outsider like me, he alone is holding up the government of the most powerful country in world from functioning because of the mad, imbecilic Tea Party. These people are so right wing they are on the verge of neo-fascists. The Statue of Liberty says "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." How does that set with a country where your survival of cancer depends on the size of your wallet? Think about it!!! In the UK we have the National Health Service. It may have its faults but at least I know that if I should be unfortunate to suffer from that disease, my treatment would be as good as the CEO of the largest company or the richest lawyer in the country. Think of a small child from a poor home with leukaemia. The odds are that in the US he or she would die. In the UK he or she could become a captain of industry or Prime Minister. I am so glad I was born in the UK and not the USA. We may moan about many things but when it comes down to it, we are very lucky to be British!! Once again the Republican Party have proved they don’t have a brain cell between them. If the US voter has any sense they will vote these pea-brained, mentally challenged, cretinus, Neanderthal (sorry, that’s an insult to Neanderthals) morons out of office and replace them with grown-up adults! I have just listened to the boy Milliband's speech at the Labour Party Conference. I always thought that the leaders of major political parties had to be reasonably intelligent. Alright, Gordon Browne could be considered an exception, but he has now been joined the Little Ed and his pet dog, bulls eye Balls. Their plans for the future of this country seems to have been cobbled together by a couple of presenters from CBeebies. They seem to be living in fairyland. That has always been the trouble with Labour - they have no grasp on reality (or arithmetic!) and that fundamental fault always ends in disaster and the Conservatives are left to pick up the pieces. Again!! If you are a voter, remember this simple fact as you cast your vote in 2015. Further to my note below: Yesterday the majority of the House of Commons voted in favour of the Assad regime in Syria. There is no other way of viewing such a shameful exhibition of weak, cowardly action. I am ashamed of the Parliament that runs my country. These fat, well feed representative of democracy are no doubt happy to see children burned to death as they were last night. Perhaps we should strike the "Great" from Great Britain and substitute "Servile." Assad must be laughing his socks off, This was badly done and a shameful day in this country's history. 29 August 2013 Edmund Burke said, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." The last time the House of Commons voted for appeasement it cost 50 million lives and changed the face of the world for the worse. My fear is the weak and spineless ones will out vote those who hold for the right and that their weakness will bring about regret for all of us. 12 April 2013 Since the murders at Newtown, Connecticut, five months ago, over three thousand Americans have died as a result on gun crime. That is more than the number killed on 9/11. That is more than the number killed in Northern Ireland over 20 years of the Troubles and Presidents and Senators fell over themselves to help find a solution. Yet this terrible toll of death is regarded as accepted to preserve the right to carry a gun. Since when has the right to kill someone been a democratic right? It’s not rocket science – get rid of the guns! Just as slavery was the sleeping serpent under the table at the signing of the Constitution of the United States, so the gun law is the serpent under the table of the modern USA. 8 April 2013 Today Great Britain has lost a great Briton. Margaret Thatcher was, without doubt, the greatest peacetime Prime Minister of the twentieth century. I can still remember the massive relief in 1979 when she won the general election. Britain had been wallowing in the economic grip of the communist trade unions which had made us the “sick man of Europe.” This culminated in the “winter of discontent” in 1978 when the trade unions held the country to ransom. Margaret Thatcher ended all that. She saved this country. She also reflected the suspicion of most British people concerning the European Community. We saw it, and still do, as an economic grouping of friendly trading partners; not an overbearing, dictatorial, non-elected power intent on external control of a sovereign power. She refused to allow the creeping bureaucracy of Brussels to take over areas of government for which we had not voted. Margaret Thatcher played a vital part in winning the Cold War. It was her who invited Gorbachev to London and said, “I can do business with this man.” Her lead encouraged President Ragan to talk and negotiate with this new, emerging Russia and both Thatcher and Ragan oversaw the collapse of Communism. It is a pity that this new dawn ended with Putin. Finally, her finest hour. When the military dictators of Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, despite opposition from many of our allies, Margaret Thatcher led this country to yet another victory over fascism. There are people in this country who hate Margaret Thatcher. That is their privilege and their freedom to express that hatred would have been defended by her to her last breath. Sadly that last breath has come and the world is poorer for it. 2 March 2013 There is a new definition of the word “Cretin” in the US Dictionary. It is “One who is a Republican member of Congress!” 24 January 2013 The reaction of Germany and France to David Cameron’s speech brings home to all what a Franco-German club the European Union has become. The time has come for the lesser countries to stand up for themselves and back Great Britain. All the regulation impregnated institutions of the EU are all slanted in favour these two. Germany holds the purse strings of a budget that has not been signed off by independent auditors for more than ten years. What organisation, private or public, can get away with such a failure? It is an indication of widespread corruption and sloppy accounting. Brussels EU bureaucracy justify their existence by issuing masses of directives which merely stifle trade, shackle business and increase the need for monitoring – thus creating more Brussels bureaucrats! The EU is in desperate need of fundamental reform. The resent, AND CONTINUING, crisis over the Euro has not been solved, merely kicked down the road. The fact that matters concerning the Euro have gone quiet for the moment does not made the problem go away. The Euro is the elephant in the room and will return in a more extreme form in the future if it is not solved NOW. The creation of the Euro was political decision when it should have been made on economic grounds. You can not have a single currency without a single economy. From the mid 1990s to the mid-2000s a period of prosperity would have been an ideal time to harmonise the various members’ economies. Nothing was done! Germany has profited by the increased internal trade but is unwilling to pay the price of the single currency, while the countries in receipt of that trade find themselves up to their neck in debt attempting to pay for these goods. The EU is a mess and any continental politician who thinks otherwise is not only sticking their heads in the sand but are criminally incompetent. 22 December 2012 The N.R.A.’s response to the terrible, tragic shooting at Newton is to put armed police into every school in the United States. In other words their answer is to introduce even more guns! Either the N.R.A. has completely lost the plot or they are a sad, sick collection of very dangerous cretins. Again, as a mere one of a large majority of outsiders, the US appears to have something sick at the root of their society. The time of Dodge City, Tombstone and the Gunfight at the OK Coral should be long gone. If a society needs to carry guns to protect it from fellow citizens, then some fundamental thought is required. People power needs to make itself heard. Every sensible, right-minded citizen should be hammering on the door of their political representatives, and keep hammering, until the gun is banned. New York has more gun crime in a week than the whole of the UK in a year. We are not perfect by any means but I’m sure every US man, woman and child would prefer to live in that kind of safer society. 15 December 2012 I am 64 year of age and have never held a gun, let alone fired one. None of my relations, with the exception of my late father who was in the Royal Navy, have handled or fired a gun. As a British citizen I find it impossible to understand the US fixation with firearms. In one of the news reports from the States it was suggested that guns should be issued to teachers for the protection of themselves and their children. Can you honestly countenance a teacher, standing at the front of a class of five year olds, packing a gun? If you can then the world has gone mad. The argument put forward by the anti-gun control is that it is the people, not the guns that kill people. Surely if the guns weren’t available, the chances of killing someone would be massively reduced. Charlton Heston once said that they would take his gun from his cold, dead hand! They are now taking them from the cold, dead hands of children. The United States is the leader of the free world but just as slavery was the sleeping serpent present at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, so guns are at the essence of a deep sickness in that society. I am an outsider, living in England, and come from a different society from the United States, but the general opinion of those looking in is that there is a sickness within that society that will not be solved until some brave person grasps the nettle to smash this ridicules right to bare arms. Mark Twain once said that the right to free speech did not extend to the right to cry “Fire” in a crowded theatre. This tragedy must be the catalyst that starts the demise of the stupid, archaic and infinitely dangerous gun laws. How many more innocent children must die before the dinosaurs are defied and the gun is outlawed? 10 December 2012 Yesterday was a sad day. Sir Patrick Moore, the astronomer and broadcaster died aged 89. Like so many of my generation, I would beg my parents to allow me to stay up late to watch “The Sky at Night” on BBC television. Indeed, it was often the only sanction that would ensure good behaviour! Sir Patrick has been the face of astronomy for well over half a century, always looking for something new, always talking with that unique clarity of explanation. He was the last of the old-style English eccentrics with his monocle and tarsal hair. I went outside this morning at 6:30. The sky was beautifully clear and full of stars. There was a perfect new moon illuminating the early morning, just before dawn. I thought, “How appropriate!” Rest in peace Patrick and may you ever be among the stars. 23 October 2012 The death has been announced of the Last of the Few. William Walker, one of the very last of the last surviving Battle of Britain pilot, died on Sunday 21st., seventy-two years after he and his oh-so-few colleagues saved Great Britain and the rest of the civilized world from tyranny. When you look back on those times it puts the present-day problems into proportion. I hoped we and our children have their strength of character to stand up to wrong and the courage to fight for the right. 15 September 2012 The Closer rag in France and now the Irish version of the Daily Star have published the photos of Katherine, Duchess of Cambridge. I think it says far more about these cretinus publications than the duchess. I understand that the Italian magazine Chi is preparing to publish. I wonder how many of the editors and CEOs of these organisations would like to plaster their daughters and wives, topless all over their pointless and puerile comics. Why don't the UK Security forces do a similar exercise on them and then flood the internet with their images. If the law can not protect then, perhaps, there are other means of destroying these no-entities. Attacks on their websites etc. Just a thought for anyone who has the means and skill. Go to it!!! 13 August 2012 London 2012 - what a wonderful, wonderful party! Nailed to my seat for two whole weeks except when I went down to the bottom of my road to cheer the road cyclists on the first Saturday and Sunday. Fantastic!! Congratulations to everyone involved from Lord Coe to the litter picker-upers. It makes me proud to be British. 30 June 2012 Having worked in the banking industry for 33 years (1966-99), it greaves and angers me to see what was a pillar of the community reduced to a bunch of dishonest, greedy, self-seeking crooks. The vast majority of those working in the branches are just like you and me. They are pressurised by their bosses to sell, sell, sell no matter if the customer needs the product or not. We now have a case of global fraud in the fixing of the LIBOR rate. To most people LIBOR is a mystery but this rate determines the price of most things. It determines the cost of all lending rates which, in turn, substantially affects the cost of everything we buy and not just financial products. If the manufacturer or provider of a product or service borrows money to carry out its business, then LIBOR affects you and me. This must be regarded as a criminal offence and those responsible must go to jail. If it can be proved that the higher management had knowledge of the practice, they should also be criminally prosecuted. If they didn’t know, then they should be fired for their own ignorance. I have watched over the last ten/twelve years as the industry has been dragged down into the dirt by people who are not true bankers. The culture of service to the public and customers, selling the services the customer needs and a reputation for honesty has been destroyed by these crooks. Other members of my family are bankers all, sadly, retired. We need to return to the old culture when you asked a banker a question and received an honest answer, not a selling slanted reply. Come back Mr. Mainwaring, all is forgiven! 27 May 2012 If the Russians and Chinese continue to support the murderous Syrian regime then they too have the blood of the innocent on their hands. The Syrian government is run on Hitlerite principles and should be obliterated from the face of a civilised earth. 5 May 2012 I wonder if anyone can explain how an electorate can vote for a party (Labour) who brought this country to its knees against the party (Conservative) who is trying to solve the disaster that is the British economy. Labour seem to believe that a defeat in a General Election can some how obliterate a decade of blind mis-management. Labour have no policy other than opposing those of the coalition government. They present no alternative other than “we would go for growth.” The “How” never enters their rhetoric. Words are cheap – just like the boy Milliband! 5 April 2012 Sky News has admitted that they have hacked the emails of two individuals because they suspected they were involved in criminal activities. They have justified their actions as being "in the public interest." Since when has it been a television channel's prerogative in determining the public interest. The only people who should have the legal right to carry out such action are the national authorities and only then if they are back by a warrant from a judge. "In the public interest" can not and must not be the coverall for members of the media to justify breaking the law. 26 March 2012 Once again the well known communist, cretin Len McCluskey attempts to damage the economy of this country. It's about time this red traitor was place in the Tower and prosecuted for treason. 29 February 2012 That well known cretin and union leader, Len McCluskey, has called for a time of civil disobedience to disrupt this summer's Olympics. The man should be locked away as a lunatic for only a lunatic or a traitor would make such a suggestion. There could well be a case for locking him away for his own safety. I would chain him to a post outside the Olympic stadium and let the world's sports fans decide his fate! 25 February 2012 Once again the UK government has failed to defend a British citizen from the rapacious, frequently floored, US legal system. If we were to accuse a US citizen of a crime, would they willingly surrender that person to the UK government without any presentation of evidence? Of course not! So why should we? This treaty between the UK and the USA is fundamentally wrong. It violates a citizen’s human rights. Having said that, Mr Christopher Tappin is not an Islamic terrorist so he therefore has no human right! 10 February 2012 Argentina accuses Great Britain on colonialism. Have they not read the UN treaty? It states that people have the right to determine their own future and government. As the Falklanders wish to remain British then the only colonialists are the Argentineans. 7 February 2012 Russia and China have innocent Syrian blood on their hands. They are as guilty as that animal in Damascus. 13 December 2011 Britain is the second largest net contributor to the EU budget. Over £250 for every household in the UK goes to the money pit that is the EU. The greatest sink of the budget is the Common Agricultural Policy. Between them Germany and France get 36% of the CAP pot; Britain gets 9%. If Britain were to pull out of the EU there would be an enormous black hole in the budget. They need Britain in the EU as a primary financial contributor. Perhaps they should think twice before they throw their weight around. The situation regarding the Euro have not changes one jot since the beginning of last week. The summit that was billed to solve the Euro Crisis has done absolutely nothing. All you need to do is keep and eye on the markets. Sarkozy and Merkel have solved nothing except upset the British – never a wise thing to do!! 10 December 2011 Last night I had a dream. I dreamt that Frederick the Great of Prussia, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Adolf Hitler, King Louis XIV and The Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte were all standing around a table on which stood a pile of Euro bank notes. They all looked at each other and, in unison, said, “Why didn’t we think of that?” No doubt Mr Sarkozy will return to Paris, waving a piece of paper saying, “Economic peace in our time!” The tragedy is that this latest summit has solved nothing. The economic dos and don’ts are little different from the Maastricht treaty. And what happened then? The first nation to break the rules was Germany! From then on they weren’t worth the paper they were written on. This “new” treaty will not come into force for another ten years. It will take that long before the collective debt of the euro zone is under control. I just hope that the other countries in the euro zone will see the light before they are totally under the thumb of the German rotvila and its French poodle. Well done David Cameron! We have stood alone before and we can do it again. When we originally joined the European Economic Community back in the 70’s it was a free trade area, not a Germano Franco Empire. I give the Euro five years. In the course of the next two weeks the financial markets will twig this is mere window dressing and the euro bond market will come under heavy pressure again. Sarkozy and Merkel face elections in the next 12 months. Both the Germans and the French are proud peoples. The Germans will kick against paying for the foolishness of others and the French will buck against German domination. As the Chinese say, we live in interesting times! Provided Britain is true to itself, we will come through this with our independence, reputation and integrity in tact. 22 October 2011 The United Nations is calling for a detailed enquiry in to the death of Gaddafi. I don’t recall the UN falling over themselves demanding enquiries in to the deaths of the tens of thousands this unlamented mass murderer killed. Why go through the farce of a trial when a simple bullet will solve the problem. Let’s face it, there can hardly be any doubt as to his guilt. 25 September 2011 How come the boy Milliband has all these airy-fairy ideas all of a sudden when he and his little friends had none of these when they were in power. To cut university fees and finance it by taxes on companies means that all these graduates will have no jobs to go to. At the labour conference today the boy Miliband has urged the government to go for broke! I thought Gordon Brown did that!!! 23 September 2011 The Euro was never going to work. It is impossible to have one currency with many separate economies. At the moment the politicians in both Europe and the US are more concerned for their own parochial matters (imminent elections with regards to Germany and France, and the mad right in the US) than the welfare of the overall economy. They seem to be willing to sacrifice the common good in favour of their own selfish political ambitions. There is a danger that if action to solve the sovereign debt problem is not taken (and it’s not rocket science) we will find ourselves in a 1931 situation. The world will not forgive those politicians for fiddling while the global economy Rome burns. A best we all have a long, hard journey back to prosperity, probably beyond a five year period. At worst we face a global economic collapse with all the hardships and social unrest that suggests. The inaction of the 1930’s ended up with a world war. I will predict that the euro will not exist in five years time. 8 August 2011 The filth that are rioting and looting in parts for London need to be treated as attempting to over-throw the state. Troops should be deployed together with armed police to shoot a dozen or so caught looting. They are cowards and it would soon stop. Turn off the mobile phone network in the area and take down the local internet system so they can’t communicate. 6 August 2011 Once more the lemmings are running the economic show of the world. Somebody is making a hell of a lot of money from speculation on the currencies. The markets are based on fear. They are like children throwing a tantrum in a supermarket; they make a lot of noise, create a scene over very little. The markets react on mere rumours not on facts. The governments of the world need to get together and outlaw speculation and jail the perpetrators. The Euro zone needs to be scrapped. One currency covering umpteen economies was never going to work. As for the rating agencies, these are the people who triple A-ed the junk bonds that started all this off. They have no right, indeed, no credibility to make any judgement on the time of day, let alone a country's 29 July 2011 Once again the insidious disease that is Sky TV has claimed another victim. Once again the fan has been ignored in favour of Sky money. So far Sky has ruined football, cricket and now Formula 1. If I was a sponsor buying space on a car I would be furious as the number of people seeing my brand will be substantially reduced. Anyone working with a Murdoch organisation will be tainted with the same brush. Do they really want such a relationship? Do the teams want that? This is a serious mistake which the sport will regret. Bernie Ecclestone wants his cake and eat it. Greed is a short term solution. The sport will slowly decline over the next ten years. I have followed motor racing since the days of Moss and Hawthorne. I am very disappointed with F1 and feel betrayed by the greed. 15 July 2011 If you wheeled influence by fear then, when the tables are turned, you must expect the knives to plunge into the back! For decades Murdoch has jetted around the world like some head of state expecting senior politicians to kowtow to him. No more. This pirate should disappear from public life and, if wrong doing is found to have happened in the US, the man should go to jail. The man has yet to apologise! As the great Lord Denning said, "Be you ever so mighty, the law is above!" 18 June 2011 A union leader has said that the proposed strike by public service workers at the end of this month would be the largest strike since the General Strike of 1926. He is obviously not a student of history or he would know this the General Strike failed!! 31 May 2011 The decision by Germany to close all their nuclear power stations because of the tsunamis that hit the Japanese plants is like saying because the Titanic sank, no more ships should be built! I thought the Germans had more sense. What are they going to do – cover the land with damn great propellers or use their vast reserves of coal? FIFA – This gang of crooks should be thrown out and a new organisation built from scratch! 2 May 2011 At long last, after almost 10 years, justice has been done. 26 March 2001 The demonstration in London this weekend organised by the Unions is entitled a Campaign of the Alternative. Unfortunately these poor delusional, ignorant innocents do not have an “Alternative.” They seem to thing that if they stick their heads in the sand all will be well. They seem to be incapable in grasping the fact that this country is in one hell of a mess. We have had ten years of prosperity all bought on credit and supplied by the party that is cynically supporting this march. Ed Milliband seems to think that, somehow, his party has no responsibility of the mess; that defeat in the last election has in some way shriven Labour from all guilt. The burning fact remains that every Labour government since the War has always run out of money and it has fallen to the Conservatives to sort out the financial mess. If you wish to follow these deluded people, led by neo-communist leaders of the Unions, this country will end up like Iceland (that’s the country, not the shop!). If they think unemployment in high now, failure to implement the cuts would bring about a catastrophic economic collapse and unemployment would go through the roof. The Unions are in this for political advantage, not for the welfare of their members or the country. These small-minded little men are ruled by a narrow dogma fifty years out-of-date and of proven futility. 19 March 2011 Just put a half a dozen Crews missiles in to Gaddafi's compound and blow the madman to pieces! You shot mad dogs! 14 March 2011 When Gaddafi and his thugs massacre the rebels in Benghazi, the blood may be on the hands of Gaddafi but the shame will be on those of the West and the United Nations. 11 March 2011 The prevarication over Libya is on the verge of becoming ridicules. The United Nations is, as usual, proving to be a waste of space. The Security Council is a toothless old woman. It very nearly messed up on Kosovo, it messed up in Ruanda and it is now doing the same in Libya. It’s not surprising that Russia and China would not vote for action against a fellow dictatorship. It is time for NATO and the EU to act on their own. To hide behind the statement that there is a need for a UN resolution to make it legal is facile. It’s not a case of legality; it’s a case of RIGHT!! 23 January 2011 The trouble with banks these days is that they have become remote from the society in which they work. Most lending decisions are not made by the local manager but by a set of pre-determined criteria dictated by the centre (the computer says no!). When I was a manager I lent to the individual – that no longer happens. I gained my Associate of the Chartered Institute of Bankers exams which is the professional qualification. You could not become a manager without this qualification. Now it is rare to find a manager with this. There was a joke going around at the height of the Credit Crunch. Of the CEOs of RBS, Lloyds Bank and the FSA and Terry Wogan, which one is the odd one out? The answer was Terry Wogan who was the only one with a banking qualification!!!! The banks should be broken up. This would make them more answerable to the society they serve (emphasis on serve!), less arrogant and more knowledgeable of their customers. Get rid of all those so called highly skilled, talented people who very nearly brought down the world economy! Finally, remove Angela Knight from the British Bankers Association. She comes across as arrogant and does the banking industry no favours. I doubt she has her ACIB!!! 16 January 2011 We are now entering the season of banker and financial institution bonuses. Here is an interesting thought. We are told that the bonuses are necessary or the skill and talent will walk out the door. Compare the share price of the main banks between today and 10/12 years ago. You will find there is very little difference! So the question arises who gains by the employment of these highly skilled people? The answer is simple – they do! The bonuses come from the balance sheets of the individual banks which means that the money is taken from the shareholders. These investment bankers gamble with your and my money to make big profits (or losses) and then divide up the gain between themselves. Shareholders need to confront the bank boards to control bonuses. It’s no good expecting a government to dictate to the bankers – it is not their place. It is the place of the shareholders. As a shareholder in a bank and a retired banker who worked in the industry from 1966 to 2000, it pains me to see my industry sink from being a pillar of society to a load of charlatans. 25 December 2010 A Merry Christmas to you all. At this time of year the Christian world celebrates the birth of its founder, an obscure son of a carpenter who became a Jewish fundamentalist and whose followers formed a new religious sect within the Jewish world. All religion is the creation of man; a means of explaining what he does not understand and can not explain. Religion helps him place himself in the universe and provides the comfort and security of knowing there is a greater power overseeing his welfare and will eventually take care of him after the inevitable event of his death. I use the concept of “man” to include all of humanity. It is unlikely that the historical Jesus was born in Bethlehem. There is no evidence that the Roman Emperor Tiberius called for a census in Palestine or anywhere else at that time. The Nativity story was a product of one gospel writer’s imagination to fit in with the Old Testament prophecies. If it had not been for two men the small sect would have remained in the confines of Palestine. Saul of Tarsus, or Paul as he became known, virtually high jacked what was intended by its founder to be a reforming influence within Judaism and spread it across the Mediterranean world of the 1st century. He fell out with the family and friends of Jesus, the people with whom he lived, and moulded the anecdotes of Jesus’ life to his own purpose. The death of Jesus was a straightforward Roman execution of a political trouble maker. In the gospels, written by associates of Paul, there is no blame placed on Rome but on that of the Jewish establishment. Paul was, after all, a Roman citizen! The second man to grab the religion by the scruff of the neck is the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great. This very astute soldier and politician could see the inevitable decline of the Empire and needed a means of uniting it beyond the personal character of the emperor. The best way of doing that is the creation of, or the adoption of, an idea. To be successful the idea had to be under the control of the emperor and so the Council of Nicaea was call in 325. The presiding hand was not the Bishop of Rome or any other leader of the religion, but that of Constantine. It was he who “chaired” the council and nothing was established without his approval. It is interesting to note that Constantine did not convert to Christianity until 337 on his deathbed. It is questionable that this event was voluntary as he was unconscious for much of the time! It was Nicaea that establishes the principle dogma of the Church; the divinity of Christ, the Holy Trinity; the hierarchical structure of the Church. Jesus was not regarded as part of the god-head, and therefore, not divine until three hundred years after his death. This would fit in nicely with the customs of the Roman Empire where emperors regularly created themselves as living gods. Constantine’s idea of establishing a universal religion to help unify the empire in some ways succeeded and in some ways back fired. Within a hundred years the western empire collapsed in to chaos – but the Christian religion survived! This shows the strength of an idea over a political institution. The structure established at Nicaea proved enduring and provided the only means of holding civilisation, as it was at the time, in any semblance of order. It took a Frankish warlord in the form of Charlemagne the Great to repeat Constantine’s political genius and unite the political with the religious. And so it has continued over the centuries, politics and religion supporting each other to their mutual benefit. One question has repeatedly raised its ugly head in my mind at Christmas. As we see the pomp and ceremony of the Midnight Mass at St Peter’s in Rome, as we witness a similar event at Canterbury, with all the rich vestments and accoutrements, what would Jesus have thought? I hope you enjoy the company of your family and friends at this time and have a prosperous and safe New Year! 11 December 2010 I have just seen a cretin named Michael Chessum on television from the student campaign refusing to condemn, in deed candidly supporting the violence that took place on Thursday. In the newspaper today there are two very real images. One is of a sad and confused little girl, clutching her teddy bear, waving at her father's coffin as it returns from Afghanistan; he was 22 years of age. The other is a thug swinging off on the Union Flag on the Cenotaph. When later interviewed, this moron, who could hardly string two coherent words together, said that everyone just wanted to "trash" things. He is the adopted son of a well known pop star and attends a college at Cambridge University. Which of these two young men have added value to our nation? Which of these two young men deserve our support and admiration - the young man who has given his life for our safety or the moron who desecrates a national monument? Need I say more? 10 December 2010 To see the Cenotaph desecrated by these thugs should bring shame to every English citizen. The Cenotaph is the national memorial to all those that died fighting for freedom – freedom for these cretins to protest, not to riot! They should be identified and flogged all the way down the Mall. They want to use violence - let them experience some. The thugs should count themselves as lucky. If this had happened in Spain or France, there would have been deaths. 9 December 2010 I am discussed to see riots committed by what we are told are the cream of our younger generation – they are nothing more than FILTH! Every single one of them should be thrown out of university. They do not deserve the educational chance given to them. Apart from the unforgivable violence committed by these thuggish students, the saddest thing is that they are too thick to understand the details of the policy. A large proportion of these useless members of society will be better off under the new arrangements! Why should the woman on the Tescos checkout, the man who collects your rubbish each week, the bus driver, myself and my two sons pay these individuals to take Mickey Mouse degrees such as Social Sciences, Media Studies etc. Their actions are insurrection and should be stamped on with equal force. They should be contained and kept in the open all night, their details taken and removed from education. 2 December 2010 The 2018 World Cup Bid - we obviously didn't pay them enough!! The whole of FIFA needs to be investigated. Football, the beautiful game, has been hi-jacked by greed and corruption. It is no longer a sport, what with shadowy agents, obscene payments to players and bungs to the influential in the game, the true fans should desert the premier teams and give their loyalty to the humbler clubs. If crowds fall in the big clubs perhaps the Premiership and FIFA will get the message. We need to claim the game back from these corrupt, greedy fat cats and bring it back to where it belongs - the true fans. They have been exploited for far too long. 21 November 2010 Wednesday 24th November sees the anniversary of the publication of probably the most important book ever printed – The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. Yes, I can hear the screams of the creationists on both sides of the Atlantic, waving their bibles in the air and pronouncing my inevitable consignment to the everlasting fires of hell. Well tough!!! Evolution is not a theory, it is a fact and if a poor, deluded, group of people who are intellectually still steeped in the scientific conceptions of the 17th century wish to believe that the formulation of every atom in the universe was somehow “created” by an all powerful being, then they have my pity! No doubt they believe the earth is flat – it doesn’t change the fact that it is round. I have just watched a discussion of the BBC in which a creationist, in all seriousness, stated that the universe was a mere 10,000 year old. And I saw Elvis last week in my local Tescos supermarket!! This intellectual stand point brought about the burning of books and heretics. The great danger is that if these people gain positions of power and then start to dictate these crackpot pronouncements as fact, we might as well go back to eye of newt and toe of frog. I should perhaps state my own belief position – I am an evangelical atheist!! If you disagree, get your own website and have your say!!!! 1 November 2010 If you are American and feel offended by what follows then I apologise. This is, however, how many friends of America feel as they look at what is happening to our closest ally. If we can’t tell you, who can? I have been a political observer for almost fifty years. I have studied both the British and the American constitution and political system and have learned that anything can happen in politics. America is the richest country in the world but it believes that the healthcare, the very survival of a citizen depends on the size of the individual’s wallet. The Tea Party calls that Communism! The Tea Party blames the present economic situation on Obama. They, like the Labour Party in the UK, seem to forget that it was the Republicans, and the Labour Party, that brought about the disaster of 2008. It was the fact that Bush and his cronies got in to bed with the unacceptable face of capitalism and brought about the biggest crash since the 1930’s. The Tea Party state that they are living in a tyranny. If they want to see a tyranny just go to North Korea. They oppose gun control – the right, one must assume, to kill your neighbour! The Tea Party liken Obama to Hitler. If he was a Hitler they would all be in concentration camps! The real villain in the whole affair is Murdoch’s Fox News. He and it play on fears and prejudices and the main tools of this fraud is Glen Beck and Sarah Palin. Now, can American seriously imagine your country being run by Beck and Palin? The Bible belt of America is as fundamental as the extremes of Islam. America was founded on the principle of a separation of Church and State. Sorry, I’m almost drowning in the crocodile tears of Beck. For the Tea Party, if you don’t believe on every word of the Bible, you’re a Communist; if you don’t believe in creationism, you’re a Communist; if you believe that you care for the less fortunate, you’re a Communist. Very Christian! Where does the ideology come from? It comes from a man names Dick Armey and his “Freedom Works” in Washington. The big money financing the movement has its own agenda. The corporate donors have jumped on board for their own purposes. The Tea Party even claim Martin Luther King as a symbol!!! I have always regarded the USA as the land of the free; the stop gap of the free world. In times of economic trouble extremes come to the fore. Just look at Europe in the 1930’s. The Tea Party claim Abraham Lincoln as “one of them.” Old Abe is spinning in his grave. He fought a war against states rights and racism! Beck is a demagogue who has made millions from his TV programme. Think what John Adams would say; think what Thomas Jefferson would say. Beck and Palin and their small minded little friends are attempting to re-write history in their own image. I have just seen Beck infer Palin as the next George Washington. Now that is sick! You are free to disagree with the above just as I am free to say it. It's called freedom! All I ask is listen to your friends! 23 October 2010 Today we hear the usual babble from various union leaders twittering on about the cuts the government have had to make to reduce the present deficit in the country’s finances. It never ceases to amaze me how monumentally thick these people can be. They do not seem to understand that you can’t live on tick to the extent of 20% of your spending without the inevitable consequences. Are they incapable of simple arithmetic? Perhaps they need to take their shoes off to use their toes to make the calculations! It's strange that all the troubles in the country are the government's fault - unfortunately it was THEIR government whose fault it is!!!!! 18 October 2010 It is the first duty of any government to defend its citizens against external threat. Its second duty is to defend its citizens against an internal threat to the people’s freedom. There can be no compromise on this. All else is secondary. The government MUST remember this and failure to do so is a betrayal of the voters that put them into power. The defence cuts are a mistake that we may very well regret. I voted for this government – I hope I have no reason to repent such a decision. 3 September 2010 Regarding William Hague, one must assume that as members of the British Olympic team share rooms, they must be raving lesbians and homosexuals! I worked most of my working life for a commercial bank and went on residential courses where we shared rooms. Does that bring in to question my sexuality? On one course there were three of us so that would be classed as a homosexual fest! Comments by two of yesterday’s men, John Redwood and Lord Tebbit are out of order and unhelpful. Redwood is the man who, as Secretary of State for Wales, mimed his way through “Land of my fathers” because he didn’t know the words. As for Tebbit, his record shows he has as much connection with the British public as Marie Antoinette with that of France! Certain elements of the media and internet need to grow up. I find it ridiculous that a rumour can start without any proof and so quickly assume the status of fact. What’s more, a statement by Mr Hague is taken as providing credibility to the unfounded smear. If I suggested that a public figure had questionable sexual habits, I could be sued. The media seem to see themselves above the law. And anyway, if is true, what the hell is it the business of the media!!! 12 August 2010 Once again the idiots at Unite have decided to hold the British public to ransom. Once again these fools completely disregard the interests of the country and the welfare of the British people. The vote to bring part of the workforce of BAA out on strike is a travesty. Of the 6,000 balloted, 2,263 voted for a strike – ONLY HALF OF THOSE BALLOTED EVEN VOTED! David Cameron needs to pass a law that states that only when more that 50% of the workers involved vote for a motion can it become effective. Not a majority of a minority!!! This may be news to that bastion of neo-communism, the Unite Union, but it’s call democracy. Once again they are calling out people, putting their jobs at risk but at no risk to their own well paid, comfortable jobs. I have a two year pay freeze - something I accept is needed in the present state of affairs left by the thankfully late Gordon Brown. There should be a two year pay freeze for all from cleaners in hospitals to CEOs of banks - and of course, union officials!! 11 June 2010 Further to the note below, it is interesting to note that of the 15 directors of BP, five are American; of the 80,000 employees of the company, 23,000 are American; and 35% of BP is owned by American investors. No doubt it is the British bit that has messed up. 10 June 2010 The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is a tragedy but the pronouncements of the President of the United States, Mr Obama, are uncalled for. Even though the rig in question was operated by a US company, all the blame is being thrown at BP. This is in danger of becoming xenophobic and extending to damaging relations with Britain. There is a growing feeling in the UK that the President, probably for domestic reasons, is whipping up a campaign of “Kick Johnnie Foreigner!” He needs to be very careful. In many parts of the world Britain is the USA’s only friend – and you don’t kick your friends. Obama needs to remember Piper Alpha and Bhupal before he starts throwing his toys out Britain has been playing this game for a thousand years and we have long memories. The next time Obama wants support, we may have to give it closer consideration and I’m sure I speak for many British. 16 May 2010 As we come towards the end of the first week of coalition, it would appear that some of the old, tribal hands on both sides are becoming a little flaky. Charles Kennedy on the Lib Dems and some of the right wing Tories are murmuring over a few sacred cows being sacrificed. This is no time for tribal, parochial prejudices. This is a time for putting your country’s interest first and not some wishy-washy ideals that may be nice to have in an ideal world but have very little practical application. If these few muttering dinosaurs mess up, the country will not forgive! We are in the middle of a financial crisis unprecedented since the 1930’s and the sooner that people accept that there will be pain for everyone before we come out, the better we will be able to succeed. There is no easy solution. If you imagine earning a salary of, say £30,000 a year, and spending £35,000 a year for 10 years – that’s what Britain has been doing! 12 May 2010 And so, at long last, we have it – a Conservative government. True we have the Lib Dems along for the ride but, as long they honour the agreement, I have no problem with that. I came down stairs this morning and said to my wife, “Today is a good day!” It will be extremely hard. I don’t envy George Osborne the task ahead. Unless you have been directly affected or have an interest in financial affairs, the man or woman in the street has no idea of the mess we are in. It frightens me as an old, retired banker and I’ve seen more recessions than most! I have only one misgiving – now Gordon Brown has gone, I have no one to kick!! Good luck to Messrs Cameron, Clegg, Osborne, Hague, Fox, good old Ken Clarke, Gove and Cable, not forgetting Theresa May! All power to you. Here’s one vote that will back you all the way! 10 May 2010 This is party politics of the most sordid kind. Brown’s resignation is merely an attempt to cling on to power through the summer as the initial Prime Minister of a Labour – Lib Dem coalition. We will then get yet another un-elected Prime Minister in October. Meanwhile Clegg and the Lib Dems continue to prostitute themselves around Westminster like some desperate old whore with Alistair Campbell acting as pimp! David Cameron should set a deadline to Clegg – agree by 10pm tonight or the deal is off. I reiterate what I said below. Let Clegg go and slaughter both the Labour party and the Lib Dems later in the year. This is the deadnail for P.R. thank goodness! The British public can see what P.R. would mean. David Cameron, rise above this, take the high moral ground and let these disgraceful party hacks cobble their government of yesterday’s men – and finish them when they fall. The British public are not fools. They will see this immoral, bankrupt administration for what it is and throw them out for a generation. 9 May 2010 I am beginning to come round to the opinion that David Cameron should not compromise with the Lib Dems. The Conservatives have six times the number of seats. If there is no agreement, let Nick Clegg go into the arms of Labour. They will have to make the spending cuts and tax rises. If they do, they will take the blast of unpopularity; if they don’t, the markets will crucify them. The Conservatives can end the cobbled government any time they like. Within a year they will have to return to the country and David Cameron will end up Prime Minister with a good majority. Remember Sir Robert Peel. 8 May 2010 There seems to be a large number of people, who voted Lib Dem, throwing their toys out the pram because the Lib Dems and the Conservatives are taking to each other. To use a fashionable phrase, “Get Real!” If the Lib Dems want Proportional Representation, that’s what will happen after EVERY general election. Be careful what you wish for!! You can’t have it both ways. For those who are complaining, “I voted Lib Dem to keep the Tories out, not to go in with them!” More fool you. Vote to elect a government, not to keep one out of office. For all those Labour voters who insist that Gordon Brown has not lost the election, what part of the loss of almost 100 seats and a 2,000,000 fewer votes than the Conservatives don’t they understand. Get it clear in your little brains:- LABOUR LOST THE ELECTION! 7 May 2010 Well, there you have it! The idiot Brown returns to Labour HQ treating an unmitigated defeat as some sort of Roman triumph; pretty-boy Clegg’s bubble has been burst; and Toxic Balls peddles his usual vitriolic rubbish. There are times in life when the best thing to do is nothing. That’s what David Cameron needs to do. Let Brown scurry about, attempting to cling on to power with overtures to the Lib Dems. Even if successful it looks like both parties will not have an overall majority. A great Victorian Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, and father of the Conservative Party, was in this position in May 1841. He refused to form a government. In the July, after another election, he took office in a time of recession and budget deficit, and proved to be one of the most reforming and successful ministries of the 19th century. All David Cameron need do is wait!! 6 May 2010 This is a day of destiny, probably the most momentous general election in a generation. The choice is clear. Do you want five more years of the incompetent idiot, Gordon Brown; do you want to place the fate of this great country in the hands of a party led by a pretty boy who is rapidly taking on the mantel of Tony Blair (a sort of Blair II); or do you vote for a party that has hauled this country out of Labour’s mess four time since the Second World War! Yes, that’s right – it’s a no-brainer! So, get out there and vote Conservative. Don’t put me in the position of saying, “I told you so!,” in a year’s time. Mainly because you know I will! It’s your country. Don’t mess it up!!! Question:- Can you name five Lib.Dem M.P.s? Just a thought!! 29 April 2010 Yesterday, Mrs. Gillian Duffy, a 65 year-old widow and grandmother, left her home in Rochdale to purchase a loaf of bread. A couple of hours later she returned, having, in all innocence, destroyed the political career of Gordon Brown. If Brown can insult one of his own, life long supporters, how much contempt has he for the rest of us? There is a large question mark over this man’s sense of judgement. The interview had gone relatively well but he saw it as a “disaster.” “That woman” had every right to express her opinion. After all, Gordon Brown wanted to meet the ordinary voter. He has shown a side of his floored character that must preclude his from continuing as Prime Minister of this country. Inevitably it was someone else's fault - the poor, Sue!! The definition of the word “Bigot” is:- “a person who has strong, unreasonable beliefs and who thinks that anyone who does not have the same beliefs is wrong” There was only one bigot involved in that conversation in Rochdale – Gordon Brown!! 1 April 2010 The Conservatives have pledged to reduce the proposed increase in the National Insurance by the Labour party. Brown and Mandelson regard this as some sort of sin. They need a simple lesson in economics, simple enough to match their simple brains. If you have a tax on the employment of people and you increase that tax, then the employers will employ fewer people. That means more people out of work, less income tax being paid, less being spent in the shops so less VAT income, and a lot more social benefits being paid out by the government. It’s a bit like taking £5 billion a year out of people’s pensions and wondering why there are vast holes in pension funds; it’s a bit like selling the country’s gold reserves for $250 an oz. and then seeing the price of gold rise to $1250 an oz. So what happens? Twenty-three of Britain’s major companies come out and say that this is a tax on jobs and will damage any recovery from our present economic plight. They include M&S, Sainsbury’s, GlaxoSmithKline, Next, Matalan, Virgin Group, Kingfisher, Harvey Nichols, Mothercare, Bestway and so on. And what is the response of that genius of economic and political thought, Lord “I think I’m Wonderful” Mandelson? He says that all these highly experienced, successful captains of industry have been “deceived” by David Cameron!!! Apart from it being a total insult, this is the man who has had to resign, not once but twice, from government for shady practices. If the British people vote this load of crooks, charlatans and egotistical cretins back in to power, then they deserve all they get. Just don’t blame me!!! 12 March 2010 Further to our dearly beloved Prime Minister's pack of lies before the Chilcot Inquiry, both General Lord Guthrie and Admiral Lord Boyce used the word disingenuous when describing Brown's testimony. Here is a letter sent to the Daily Telegraph:- "Sir - I was a little unsure of the precise meaning of disingenuous , but my thesaurus helped me out. Choose from the following: 'crafty, deceitful, designing, dishonest, double-dealing, duplicitous, fallacious, false, fraudulent, hypocritical, insincere, treacherous, tricky, two-faced, underhand, untrustworthy.'" Gordon Brown to the very last letter!!!!!! Well done your lordships! I am off to Venice for a week but will be returning the day before the British Airways cabin crew go on strike!! This is a strike along the lines of turkeys voting for Christmas. BA is a pension deficit that happens to own an airline; it has made massive losses for several years and these poor, deluded people want to go on strike. BA will be damaged, the cabin crew will forfeit seven day's pay and the customers will be very inconvenienced. When the cabin crew start to loose their jobs who will throw their hands up in surprise? Why, Len McCluskey and his neo-communist team at the Unite Union. Will brother Len be kicked out of his job? No! Will his little friends take a pay cut? No! Another question - who is one of the largest donors to the Labour Party? Surprise, surprise!! The Unite Union - to the tune of £11m. And the next quiz question? Who is Unite's Political Director? Answer - Charlie Whelan, Gordon Brown's ex-Chief of Staff!!! Oh and in addition, the Labour Government run a scheme to improve union efficiency so how much did Unite receive in taxpayers' money under the scheme? Answer - £400,000!! So, in short, the organisation that is attempting to bring down an icon of British business is also bankrolling the Labour Government!!!! What was that word again? DISINGENUOUS!!! 7 March 2010 Wasn't it nice to see Gordon Brown in his photo-call trip to Afghanistan in his attempt to take away the focus on his lies to the Chilcot Inquiry? And he produces £100m, like a rabbit out of a hat, to pay for armoured vehicles - vehicles that should have been on call years ago and will, incidentally, take many months to be operational! He went, he says, to thank our service men and women for their dedication and bravery. Sadly, that thanks does not extend to providing decent kit!! It is yet another case of using our troops for political reasons. This is the man who went on national TV and wept in a cynical attempt to show the voters his "human" side. Interesting timing!!! Can you vote for this Charlatan? 5 March 2010 Gordon Brown has just completed his appearance before the Chilcot Inquiry. P.S. Today (06/03/2010) two former Chiefs of the Defence Staff, General Lord Guthrie and Admiral Lord Boyce, say that Gordon Brown has misled the Inquiry. In other words, he lied!! 20 February 2010 Gordon Brown is unveiling the Labour Party's slogan for the coming election - " A fair future for all!" In 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and, the latest, 2010 figures have shown that each year has seen a RECORD gap between rich and poor. The report issue by a government appointed commission states that the gap is at its widest in the 40 years since records began. Remembering that dear Gordon, that advocate of the working man, the Prime Minister who can cry on TV, the man who say he feels our pain and understands the plight of the poor, has presided over the last 13 years of this wonderful record of achievement. It is such a relief to hear that Gordon's maxim of " fair future for all" will see us through the next couple of years of crisis. Unfortunately Brown's intention is to close the gap by making every one poor!!!! The man is a total cretin! 16 January 2010 Gordon Brown stated today that the Conservatives would tax the "Middle Classes" if they got in to power. So what has changed? He has been doing just that for the last 12 years. By definition, if dear Gordon is not going to tax the Middle Classes, can we assume that he would tax the Working Classes instead? He can't tax the rich - there've all left the country!!! 10 January 2010 There is a wide strip of yellow stretching across the government benches in the House of Commons. Once again the cabinet ministers have failed to rid this country of that waste of space, Gordon Brown. Their cowardice means that Britain must endure the continuing ineffectiveness of a dead administration. The recent "plot" put forward the idea of a secret ballot. There should be a secret ballot - it's called a GENERAL ELECTION!! The fact that Gordon Brown is still in office when the whole country, with the possible exception of his wife, would like to see him dispatched to the cesspool of politics, is a tragedy for the country. The man is a useless, incompetent, stupid, nonentity whose single ambition is to cling on to office. It is amazing that a human being can continue then he is so universally loathed. 29 December 2009 So Britain will “get a slap in the mouth,” according to the Iranian Foreign Minister, Manouchehr Mottaki. This goes to show the mentality of the thugs in charge, however shakily, of Iran. Have you noticed that when a rubbish regime has trouble with the support of its own people, they frantically search for an external “enemy” to blame. It’s an old trick that everyone recognizes and it no longer works. The whole world is behind the protesters, not just Britain. 28 December 2009 With the dawning of 2010, we live in exciting times. The certainty of a General Election by the beginning of June will hopefully see the back of the present disastrous Brown government and the consigning of Gordon Brown to the dustbin of political history. Should the British people have a bout of collective insanity and return the incompetence idiot to power, then God help us all!! Iran continues on the gradual road to chaos with nine killed in the last 24 hours in anti-government demonstrations. The consolation is that Ahmadinejad and his religious backers in the form of the ultra fundamentalist, Ali Khamenei, are fighting a battle they cannot win. The people will have their way and this gang of religious thugs will be thrown out and brought to book. They have a tiger by the tail and it is the fear of letting go that will drag them ever closer to destruction. The rigging of elections is always the first sign of this fear. No dictator lasts forever – they all eventually fall and their departure is usually violent and bloody. When will they learn? Iran has the Supreme Leader, the President and the Council of Guardians (most of which is appointed by the Supreme Leader). These are all above the Parliament which is “elected” by the people. These power-hungry clerics will learn that there is only one supreme leader in any country and that is the will of the population – not some old, bearded, religious fanatic who thinks he has a monopoly on right and by right. There are two further specters at the feast of 2010. Russia, with Tsar Putin in charge, has a pragmatic policy towards the rest of the world. The West needs to realise that anything done by the present regime must be viewed with suspicion and an agenda is usually tucked away in the shadows. The Russian government is not stupid, just devoured of any moral principles! As for China, this is a strange phenomenon. We have a communist regime with a capitalist economy. Without a communist economy, the government looses its reason for existence and becomes just another dictatorship back up by military might, similar to any South American banana republic. With economic freedom comes the call for political freedom. It will take a while. Capitalism inevitably brings about a division of wealth – some gain, more do not. The country is ruled by a small group of old men whose mindset it still on the Great March with Mao. The great thing about reform is that you can’t say, “I want to stop now!” Once started, reform has a mind of its own. Over the next few years the Chinese oligarchy will learn that lesson to their cost. That’s enough for the moment from the thoughts of Chairman Alan!! The great thing about politics is that everyone’s an expert! I wish you all a happy and prosperous New Year. 13 December 2009 This last week has seen the Pre-budget Statement from the Government. Much has been made of the "tax on Bankers," which is easily avoidable, ineffectual and a mere drop in the ocean. The fanfare is purely a means of covering up the increase in the rate of National Insurance which is, effectively, a tax on jobs. Once again the Government has ignored the need to reduce the monumental deficit. Indeed, they have increased it by further cosmetic giveaways. It has since transpired that the Treasury wanted to reduce spending but this was overruled directly by Gordon Brown. Why? To protect his job. People are being thrown out of work all over the country but that's fine as long as Gordon can rig the figures to ensure his own future. His greatest fear is that the British people will learn the truth and see through the lies this peddler of deceit has been telling us. If it wasn't so tragic it would be amusing to see the self-satisfied grins on the faces of Brown and Harriet Harman as the flanked Darling while he delivered the drivel. What have they got to grin about? The country's going to hell in a bucket and they find it amusing? I pray that the citizens of this country have the good sense to throw Brown and his crew in to oblivion for ever. Brown should never be allowed to run a thrift club, let alone a country. 18 November 2009 Well, it’s official – this lame-duck government is now a dead duck. How dare Brown drag Her Maj out in the cold for such a pointless exercise. In 1997 Blair said that he thought it was disgusting that pensioners should have to sell their homes to pay for their care. In 2009 Gordon Brown said that he thought it was disgusting that pensioners should have to sell their homes to pay for their care. So, call me stupid, but has anything changed in twelve years? In 1997 Blair said “Education, Education, Education.” In 2009 Brown is saying that schools should be more responsive to parents. Is there an echo in here??!! Brown seems to think that by passing a bill, it provides a “firm and binding statuary basis” for the government’s promise to halve its budget deficit within four years. A piece of paper passing through parliament does not make things happen. Lower spending and higher taxes are the only ways to halve the deficit. And this is only to reduce the deficit, not repay it. That according to the government is going to take until 2032!! I am 61 now so that makes me 84 by the time this country has finished paying for this disaster of a government. My two sons will be approach retirement age. We should have a national holiday, it doesn’t matter when, so that we can build bonfires and burn effigies of Gordon Brown. After all, he’s done far more damage to this country than ever Guy Fawkes could have achieved. I have a suggestion for the next Stephen King horror novel – it can be called “Five more years of Gordon Brown.” 1 November 2009 Well, there goes the final illusion. I had though that Alan Johnson might, just might, be the only member of the government that perhaps had two brain cells to rub together. Sadly not!! He is convinced that he knows more about the classification of drugs than the 24 top national experts in the subject. It must be very comforting to be so assured in one’s own ignorance. There is only one word for our esteemed Home Secretary – PRAT!!! Gordon Brown stated at the Labour party Conference that if you are looking for a party that represents of true face of modern Britain today then vote for Labour! Presumably he is referring to the fact that the country is screwed up and broke! He also said that he could not stand by as people are losing their jobs. I agree. I think he should show empathy with these unfortunate citizens and join them. The sooner the better. Now we know how much the 270 Lockerbie lives are worth – about £15 billion! It now appears that the return of the Libyan terrorist, or the mechanism for his return, was a direct consequence of British interests; in other words an oil deal between Libya and BP. I thought this government could not stoop lower than it already had, but no. Now we see why Brown was so silent over the affair; now we can fathom the over energetic denials from the arch crook, Mandelson. Gordon Brown has brought untold shame to this country. I would back independence for Scotland just to get rid of this lying, hypocritical, incompetent disaster of a human being. You could teach a monkey to govern better than him! Words fail me to describe my contempt for this moron and his gang of dishonest, pathetic, cowardly fools. I say, cowardly, because no one in the Labour Party has the courage to throw the cur out of office. Brown has no moral viewpoint because he is divested of all morals! His only consideration is to cling on to office at any cost. I look forward to next year when I will take great delight in seeing this entity being dragged, screaming and kicking, out of 10, Downing Street. It cannot come too soon! From the number of emails I receive, I know this website has a considerable US patronage. Let me make it perfectly clear that the vast majority of the British people, including the Scots, feel that Megrahi should never have been released from prison. Most of us listened in disbelief to the statement by Macaskill. If it turns out that the Brown / Mandelson comedy act brought pressure on the Scottish government to release the terrorist, it merely confirms how urgent it is to remove this gaggle of incompetents (see below). Please don't judge the people of the UK by these cretins! Sir Bobby Robson (1933-2009) - A true gent and a legend. Once again Gordon Brown shows his complete inability to grasp even the basics of economic principle and control. For the last 12 years the FSA has supposedly monitored and regulated the banking system in the UK. This duty was taken away from the Bank of England when Brown became Chancellor. The tripartite system of the Treasury, FSA and Bank of England eventually fulfilled the expectations of most of those in the know last year when the FSA threw its hands in the air in complete surprise when the banking system crash in to a brick wall! Most of us realised that the FSA was not fulfilling the function of a regulatory body but was a glorified consumer protection organisation. The FSA knew nothing about banking, even less about economics and its upper levels was staffed by failed bankers or Brown cronies! A few days ago Darling came out with the grand plan to bring stability and regulation to the banks. What it amounted to was a few ineffectual changes to an already failed system. When Gordon Brown was challenged as to why he was not putting control of the banking system back under the Bank of England he brought out the old chestnut of BCCI. Granted, the Bank of England should have acted quicker to spot the frauds going on inside BCCI. This is ONE partial error on behalf of the Bank of England in hundreds of years of successful vigilance. Brown’s hotchpotch presided over the near collapse and meltdown of the entire banking system! The man is clearly a fool! Further more, in an interview in today’s Daily Telegraph, Lord Malloch-Brown, a resigning Foreign Office minister, referring to Afghanistan, stated, “We definitely don’t have enough helicopters. When you have these modern insurgent strikes what you need, above all else, is mobility.” A half an hour before Gordon Brown was due to start his monthly press conference, Lord Malloch-Brown withdrew his statement!!! He was obviously “got at” by Brown’s thugs in the Whips Office. Brown must think that the British public came down with the last shower of rain! He doesn’t even have the intelligence to be dishonest with the voters! Brown is quite simply playing politics with the lives of our soldiers. To paraphrase Henry II in 1170, “Who will rid us of this pestilent government?” When revolutionary religion becomes mixed with politics you eventually get inefficient government, totalitarianism and, ultimately, counter-revolution. Politics is all about logic, common sense and practicality. Religion has none of these. Religion is based on the overwhelming certainty that the practitioner is right – no matter what! It does not entertain counter argument, it does not consider reason, it cannot conceive the possibility that it might be in error. Place that in a political context and you have complete disaster, both for the people and the country. Add to that an urge to spread the message and you have a global threat! This is what is happening in Iran. It would be like the Archbishop of Canterbury having veto and sanction over all legislation passing through parliament. People need reasons for their conditions. The fanatics do not have the intelligence to see that their subjection of the people merely builds a greater resentment and eventual hatred. Once this reaches a peak, events can move extremely quickly. Look at Romania in 1989. One minute Ceauşescu was waving to the crowd, the next he was up against a wall being shot! The West should sit back and wait! If you hold an election and you know it has been rigged, the Opposition knows it's rigged, the rest of the world knows it's rigged, then why bring thousands out on to the streets to celebrate a great victory? Who are you trying to kid - if not yourself? Just a thought!!!! Rants can be good as well as bad, so here is a GOOD rant!! I am a massive fan of Katherine Jenkins. I have all her CDs, DVDs, I’m a member of her online fan club and have even created my own Katherine Jenkins calendar for my study/computer room/spare bedroom!! Last night I went to “An Evening with Katherine Jenkins” at the RHS gardens at Wisley. It was the very first time I have seen her live, on stage. She was brilliant! I’m in my 60’s and I can’t think of a better example of amazing talent and extraordinary beauty being combined in the form of one individual. To cap it all Katherine is such a down-to-earth, lovely person. Katherine doesn’t disappoint, she excels!!! She was well supported by All Angels. It was a very special evening and one I will remember for many years to come.A ray of sunshine in a troubled world! Thank you Katherine Well, there we have it! The most unpopular individual in Great Britain continues to cling to power as a drowning man to a piece of driftwood. As for Miliband, Straw, Johnson etc., are they mice or man? Can they not see that they do no favours to the Labour Party and certainly not the country? The Labour Party without Gordon Brown will probably still be defeated in the next election but will remain a political force; the Labour Party with Gordon Brown will be slaughtered! The whole of the Parliamentary Labour Party will be able to travel to Parliament in one of London Transport’s bendy buses! What must the people of this country do to get rid of this Prime Minister? As Chancellor he sole £5billion a year from your pension funds, sold our gold reserves for peanuts, threw money at the NHS, education and welfare with little obvious improvement and removed the regulation of the banks from the Bank of England and placed it in the hands of the FSA, an organisation that knew little of banking and less of economics. He even went round a couple of years ago, ringing hands and kissing babies, when large parts of the midlands were flooded, while, as Chancellor, it was him who cut the funding for flood defences!! He is a coward, a bully and an incompetent. There is a school of thought that says that the best scenario for the Conservative Party would be for Gordon Brown to stay!! Purely from a party political point of view, this could be so, but for the good of the country? I don’t think so. Let’s see what the country thinks in the local and European elections. No doubt this idiot will ignore the will of the people and struggle on with his band of sycophantic cowards!!! Every constituency party should sit down with their sitting MP and examine all his or her expenses over the last four years. If, in the opinion of the local party, the MP has made unjustified claims then they should be de-selected. A new candidate would then be selected from LOCAL party members and not from some centrally determined list of approved people chosen by party central office. That way the successful candidate will truly represent the people who voted for them! All MPs must have a primary residence in the constituency and the state should purchase a number of blocks of flats within easy reach of Parliament, which would be adequately furnished, and allocated to each MP. No mortgage interest, no furniture purchases, no swimming pools, no moats, no hanging baskets, no plugs etc. As the cesspool of the House of Commons continues to bubble with corruption – where is Guy Fawkes when we need him!! Brown’s regime, I will not give it the credit of calling it a government, has hit rock bottom. Not only is it incompetent, it has now proved itself to be corrupt, dishonest and riven with the very worst of propaganda, filth and lies. Gordon Brown, of course, knows nothing. He sits assuming the attitude of the three wise monkeys. It would appear that this pathetic excuse for a Prime Minister has selective ignorance! He employs “Special Advisers,” paid for by the taxpayer, to subvert the democratic system of this country, while denying all knowledge. This smacks of the Nixon White House and we all know what happened there. The captain of a ship is responsible for the actions and conduct of his officers, whether he is on the bridge or asleep in his cabin. Denial of knowledge cannot be a denial of responsibility! And so to the Budget!! One would be forgiven for thinking, like Bobby Ewing in Dallas, you had banged your head and been unconscious for 40 odd years, waking up in the mid-1960’s. New Labour has cast off its modern clothing and become Old Labour again, retrieving the cloth cap from behind the door – let’s tax the rich they all cry!! It didn’t work in the 60’s and it will not work now. When the new rules on pensions are taken into consideration, who is going to hang around in a country that takes 60% of your income – just for being successful! Darling has forecast that the British economy will contract by 3.5% in 2009 but will grow by 1.5% in 2010. Within minutes the I.M.F. predicted a contraction of 4.1% in 2009 and a further contraction in 2010. As recently as November last year Darling said the government borrowing up to 2013 would amount to £120 billion, now he says it will grow to £606 billion. If the government can get it that wrong in 6 month, can they be trusted on any other figures? I don’t think so! It will take a generation to pay off this massive debt. Your grandchildren will still be paying in the 2030’s. The above figures only run true if the government have got their sums right, but, to quote Darling, “It is very difficult to be absolutely certain as to what will happen.” On their present record Brown and Darling couldn’t work their way out of a paper bag! Darling has bottled it. He knows he should be cutting spending now to start repaying this monumental borrowing. Perhaps he realises that after next spring it will no longer be his problem. Once again the Conservatives will have to drag this country back from disaster. This will be the third time since the Second World War that they have had to put right Labour's ineptitude. When will the voters learn? The sooner we consign this government, led by an incompetent and populated by a crew of gravy train ministers, to the dustbin of history, the better. It cannot come too soon!!! P.S. It has just been announced that the fall in the GDP for the first three months of 2009 is 1.9%. What price 3.5% for the whole years now!!! P.P.S. Leaks coming from Treasury sources say that Alistair Darling wanted to be far more aggressive regarding cuts on spending but this was vetoed by Gordon Brown. Brown feared this would lead to disaster in the next General Election! So Gordon Brown puts his job BEFORE the welfare of the country. Is there no limit to this man's ego??!

Shorashim – Pre Schoolers – K Shabbat and Holiday Programs for Preschoolers and their Families are led by our wonderful Bracha Louz, children’s musician and educator. Shorashim, meets every Shabbat, beginning at approximately 11AM with the Torah parade in the main sanctuary, followed by Shabbat, holiday and Torah-related songs, stories, games and prayer with Bracha. Bracha will also celebrate with our young families on the High Holydays, Sukkot, Simchat Torah, Chanukah, Purim, Lag Ba’Omer and at other community events. Monthly Shabbat service led by our dynamic educator and youth leader Dan Scher. Beginning at approximately 11AM with the Torah parade in the main sanctuary, the service continues in the small chapel with prayer, Torah activities and games with Dan. Dates for this year are: 9/14, 10/12, 11/9, 12/14, 1/15, 2/8, 3/14, 4/25, 5/9, 6/13. A stimulating monthly discussion-based program led in which teens have an opportunity to explore Jewish issues related to Torah, holidays, current events and their own life experience. Led by our talented educator Ruth Malka, the group generally meets the second Shabbat of each month beginning at 10:45 AM Ruth Malka will oversee this monthly group where older school-age students gather for games, conversation and informal Jewish learning. Dates to follow Youth group programs co-sponsored with Temple Israel. Kadima is for students in grades 6-8. USY is for high school students. Please contact Stephanie Fisher at firstname.lastname@example.org for more Kadima information or email Marci Galinkin at ohavUSY@ohavshalom.org for more USY information. Ohav’s program that keeps our college-age students connected with Ohav and Jewish life through the delivery special packages to their college addresses. The cost per student is $65 for members and $75 for non-members. Members receive sign-up information in their high holy days packet over the summer.

Marlene Dumas, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven ''Genetic Longing'' (1984). Credit Marlene Dumas, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven Marlene Dumas and the Art of Life, at Tate Modern |By Roderick Conway Morris| LONDON 20 February 2015 Marlene Dumas grew up in South Africa in the 1950s and '60s and recalls her love of going to drive-in movies. 'Yet I never wanted a camera,' she writes in the catalog of her latest exhibition, at Tate Modern here through May 10. 'I loved to play and draw in the sand. I loved the illustrations of fairy tales, and the stories of the Bible and American cartoons that were around. I drew bikini girls on the back of cigarette packets to impress my parents' friends.' A procession of bikini girls, 'Miss World,' is one of the first works on display in 'Marlene Dumas: The Image as Burden' at the Tate. With more than 100 of her works, the show is her most extensive European retrospective to date, curated by Kerryn Greenberg and Helen Sainsbury. The exhibition travels on to the Fondation Beyeler in Switzerland at the end of May. The artist was 10 years old when she drew 'Miss World' in crayons, revealing precocious artistic talent and an acute and quirky eye. That picture was imaginatively created from various images of the event she had seen. It was only in the mid-1980s that she would begin to use specific photographic sources or images drawn from movies as starting points — though in the final work sometimes little or nothing of the initial material remains. An Afrikaner, Ms. Dumas, 61, was raised on a wine farm in the Cape Province during the apartheid era, when access to images was severely limited by censorship and television was yet to come — perhaps leading to the budding artist's intense scrutiny of those images that were available in films, newspapers and magazines. After studying art at the University of Cape Town, she won a scholarship in 1976 to continue her art education in the Netherlands, where she has lived ever since. Conceptual art was becoming more prevalent at the time and Ms. Dumas applied her graphic skills, wit and imagination to making works in this style. Among the pieces from these early years in the Tate show are a large collage, 'Don't Talk to Strangers,' that incorporates the opening and closing lines torn out of letters she had received, and a big pencil sketch of a house plant representing her rebellion against Dutch domesticity, 'I Won't Have a Pot Plant.' But the desire to paint the human body and face proved overwhelming, Ms. Dumas said in an interview at the exhibition. 'I thought I had found a way not to paint but to do works on paper, with collages and drawings,' she said. 'But it came so naturally to me to use the figure, because that was what I had always done, to use the human form, that I couldn't do it without it.' This personal 'return to order' gave rise in the mid-1980s to a series of larger-than-life portraits, in bold colors, that zoom in on their subjects' faces, to the exclusion of any recognizable backdrop. Some allude to political issues, such as the tense 'Genetic Longing,' portraying a multi-colored woman with folded arms and a sideways glance, and 'The White Disease,' which depicts a European woman suffering from a skin condition. Others are more intimate, like the powerful 'Martha — My Grandmother' and the later portrait of Moshekwa Langa, Ms. Dumas's fellow South African artist and friend. A distinctive feature of Ms. Dumas's oeuvre is her abiding interest in portraying black subjects. In the early 1990s, she undertook a major project in which she investigated the properties of black ink on thick paper to represent black faces. Her source was initially pseudo-anthropological postcards of 'types' of often naked Africans, but she excluded the bodies in order to focus on the individuality of their faces. She later supplemented them with faces found in African-American magazines, like Ebony. The result is a wall of virtuoso brush-and-ink sketches in the Tate show entitled 'Black Drawings.' In 1995, at the Dutch Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, Ms. Dumas displayed a series of tall, narrow canvases called 'Magdalenas,' inspired by the biblical figure Mary Magdalene. Some of them are now brought together at the Tate from public and private collections. For these engaging and sometimes satirical works, the artist has drawn variously on classical statues of the Venus pudica, covering her breasts and pudenda with her hands; the nudes of the great Renaissance Venetian painters; and Manet's 'Olympia.' Some of Ms. Dumas's most memorable images are of children, including her daughter Helena. Several of these are displayed in the exhibition, ranging from the serene close-up of her daughter sleeping, 'Helena's Dream,' to 'The Painter,' an emotionally charged study of a naked, scowling toddler, her hands stained with color after a finger-painting session. The artist has described these haunting portraits as 'imagined beings, closer to the world of ghosts and angels, daydreams and nightmares than real people.' Another series visits grief, with paintings of the murdered Italian writer and filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini and his mother; the distraught Anna Magnani in Pasolini's 'Mamma Roma,' based on a close-up from the film; and Ingrid Bergman weeping in 'For Whom the Bell Tolls,' in which paint is streaked with water as though by tears. This exemplifies Ms. Dumas's assertion in the catalog that 'the content of a painting cannot be separated from the feel of its surface.' An element of wicked humor is also evident in this sequence, with 'Glass Tears (for Man Ray),' Ms. Dumas's painted version of Man Ray's famous photograph 'Larmes' (with its unnaturally huge, glassy, bead-like tears) juxtaposed with her update on this theme, a blotchy-faced, dry-cheeked woman, entitled 'Waterproof Mascara.' 'The public display of nudity has always been one of my main artistic interests, as well as the reasons given to justify or ban it,' Ms. Dumas wrote in the catalog for her show 'Strippinggirls' in 2000. In the second half of the 1990s, she produced pictures based on pornographic magazines and photographs of strippers, with broad brush strokes and exaggerated, unnaturally strong colors. These are displayed in a side room, with a warning to visitors as to their explicit adult content. The artist has also recorded her reluctance to use live models for these works. 'I worry about what they think of me and I get even more worried about what they think I think of them,' she wrote in the 'Strippinggirls' catalog. 'And then I lose the freedom of the amoral touch which for me is a prerequisite of a good painting.' The starting point for a number of the paintings in the last rooms was clearly photographs of conflict in the Middle East: 'The Mother,' of a woman mourning her young son in a Muslim cemetery; 'Mindblocks,' of an Israeli roadblock in the West Bank; and 'The Wall,' which appears to be a depiction of Orthodox Jews praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem but in fact portrays Jewish pilgrims against the backdrop of the wall dividing Israeli and Palestinian territories near the Tomb of Rachel. Ms. Dumas has described these pictures, which are on a larger scale than any of her previous works, as her 'first landscapes.' They mark a new departure in the career of a painter who has brought an original sensibility to her art, consistently produced compelling images and who is clearly still at the height of her powers. Marlene Dumas. The Image as Burden. Tate Modern; through May 10. Fondation Beyeler, Basel, Switzerland; May 31 through Sept. 6. First published: International New York Times © Roderick Conway Morris 1975-2022

Pascal ticket swiss anti aging. ROM-SIG NEWS - JewishGen We will see what BLEU algorithm is and how it can be used in recognition of entailments. Basically, the algorithm looks for n-gram coincidences between a candidate text the automatically produced translation and a set of reference texts the human-made translations. The pseudo code of BLEU is as follows: For several values of n typically from 1 to 4calculate the percentage of n- grams from the candidate translation that appears in any of the human translations. The frequency of each n-gram is limited to the maximum frequency with which it appears in any reference. Combine the values obtained for each value of n, as a weighted linear average. Apply a brevity factor to penalize short candidate texts which may have n-grams in common pascal ticket swiss anti aging the references, but may be incomplete. If the candidate is shorter than the references, this factor is calculated as the ratio between the length of the candidate text and the length of the reference which has the most similar length. It can be seen from this pseudo code that BLEU is not only a keyword matching method between pairs of texts. It takes into account several other factors that make it more robust: It calculates the length of the text in comparison with the length of reference texts. If the candidate text is shorter than the reference texts, this is considered to be an indicative of a poor quality translation and thus, BLEU penalizes it. The measure of similarity can be considered as a precision value that calculates 14 Bilingual Evaluation Understudy how many of the n-grams from the candidate appear in the reference texts. The final score pascal ticket swiss anti aging the result of the weighted sum of the logarithms of the different values of the precision, for n varying from 1 to 4. It is not interesting to try higher values of n since coincidences longer than four-grams are very unusual. This value indicates how similar the candidate and reference texts are. In fact, the closer the value is to 1, the more similar they are. Register now When you start a new business almost everything seems to be more important than infrastructure and platform. The application crashes during traffic peaks, customers are angry and the revenue goes down. In this talk, we will show you how to face all sorts of infrastructure and platform challenges with cloud solutions from AWS. You will learn how not to lose your mind, money and customers. Papineni et al. A variant of this algorithm has also been applied anti-imbatranire plus evaluate text summarization systems Lin and Hovy, and to help in the assessment of open-ended questions Alfonseca and Pérez, Once the algorithm is applied, they had seen that the results confirm the use of BLEU as baseline for the automatic recognition of textual entailments. In order to recognize entailments using BLEU, the first decision is to choose whether the candidate text should be considered as part of the entailment T or as the hypothesis H. In order to make this choice, they did a first experiment in which they considered the T part as the reference and the H as the candidate. Pascal ticket swiss anti aging output of their algorithm which uses BLEU was taken as the confidence score and it was also used to give the final answer to each entailment pair. They performed an optimization procedure for the development set that chose the best threshold according to the percentage of success of correctly recognized entailments. The value obtained was 0. The result of 0. In the following competitions the n-gram word similarity method was very popular among the participating systems 6 systems in11 systems in and over 14 in Objects to be matched two images, patterns, text and hypothesis in RTE task, etc. Thus, following Dagan and Glickman,since the hypothesis H and text T may be represented by two syntactic graphs, the textual pascal ticket swiss anti aging recognition problem can be reduced to graph similarity measure estimation, although textual entailment has particular properties Pazienza et al. The authors Pazienza et al. T semantically subsumes H e. T syntactically subsumes H e. T directly implies H e. Constituents are lexicalized syntactic trees with explicit syntactic heads and potential semantic governors gov. According to WorldCat, this is the third effort in the history of Romanian literature and the first in the twenty-first century to present Romanian literature to the English-speaking world. The current work is presented as an original effort brought into the English by ten translators and a team of editors who perhaps learned English from people who have never spoken the language. Unfortunately, most of the contributions to Romanian Literature as World Literature are difficult to get through. Abounding in parentheses, subordinate clauses, and run-on sentences that run on and on, countless pages discourage the reader. Another characteristic of the new book is that most of its authors aim to rewrite Romanian literary history from the perspective of globalist, anticolonialist, and other currently fashionable theories, not to present Romanian literature as it is according to the Romanian literary canon. Dependencies in D represent typed and ambiguous relations among a constituent, the head, and one of its modifiers. Ambiguity is represented using plausibility between 0 and 1. They work under two simplifying assumptions: H is supposed to be a sentence completely describing a fact in an assertive or negative way and H should be a simple S-V-O sentence subject, verb, object order. Jewish man helped me to find the right apartment as I wandered about the desolate street. Burg was wonderfully hospitable, and phoned Mrs. Linguistic transformations such as nominalization, passivization, and argument movementas well as negation, must also be considered, since they can play a very important role. The problem is to extract the maximal subgraph of XDGT that is in a subgraph isomorphism relation with XDGH, through the definition of two functions fC over nodes and fD over edges Pazienza et al, This is possible if the selection process of the subsets of the graphs nodes guarantees the possibility of defining the function fC. If this is done, the bijective function fC is derived by construction. The mapping process is based on the notion of anchors. The set of anchors A for an entailment pair contains an anchor for each of the hypothesis constituents having correspondences in the text T. For example in the entailment pair shown below, propositions: 18 Figure 1: Example of entailment from Pazienza et pascal ticket swiss anti aging. Syntactic similarity, defined by fD, will capture how much similar the syntactic structure accompanied is to the two constituents i. Both semantic and syntactic similarity derived respectively from fC and fD must be taken into consideration to evaluate the overall graph similarity measure, as the former captures the notion of node subsumption, and the latter the notion of edge subsumption. - Note Doctorat Foarte Importante | PDF | Psychanalyse | Névrose - Curatarea fetei acasa cu bicarbonat - Întrebări trivia împotriva îmbătrânirii - In the Soviet days, when everything was communal and didn't belong to anyone, theft was not a problem. The method is more sophisticated in comparison with the BLUE approach, and it considers both syntactic pascal ticket swiss anti aging semantic levels. Initial, in RTE-1, this method was completed with different alignment methods and matching algorithms and pascal ticket swiss anti aging by many groups in the following challenges, those of Katrenko and Adriaans, and Zanzotto et al. Tree Edit Distance Algorithms The core of this approach Kouylekov and Magnini, is a tree edit distance algorithm applied on the dependency trees of both the text and the hypothesis. If the distance i. The authors designed a system based on the intuition that the probability of an entailment relation between T and H pascal ticket swiss anti aging related to the ability to show that the whole content of H can be mapped into the content of T. The more straightforward the mapping establishment can be, the more probable the entailment relation is. Since a mapping can be described as a sequence of editing operations needed to transform T into H, where each edit operation has a cost associated with it, they assign an entailment relation if the overall cost of the transformation is below a 19 certain threshold, empirically estimated on the training data. According to their approach, T entails H if we have a sequence of transformations applied to T such that we can obtain H with an overall cost below a certain threshold. The underlying assumption is that pairs between which an entailment relation holds have a low cost of transformation. The transformations types i. The authors have implemented the tree edit distance algorithm described in Zhang and Shasha, and applied it to the dependency trees derived from T and H. Edit operations are defined at the single nodes level of the dependency tree i. Since the Zhang and Shasha, algorithm does not consider labels on edges, while dependency trees provide them, each dependency relation R from a node A to a node B has been re-written as a complex label B-R concatenating the name of the destination node and the name of the relation. All nodes except for the root of the tree are relabelled in such way. The algorithm is directional: the aim is to find the best sequence i. According to the constraints described above, the following transformations are allowed: Insertion: insert a node from the dependency tree of H into the dependency tree of T. When a node is inserted, it is attached to the dependency relation of the source label. Deletion: delete a node N from the dependency tree of T. When N is deleted, all its children are attached to the parent of N. It is not required to explicitly delete the children of N as they are going to be either deleted or substituted on a following step. Substitution: change the label of a node N1 in the source tree into a label of a node N2 of the target tree. Substitution is allowed only if the two nodes share the same part-of-speech. In case of substitution, the relation attached to the substituted node is changed with the relation of the new node. N. D. Cocea The initial approach used by Kouylekov and Magnini, determined, based on the distance between trees, the final answer for the current pair. It should be noticed that this system does not use external resources like WordNet, paraphrases collection, or resources with named entities or acronyms. The next systems were more complex and combined the initial approach with machine learning algorithms Kozareva, Montoyo, or used the probabilistic transformations of the trees Harmeling, Logical Inference In viticulture biologique suisse anti aging, Bos and Markert used several shallow surface features to model the text, hypothesis and their relation to each other. They expected some dependency between the surface string similarity of text and hypothesis and the existence of entailment. This string similarity measure uses only a form of extended word overlap between text and hypothesis, taking into account identity of words, as well as synonymy and morphological derivations revealed by WordNet Fellbaum, It turns out that this difference between domain sizes is a useful way of measuring the likelihood of entailment. Large differences are mostly not entailments, small differences usually are. They use a robust wide-coverage CCG-parser Bos et al. Note Doctorat Foarte Importante The semantic representation language is a first-order fragment of the DRS 16 language used in Discourse Representation Theory Kamp and Reyle,conveying argument structure with a neo-Davidsonian analysis and including the recursive DRS structure to cover negation, disjunction, and implication. T implies H shows entailment 2. Then, if the theorem prover manages to find a proof for.

Actor, Los Angeles CA A young American travels to the West Bank intending on joining the Israeli Defense Forces and takes an unsuspecting ride in a stolen cab. Director: Daniel Yonathan Co-Stars: David Paster, Samer Bisharat, Aram Kirkorian Festivals: Student Academy Awards, Santa Barbara Jewish Film Festival

Haftarah for B'midbar This translation was taken from the JPS Tanakh 1 The number of the people of Israel shall be like that of the sands of the sea, which cannot be measured or counted; and instead of being told, "You are Not-My-People," they shall be called Children-of-the-Living-God. 2 The people of Judah and the people of Israel shall assemble together and appoint one head over them; and they shall rise from the ground — for marvelous shall be the day of Jezreel! 3Oh, call your brothers "My People," And your sisters "Lovingly Accepted!" 4 Rebuke your mother, rebuke her — For she is not My wife And I am not her husband — And let her put away her harlotry from her face And her adultery from between her breasts. 5 Else will I strip her naked And leave her as on the day she was born: And I will make her like a wilderness, Render her like desert land, And let her die of thirst. 6 I will also disown her children; For they are now a harlot's brood, 7 In that their mother has played the harlot, She that conceived them has acted shamelessly — Because she thought, "I will go after my lovers, Who supply my bread and my water, My wool and my linen, My oil and my drink." I will hedge up her roads with thorns And raise walls against her, And she shall not find her paths. 9 Pursue her lovers as she will, She shall not overtake them; And seek them as she may, She shall never find them. Then she will say, "I will go and return To my first husband, For then I fared better than now." 10 And she did not consider this: It was I who bestowed on her The new grain and wine and oil; I who lavished silver on her And gold — which they used for Baal. I will take back My new grain in its time And My new wine in its season, And I will snatch away My wool and My linen That serve to cover her nakedness. 12 Now will I uncover her shame In the very sight of her lovers, And none shall save her from Me. 13 And I will end all her rejoicing: Her festivals, new moons, and sabbaths — All her festive seasons. 14 I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees, Which she thinks are a fee She received from her lovers; I will turn them into brushwood, And beasts of the field shall devour them. 15 Thus will I punish her For the days of the Baalim, On which she brought them offerings; When, decked with earrings and jewels, She would go after her lovers, I will speak coaxingly to her And lead her through the wilderness And speak to her tenderly. 17 I will give her her vineyards from there, And the Valley of Achor as a plowland of hope. There she shall respond as in the days of her youth, When she came up from the land of Egypt. 18 And in that day You will call [Me] Ishi, And no more will you call Me Baali. 19 For I will remove the names of the Baalim from her mouth, And they shall nevermore be mentioned by name. 20 In that day, I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the creeping things of the ground; I will also banish bow, sword, and war from the land. Thus I will let them lie down in safety. 21 And I will espouse you forever: I will espouse you with righteousness and justice, And with goodness and mercy, 22 And I will espouse you with faithfulness; Then you shall be devoted to the Lord. Used by permission of The Jewish Publication Society. Copyright ©1962, 1992 Third Edition by the Jewish Publication Society. No part of this text can be reproduced or forwarded without written permission. Please visit the JPS website for more fine books of Jewish literature and tradition.

It's not always bad to have someone watching your every move Prisoners' scenes add up to a story that is excruciatingly long. This may sound like a negative remark but it’s not. The film is long and the tension is excruciating, but I wouldn’t cut one iota of either Canadian Inmates Connect Inc. showcases numerous prisoners serving life sentences and helps the incarcerated find pen pals and, perhaps, much more The plight of the imprisoned is a great blight on liberal democracies. Canada is experiencing a bulge in the number of terrorism-related prisoners and must make sure they don't continue their terror campaigns once they are released Somewhere inside Kingston Penitentiary, there’s an inmate taking dating advice from Jennifer Love Hewitt’s book The Day I Shot Cupid Corrections Canada has put out a request for a proposal for a Wiccan chaplain in B.C. to provide about 17 hours of service a month, about an hour less service than Corrections says it needs for the Jewish faith What is the true cost of marijuana prohibition? After four decades of the war on drugs, none of its stated goals have been achieved. Gangs are richer, more powerful, increasingly violent and the availability and use of marijuana has only gone up. Legal drugs, like alcohol and tobacco, do not finance organized crime. Instead, gangsters […] By David Matas and David Kilgour On his trade mission to China this month, Prime Minister Stephen Harper should ask his hosts to stop exporting the products of slave labour to Canada, and to shut down their extensive network of slave-labour camps. Toward that end, he should begin negotiating an arrangement with China that would […] The number of federal inmates age 50 and older is rapidly growing, but their health-care and safety needs are often “overlooked and neglected” in the crowded and overextended prison system, Canada’s prison ombudsman said Tuesday in his annual report.

White House Prayer Breakfast, 1998 |Born||Jeremiah Alvesta Wright, Jr. September 22, 1941 |Known for||Former pastor (retired) of Trinity United Church of Christ| Jeremiah Alvesta Wright, Jr., (born September 22, 1941) is Pastor Emeritus of Trinity United Church of Christ (TUCC), in Chicago with a congregation exceeding 6,000. In early 2008, Wright retired after 36 years as the Senior Pastor and no longer has daily responsibilities at the church. Following retirement, Wright's beliefs and preaching were scrutinized when segments of his sermons were publicized in connection with the presidential campaign of Barack Obama. Obama addressed the issues raised by the Wright controversy in his speech entitled "A More Perfect Union." On April 27, 2008, Wright defended his record in a speech before the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), saying he was not "divisive" but "descriptive" and that the black church experience, like black culture, was "different" but not "deficient". Wright was born and raised in a racially mixed section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania called Germantown. His parents are The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Sr. (1909–2001), a Baptist minister who pastored Grace Baptist Church in Germantown, Philadelphia, from 1938 to 1980, and Dr. Mary Elizabeth Henderson Wright, a school teacher who was the first black person to teach an academic subject at Roosevelt Junior High. She went on to be the first black person to teach at Germantown High and Girls High, where she became the school's first black vice principal. Wright graduated from Central High School of Philadelphia in 1959, among the best schools in the area at the time. At the time, the school was around 90 percent white. The 211th class yearbook described Wright as a respected member of the class. "Always ready with a kind word, Jerry is one of the most congenial members of the 211," the yearbook said. "His record in Central is a model for lower class [younger] members to emulate." Education and military service From 1959 to 1961, Wright attended Virginia Union University, in Richmond and is a member of Omega Psi Phi fraternity, Zeta chapter. In 1961 Wright left college and joined the United States Marine Corps and became part of the 2nd Marine Division attaining the rank of private first class. In 1963, after two years of service, Wright joined the United States Navy and entered the Corpsman School at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center. Wright was then trained as a cardiopulmonary technician at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. Wright was assigned as part of the medical team charged with care of President Lyndon B. Johnson (see photo of Wright caring for Johnson after his 1966 surgery). Before leaving the position in 1967, the White House Physician, Vice Admiral Burkley, personally wrote Wright a letter of thanks on behalf of the United States President. In 1967 Wright enrolled at Howard University in Washington, D.C., where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1968 and a master's degree in English in 1969. He also earned a master's degree from the University of Chicago Divinity School. Wright holds a Doctor of Ministry degree (1990) from the United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio, where he studied under Samuel DeWitt Proctor, a mentor to Martin Luther King, Jr. His wife is Ramah Reed Wright, and he has four daughters, Janet Marie Moore, Jeri Lynne Wright, Nikol D. Reed and Jamila Nandi Wright, and one son, Nathan D. Reed. Career as minister Wright became pastor of the Trinity United Church of Christ, Chicago on March 1, 1972; it had some 250 members on its rolls, but only about 90 or so were actually attending worship by that time. By March 2008 Trinity United Church of Christ had become the largest church in the mostly white United Church of Christ denomination. The President and General Minister of the United Church of Christ, John H. Thomas, has stated: "It is critical that all of us express our gratitude and support to this remarkable congregation, to Jeremiah A. Wright for his leadership over 36 years." Thomas, who is a member of the Pilgrim Congregational United Church of Christ in Cleveland, has also preached and worshipped at Trinity United Church of Christ (most recently on March 2, 2008). Trinity and Wright were profiled by correspondent Roger Wilkins in 's documentary Keeping the Faith broadcast as the June 16, 1987 episode of the PBS series Frontline with Judy Woodruff. In 1995, Wright was asked to deliver a prayer during an afternoon session of speeches at the Million Man March in Washington, D.C. Wright, who began the "Ministers in Training" (MIT) program at Trinity United Church of Christ, has been a national leader in promoting theological education and the preparation of seminarians for the African-American church. The church's mission statement is based upon systematized Black liberation theology that started with the works of James Hal Cone. Wright has been a professor at Chicago Theological Seminary, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary and other educational institutions. Wright has served on the Board of Trustees of Virginia Union University, Chicago Theological Seminary and City Colleges of Chicago. He has also served on the Board Directors of Evangelical Health Systems, the Black Theology Project, the Center for New Horizons and the Malcolm X School of Nursing, and on boards and committees of other religious and civic organizations. Wright attended a lecture by Dr Frederick G. Sampson in Richmond, Virginia, in the late 1980s, on the GF Watts painting Hope, which inspired him to give a sermon in 1990 based on the subject of the painting - "with her clothes in rags, her body scarred and bruised and bleeding, her harp all but destroyed and with only one string left, she had the audacity to make music and praise God.... To take the one string you have left and to have the audacity to hope... that's the real word God will have us hear from this passage and from Watt's painting." Having attended Wright's sermon, Barack Obama later adapted Wright's phrase "audacity to hope" to "audacity of hope" which became the title for his 2004 Democratic National Convention keynote address, and the title of his second book. Wright, who was Barack Obama's former pastor, gained national attention in March 2008 when ABC News, after reviewing dozens of Wright's sermons, excerpted parts which were subject to intense media scrutiny. Obama denounced the statements in question, but after critics continued to press the issue of his relationship with Wright he gave a speech titled "A More Perfect Union", in which he denounced Wright's remarks, but did not disown him as a person. The controversy began to fade, but was renewed in late April when Wright made a series of media appearances, including an interview on Bill Moyers Journal, a speech at the NAACP and a speech at the National Press Club. After the last of these, Obama spoke more forcefully against his former pastor, saying that he was "outraged" and "saddened" by his behavior, and in May he resigned his membership in the church. On June 9, 2009, in an interview with the Daily Press of Newport News, Wright indicated that he hadn't had contact with Obama up to that point because "Them Jews aren't going to let him talk to me. I told my baby daughter, that he'll talk to me in five years when he's a lame duck, or in eight years when he's out of office." Wright also suggested that Obama did not send a delegation to the Durban Review Conference in Geneva on racism because of Zionist pressure saying: "[T]he Jewish vote, the A-I-P-A-C vote, that's controlling him, that would not let him send representation to the Durban Review Conference, that's talking this craziness on this trip, cause they’re Zionists, they would not let him talk to someone who calls a spade what it is." Writing for The Atlantic, Ta-Nehisi Coates characterized Wright's remarks as "crude conspiratorial antisemitism." On June 11, 2009, Wright amended his remarks during an interview with Mark Thompson on his radio program, Make it Plain. "Let me say like Hillary, I misspoke. Let me just say: Zionists... I’m not talking about all Jews, all people of the Jewish faith, I’m talking about Zionists." Wright wrote on his Facebook page apologizing for his remarks on June 12, 2009. He wrote, "I mis-spoke and I sincerely meant no harm or ill-will to the American Jewish community or the Obama administration... I have great respect for the Jewish faith and the foundational (and central) part of our Judeo-Christian tradition." "In other words", another Atlantic writer, Jeffrey Goldberg, alleged, "[H]e regrets speaking plainly instead of deploying a euphemism." The Anti Defamation League released a statement condemning Wright's remarks as "inflammatory and false. The notions of Jewish control of the White House in Reverend Wright's statement express classic anti-Semitism in its most vile form." In June 2011, in a speech at Empowerment Temple in Baltimore City, Wright called the State of Israel "illegal" and "genocidal" and insisted, "To equate Judaism with the state of Israel is to equate Christianity with [rapper] Flavor Flav." Wright retired as pastor from Trinity United Church of Christ in early 2008. Over the course of his tenure, he brought the Church's membership from 87 in 1972 to over 8,000 parishioners. Trinity United purchased a lot in Tinley Park, a predominantly white Chicago suburb, and built Wright a 10,340-square-foot (961 m2) home valued at $1.6 million. Wright has received a Rockefeller Fellowship and seven honorary doctorate degrees, including from Colgate University, Lincoln University of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Valparaiso University, United Theological Seminary, Chicago Theological Seminary, and Starr King School for the Ministry. Wright was named one of Ebony magazine's top 15 preachers. He was also awarded the first Carver Medal by Simpson College in January 2008, to recognize Wright as "an outstanding individual whose life exemplifies the commitment and vision of the service of George Washington Carver". On May 1, 2008, Northwestern University withdrew its invitation for him to receive an honorary doctorate in light of the controversy over his recent remarks. - Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr., "Music as Cultural Expression in Black Church Theology and Worship", Journal of Black Sacred Music 3, 1 (1) (Spring 1989). - Wright, Jeremiah A. Jr. and Jini Kilgore Ross, What Makes You So Strong?: Sermons of Joy and Strength from Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr., Judson Press, November 1993, ISBN 978-0-8170-1198-7 - Jawanza Kunjufu and Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, Jr., Adam! Where Are You?: Why Most Black Men Don't Go to Church, African American Images, June 1997, ISBN 978-0-913543-43-6 (also African American Images, 1994, ISBN B000T6LXPQ) - Wright, Jeremiah A. Jr. and Colleen Birchett, Africans Who Shaped Our Faith (Student Guide), Urban Ministries, Inc., May 1995, ISBN 978-0-940955-29-5 - Wright, Jeremiah A. Jr. and Jini Kilgore Ross, Good News!: Sermons of Hope for Today's Families, Judson Press, December 1995, ISBN 978-0-8170-1236-6 - William J. Key, Robert Johnson Smith, Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. and Robert Johnson-Smith, From One Brother to Another: Voices of African American Men, Judson Press, October 1996, ISBN 978-0-8170-1250-2 - Frank Madison Reid, III, Jeremiah Wright Jr. and Colleen Birchett, When Black Men Stand Up for God: Reflections on the Million Man March, African American Images, December 1997, ISBN 978-0-913543-48-1 - Wright, Jeremiah A. Jr., What Can Happen When We Pray: A Daily Devotional, Augsburg Fortress Publishers, June 2002, ISBN 978-0-8066-3406-7 - Wright, Jeremiah A. Jr., From One Brother To Another, Volume 2: Voices of African American Men , Judson Press, January 2003, ISBN 978-0-8170-1362-2 - Wright, Jeremiah A, Jr. (2004), "Doing black theology in the black church", pp. 13–23, 213–214. In Linda E. Thomas (Ed.), Living Stones in the Household of God: The Legacy and Future of Black Theology, Minneapolis: Fortress. ISBN 0-8006-3627-9 - Wright, Jeremiah. "Here I am, send me". In Awakened to a calling: reflections on the vocation of ministry, Ann M. Svennungsen and Melissa Wiginton (Eds.), Nashville: Abingdon Press, c2005. ISBN 0-687-05390-0 - Wright, Jeremiah. "In the Lord's house, on the Lord's day". In Awakened to a calling: reflections on the vocation of ministry, Ann M. Svennungsen and Melissa Wiginton (Eds.), Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2005. ISBN 0-687-05390-0 - Iva E. Carruthers (Editor), Frederick D. Haynes III (Editor), Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. (Editor), Blow the Trumpet in Zion!: Global Vision and Action for the 21st Century Black Church, Augsburg Fortress Publishers, January 2005, ISBN 978-0-8006-3712-5 - Ernest R. Flores and Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., Tempted to Leave the Cross: Renewing the Call to Discipleship, Judson Press, November 2007, ISBN 978-0-8170-1524-4 Wright has written several books and is featured on Wynton Marsalis's album The Majesty of the Blues, where he recites a spoken word piece written by Stanley Crouch, and on the Odyssey Channel series Great Preachers. - Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., Pastor Emeritus, Trinity United Church of Christ - Pastor Trinity United Church of Christ - Ramirez, Margaret (2008-02-11). "Barack Obama's former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., preaches last sermon at Trinity United Church of Christ". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2008-03-22. - Banks, Adelle (2008-03-22). "Obama Finds Pulpit in Center of Racial Divide". Washington Post. Retrieved 2008-03-22. - Barack Obama (2008-03-18). "Text of Obama's speech: A More Perfect Union". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2008-03-18. - "Obama's ex-pastor gives fiery speech to NAACP". CNN. Archived from the original on May 1, 2008. Retrieved 2008-04-28. - Desmond S. King; Rogers M. Smith (4 September 2011). Still a House Divided: Race and Politics in Obama's America. Princeton University Press. pp. 4–. ISBN 978-0-691-14263-0. - Gabrielle Brochard and John DeVecchi (2006). "Biographical Essays". Retrieved 2008-03-25. - Wright, Jeremiah A. (1989). The pilgrimage of a pastor: The autobiography of Jeremiah A. Wright, Sr. Aaron Press, ASIN B0006F1LD4 - Bill Moyers Journa . Transcripts | PBS - "Dr. Jeremiah A Wright Jr.". Corinthian Baptist Church. Retrieved 2008-03-25. - Factor military duty into criticism - Lyndon B. Johnson, Dick Cheney, The White House - chicagotribune.com - Korb, Lawrence and Ian Moss. "Factor military duty into criticism". Available online. Archived. - "Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Biography". The History Makers. 2002-01-11. Retrieved 2008-03-23. - "The Biography of the Reverend Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr.". Charter Day 2004 Distinguished Alumni Biographies. Howard University. 2004-03-04. Retrieved 2008-04-04. - Emily Udell, "Keeping the Faith", In These Times, February 8, 2005. Available online. Archived. - Yearbooks of the United Church of Christ, 1971–72 - Gorski, Eric (2008-03-18). "Message of Obama Pastor Forged in Civil Rights Movement". Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Retrieved 2008-03-27. - Guess, J. Bennet (2008-03-14). "Chicago's Trinity UCC Is "Great Gift to Wider Church Family". United Church of Christ. Retrieved 2008-03-27. - "White People Welcome at Trinity United Church of Christ". YouTube. Retrieved 2008-03-27. - Jones, Sherry (producer & director), Wilkins, Roger (correspondent), Woodruff, Judy (anchor) (June 16, 1987). FRONTLINE: reports: Keeping the Faith. Alexandria, Virginia: PBS Video. OCLC 18127027., OCLC 21357978, OCLC 18126496, OCLC 42508237 Ruth, Daniel (June 16, 1987). "Chicago minister exalts `Faith'" (paid archive). Chicago Sun-Times. p. 50. McBride, James (June 16, 1987). "On leaving the ghetto" (paid archive). The Washington Post. p. F3. "'Sunday morning worship America's most segregated hour'". Post-Tribune. June 21, 1987. p. 4. - "Official Program". Washington, D.C.: Million Man March. 1995-10-16. - "Donor Profiles". The Fund for Theological Education. Archived from the original on March 2, 2007. Retrieved 2008-03-23. - Talev, Margaret (2008-03-20). "Obama's church pushes controversial doctrines". The McClatchy Company. Retrieved 2008-03-28. - Wright, Jeremiah (2007-03-01). "Talking Points". Trinity United Church of Christ website. Archived from the original on 2008-03-25. Retrieved 2008-03-31. - Sermon printed in Preaching Today, 1990. - Obama's Pastor: God Damn America, U.S. to Blame for 9/11 Brian Ross and Rehab el-Buri, ABC News, March 13, 2008 - Dilanian, Ken (2008-03-18). "Defenders say Wright has love, righteous anger for USA". USA Today. Retrieved 2008-04-02. - Adubato, Steve (March 21, 2008). "Obama's reaction to Wright too little, too late". MSNBC. - Johnson, Alex (2008-03-14). "Obama Strongly Denounces his ex-Pastor". MSNBC. Retrieved 2008-04-28. - "Listening to Rev. Wright" OnPoint, 29 April 2008. - Michael Powell (2008-06-01). "Following Months of Criticism, Obama Quits His Church". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-06-02. - Squires, David (June 10, 2009). "Rev. Jeremiah Wright says "Jews" are keeping him from President Obama". The Daily Press. Retrieved June 10, 2009. - Ta-Nehisi Coates (June 11, 2009). "Jeremiah Wright". The Atlantic. Retrieved June 11, 2009. - Jake Tapper (June 11, 2009). "Rev. Wright: I Meant to Say "Zionists" Are Keeping Me from Talking to President Obama – Not Jews". ABC News: Political Punch. Retrieved June 11, 2009. - Sweet, Lynn (June 12, 2009). "Wright Apologizes for 'Them Jews' as Museum Reopens". Politics Daily. Retrieved June 12, 2009. - "Rev. Wright Clarifies". Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic. June 11, 2009. Retrieved June 11, 2009. - "ADL Expresses Outrage At Reverend Wright's Hateful And Inflammatory Comments". Anti Defamation League. June 11, 2009. Retrieved June 12, 2009. - Mossburg, Marta. "Reverend Wright brings his anti-American crusade to Baltimore." The Baltimore Sun. 21 June 2011. 22 June 2011. - Jennifer O'Shea. 10 Things You Didn't Know About the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. US News and World Reports - Church to build on Wright's land. Seattle Times - Rev Jeremiah Wright to retire in 'white suburb'. The Telegraph - Jeremiah Wright receives Simpson’s first Carver Medal - Schettler, Emily (2008-03-27). "Medal Recipient's Recent Comments Stir Controversy". The Simpsonian. Retrieved 2008-04-26.[dead link] - Goldman, Julianna (2008-05-01). "Rev. Wright's honorary degree canceled by Northwestern". Yahoo! News. Retrieved 2008-05-05.[dead link] - The Majesty Of The Blues – Track list - Great Preachers: Jeremiah Wright (1998) |Wikimedia Commons has media related to Jeremiah Wright.| - Biography at Answers.com - Appearances on C-SPAN - Jeremiah Wright collected news and commentary at The New York Times - Works by or about Jeremiah Wright in libraries (WorldCat catalog) - Jeremiah Wright at the Internet Movie Database - Illinois legislature resolution congratulating Reverend Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. on his retirement - Von Hoene Jr., William A. "Rev. Wright in a different light". Chicago Tribune, 26 March 2008. - Bill Moyers Journal - "Reverend Jeremiah Wright" PBS, April 25, 2008, interview - Black Liberation Theology and Rev. Jeremiah Wright, interview with Dr. Dwight Hopkins, professor of theology at the University of Chicago Divinity School, BeliefNet, May 2008 - Jeremiah Wright's Service to 3 Presidents photographs and newspaper articles - Wright's blog at RH Reality Check (one post, February 7, 2008, on HIV/AIDS) - Wright sermons at the official channel of Trinity United Church of Christ on YouTube - Audio of complete sermon by Wright from which the soundbite on 9/11 was excerpted. - Audio of complete sermon by Wright from which soundbite "God damn America" was excerpted. - The Audacity to Hope sermon from which the title of Barack Obama's book, The Audacity of Hope, is derived. - Transcript Of A Jeremiah Wright Sermon given on January 27, 2008 Archived. - Full video of Wright's 28 April 2008 speech on the Black church at the National Press club. Requires RealPlayer or Real Alternative

Meet Tim Tebeau, the man who will be writing the wine department in Traverse every month and the dining department every other month (alternating with longtime contributor Patty LaNoue Stearns). Tim has a master’s degree in poetry from the University of Michigan and, since leaving college, has managed the gourmet food and wine shop Esperance, in Charlevoix, for the past 4.5 years. He recently left that position to piece together a living that combines writing with working as a wine importer. He lives in Petoskey with his wife and daughter. Q. When did you get into the food business? A. Well, it’s really been a lifelong thing. My parents were running restaurants and my mother ran a catering business out of our home. She had me peeling potatoes on the back steps at an early age. She also taught me knife skills—how to chop herbs, garlic, onions—and really made a point of having food be a hands on experience. Q. At what point did you realize not everybody had that kind of exposure to food? A. I guess when I was in college and living with roommates and we’d talk about what we ate at home, and it started to gel that my experience was different from most people’s. Q. What did your roommates beg you to make for them? A. I would make Thai style curries a lot. It was something they had not had much exposure to before and was something I loved to make. I love Asian cooking. They also asked for my mother’s herb roasted chicken. Q. What about your first professional food job? A. I worked in a Jewish deli in high school. They let me eat all I wanted. I remember he made a great corned beef. And he got this incredible Jewish rye bread from some secret Jewish bakery around Detroit somewhere, whose location he would never disclose. Q. What do you always have in the fridge? A. We always have really good olives. My wife and I both love olives. And fresh herbs from the farmers market. We do a lot of Middle Eastern cooking. Q. What’s a favorite food book? A. My wife bought me Arabesque. It’s a cookbook-cultural essay collection of pieces from Morocco, Turkey and Lebanon. It’s a beautiful book. And I really like Hemingway’s Movable Feast. Q. What’s your favorite cheap wine? A. For everyday drinking, I like wines from Spain and southern Italy—there’s a lot of value there. Check out Tim’s food and wine stories for Traverse: Wine Tips, Tours and Travel in Traverse City, Old Mission and Leelanau - Savor Leelanau’s Wine Country - Old Mission Peninsula Wine Country - Video: Sit Back and Tour Northern Michigan Wine Country - Northern Michigan Sparkling Wines - Water and Wine Weekends - Video: Tapas and Wine Touring at Old Mission’s Chateau Chantal - Four Pinot Noir Picks from Old Mission and Leelanau Wineries - Michigan Beer and Wine Dinners at Boyne - Traverse City’s Urban Winery - See Wine Country by Bike - Subscribe to MyNorth’s Food & Wine Newsletter: It’s free! - Romancing the Riesling

A man from Tilbury is to appear in court charged with the murder of a couple from Suffolk, after he was extradited from Luxembourg. Live Updates From Heart Police looking for a man who has gone missing with his twin sons could be in Southend. A new report says major investment is needed in the West Anglia Main Line and it is essential to the UK economy. A dog charity has told Heart there has been a rise in the number of so-called "handbag dogs" put into care in Essex. A drug dealer caught trying to sell Class A drugs in Essex has been jailed for more than four years. Potential England manager Sam Allardyce describes Essex fraudster who conned him out of thousands of pounds as "extremely smart". A teenager has been arrested over the murder of a man whose body was found in a fire damaged car in Basildon. A man from Colchester has been named as one of the 10 most wanted conmen in the UK. Rising pension deficits in the wake of the UK's vote to leave the European Union (EU) are hampering efforts by BT to conclude talks with its regulator over the future of its broadband infrastructur A 16-year-old friend of the gunman who killed nine people in Munich on Friday has been arrested by police. A Syrian refugee wielding a machete has killed a woman and injured two other people in the German city of Reutlingen. Britain is heading out of the European Union and will soon be free to seek its own trade deals. An action-packed trailer has been released for the first Wonder Woman movie in the iconic superhero's 75-year history. Sigourney Weaver says she is hopeful about returning to the big screen in a new Alien film. Pop star Rihanna is to take on the iconic role made famous by Hollywood actress Janet Leigh in the horror movie Psycho. Fans of One Direction have been left wondering about the future of the band after Liam Payne announced he is going solo. Chris Froome has become the first British cyclist to win three Tour de France titles. Jose Mourinho has insisted Manchester United are aiming to win the Premier League title in his first season in charge as manager. Pep Guardiola will shake Jose Mourinho's hand on Monday, even though the two managers have rarely agreed on anything. Former Pakistan international Ramiz Raja has described Joe Root's batting display in the second Test at Old Trafford as a masterclass. Saudi Arabia has renewed a fatwa on Pokemon because it violates Islamic rules on gambling and uses images such as Christian crosses and Jewish stars. Brand new app Bubble promises to put tired parents in touch with top quality babysitters. it's got to be worth a try, right? Summer's FINALLY arrived, but are you ready for it? Find out exactly what you need to do to stay cool in the heat. This seemingly simple trick has got us racking our brains trying to figure out the answer... America's First Lady showed she can get down with the best of them... She's got the voice of an angel, but the pop princess also has a wicked sense of humour... The actor is famed for his role as Rocky Balboa but it looks like this little chap is coming for his crown... The hit talk-show is set to invade a screen near you. In the meantime, catch up on all your favourite ever Carpool Karaokes. We've been hit by a heatwave, but don't panic, these cute and practical fans will keep you cool on the go! Regardless of how much mileage you have on your clock this new test claims to be able to calculate a new age for you depending on how well you've looked after yourself. This could be your chance to drop a decade in minutes! A whopping 79% of women lie to their friends and family about the real reason they can’t go out on the town. According to one in ten men a man's place is now well and truly in the kitchen. Recently Played Tracks Find your local four day weather report here. What's happening on the roads where you are? Make Heart the soundtrack to your day and you could be a winner with great prizes up for grabs throughout the day. Find out more about some of the companies advertising on Heart. Get some great ideas on how to advertise your business on radio, online and on mobile. Deposit £10 to get a £40 Welcome Bonus - That's £50 to play bingo, slots and more!*

March 26, 2016 Dear Eastridge Family, Yesterday was Good Friday, the day when Christ suffered and died. Today is Holy Saturday and Sunday is Easter! These three days represent the apex of Christianity’s defining story – that God came to us in Jesus, he suffered and died, descended to the dead and rose from the grave, defeating hell and sin and death. A question that is often asked is this: “What did Jesus do after his death and before his resurrection. Where did he go?” The most common first century Jewish understanding of what happened at death was that the soul of the deceased went to the underworld – to Sheol – the place of the dead (in Greek this place was called Hades). All the dead went there, but within Sheol there were thought to be two regions – Paradise where the righteous dead dwell awaiting the Final Judgment and Gehenna, a place of punishment where the unrighteous dead await the same final judgment. There are a host of different ideas and theories that swirled around these concepts. But you can see them in Jesus’ parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus where the rich man dies and is in a place of suffering, but he can see across a chasm to where Lazarus, the poor man, is being comforted in the bosom of Abraham. We see it too when Jesus says to the thief on the cross, “today you will be with me in Paradise.” The Church has historically taught that Jesus died and descended to the realm of the dead just like anyone else does and that during that time he preached the good news to those who were in the realm of the dead. This is called the “harrowing of hell” (hell being the name often used in the past for the realm of the dead, encompassing both Paradise and Gehenna). I Peter 3:19-20 is often seen as referring to Christ’s proclaiming the good news to those in the realm of the dead. We cannot know for sure what Christ was doing during those hours between his death and resurrection, but this is the traditional answer to the question. · Easter Offering The Easter Offering is for the World Evangelism Fund (WEF). Traditionally, WEF is collected through two large offerings each year “the Thanksgiving and Easter offerings.” The Nazarene Church has always had a strong history of supporting missions through their generous giving through these offerings. The law of harvest states that you may not reap when and where you sow—but you will always reap what you sow. As we prepare to give to this offering, remember it will come back to you (Luke 6:38) and the Lord…will bless you in everything Deuteronomy 15:10. · Easter Sunday March 27th We will start our day with a Continental Breakfast at 9:00 AM – 9:45AM. Followed by our Easter Service at 10:00 AM. We will have Children’s Church as normal followed by our EASTER EGG HUNT. The reason we have scheduled these special activities like Easter Egg hunt and Breakfast is to create an opportunity for us to invite unchurch friends and family to expose them to God’s people or to give them a “nudge” towards Jesus. These activities are not designed to give us something to do. So even if you do not have children who will be participating in the Easter Egg Hunt you may consider staying around to meet new people and show the love of Jesus to them. Your first choice may not include having breakfast at the church but if we look at it from the perspective as an opportunity; an opportunity to visit with guest visitors why not come? · Favorite Quotes of the Week “Before we can begin to see the cross as something done for us, we have to see it as something done by us." - John R.W. Stott [The resurrection] remains the center around which all else is moving, from which all comes, and to which all is leading. - Karl Barth “When Jesus rose from the grave He created a whole new race of people, not defined by color but defined by His blood” – Derwin Gray Eternity is already in session. - Dallas Willard “Children learn to smile from their parents." - Shinichi Suzuki I am so looking forward to celebrating together on Easter,

This Monday marks the seventeenth anniversary of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) bombing in Buenos Aires, which cost the lives of 85 people and left hundreds injured. The target of the attack was a Jewish charities center located in the Argentine capital city and it's considered the worst terrorist attack in the South American country's history. The Argentine government has blamed Iranian officials for the attack and Interpol has issued arrest warrants against several Iranian figures including Defense Minister Gen. Ahmad Vahidi. Argentina's accusations are expected to be reiterated in a report to be issued later this week while Iran has repeatedly denied the charges. "Anita" is a 2009 movie that centers on a girl with Down Syndrome who lived a happy life with her family until the day of the AMIA bombing. The titular character becomes estranged from her loved ones and wanders around Buenos Aires where she meets several colorful characters who try to help her out. Anita evolves into a more independent and mature person while also struggling with being split from her caring family. Marcos Carnevale directed the film that was critically acclaimed and helped Leonor Manso win Best Supporting Actress at the 2009 edition of Argentina's top film awards. Below is the trailer for "Anita", a very touching movie that highlights the pain felt by Argentines as a result of the AMIA bombing: Video Source - YouTube Online Sources - AFP, BBC News, imdb.com

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February 8th 1915 proved to be the start of a memorable sequence of events in the city of Toronto. Carrie Davies, an 18-year-old domestic servant working in the home of Charles Albert ‘Bert’ Massey, shot and killed her employer as he arrived home. She did not try to conceal her […] In 1968 the federally appointed Toronto Harbour Commission (THC), desperate to generate revenue after the dream of a burgeoning Port of Toronto caused by the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway had foundered, drafted a visionary master plan for the development of the Central Toronto Waterfront called “A Bold Concept.” […] The population of the town of Markham has drastically increased over the years and plans for a new hospital were underway as early as the 1950s. During that time, residents predicated that the population was going to increase in the upcoming decades. At the beginning of the 1960s, a campaign […] When discussing J.B. Salsberg, there are two main associations that instantly surface: Jew and Communist. Salsberg was a dominant figure both politically and socially for the twentieth-century Toronto Jewish labour movement. But these words hardly do justice to the depth of this man. It is true that for many decades Salsberg […] By the 1870s many Torontonians had come to accept the necessity of public ownership of its waterworks. The city’s ratepayers – residents who paid property taxes – had approved the takeover of the city’s drinking water services. Since the system needed high expenditures of capital to expand, private interests could not do […] Horses, pigs, cows, and chickens once roamed the streets of Toronto. They lived and worked alongside their human owners, providing vital sources of food and labour for the growing city. This article explores the history of Toronto’s nineteenth-century domestic animals.

36 Animated Old And New Testament DVD Collection Below is a brief description of the 36 Bible stories included in this extensive DVD collection from Nest Learning. John the Baptist Children will be inspired by the courage and conviction of this great prophet who prepares the way for the Lord. The Ministry of Paul Teach the power of faith. Despite being beaten in prison, Paul travels the ancient world and changes history. The Good Samaritan A story of robbers, a Rabbi, a Levite, a wounded traveler and a stranger with a big heart who teaches us to love our neighbors. He Is Risen The most powerful story of all - from Christ's heroic death on the cross to the glorious joy of the resurrection on Easter. The Miracles of Jesus Christ's compassion is evident in these stories of miracles that illustrate His love. Treasures in Heaven Learn the difference between money and riches. Jesus tells how God wants to give us the eternal treasure of salvation. The Parables Of Jesus Three parables, The Talents, The Rich Man and Lazarus, and the Two Sons, are presented together to reinforce important principles. The Prodigal Son This parable tells of the son who comes home to a forgiving father after squandering his share of his inheritance. Saul of Tarsus This story inspires to fight the good fight. A blinding light converts a hardened soldier into a warrior for Christ. Built Upon the Rock Jesus instructs His followers to forgive those who wrong us and to love them through the parable of the House Built Upon the Rock. Jesus, the Son of God Meet the 12-year-old Jesus who astonishes temple elders with His wisdom. Witness His triumph over Satan's temptations. The Kingdom of Heaven In simple language, this series of favorite parables explains Heaven to a child and how to get there. Daniel A young Jewish captive faces the lion's den and becomes a prophet. Esther The Bible's greatest heroine saves the Jewish people with her courage. David and Goliath Armed with only a slingshot and faith in God, David courageously faces a fearsome giant. Elijah A godly prophet overcomes evil as he refuses to worship an idol. Elisha Shows God's power through the working of miracles. Samuel Samuel is called as a youth to be a prophet of God. Experience a mother's faith. The Lost Is Found Through three interweaving stories, this masterful tale shows how Jesus generously extends His mercy to each one back to the fold. The Greatest is the Least Jesus washes the disciples' feet and teaches that the way to greatness is not found in how many serve you, but in how many you serve. The Righteous Judge In the story of the adulterous woman, Jesus teaches that human judgment is inaccurate. He also teaches about God's mercy. Lord, I Believe Through words of comfort and mighty miracles, the Master show us that "all things are possible to him that believeth." Lazarus Lives Lazarus is resurrected after four days and life is restored. Martha, Mary and the others receive Jesus' promise for eternal life. Bread From Heaven The thrilling story of one of Jesus' greatest miracles - the feeding of the 5,000 with a boy's five loaves and two fish. The Lord's Prayer Jesus teaches His followers the importance and great power of sincere prayer. Signs of the Times Jesus teaches His disciples to have humility, repent, and be prepared for the day He comes again. Worthy is the Lamb Through betrayal, abuse and crucifixion, Jesus fulfills every word of His ministry. Forgive Us Our Debts After Peter clashes with a tax collector, Jesus speaks to him about forgiveness. Teach your children how to truly forgive. The King is Born Your child will learn the true story of the first Christmas in this beautifully animated video of Jesus' birth. The Messiah Comes Journey with the disciples as they discover Jesus' mission, deliverance from the bondage of sin and death. Ruth Ruth shows the importance of faithfulness. Joseph in Egypt Though betrayed by his brothers, Joseph demonstrates resolve by remaining faithful to God. Abraham and Isaac Abraham's obedience to God is rewarded through the ultimate test of trust. Solomon Through the power of prayer, Solomon is blessed with immense wisdom. Joseph's Reunion A lesson of love, as Joseph forgives betrayal by his brothers. Moses See how God uses Moses to lead. Learn about the power of faith and obedience. Also comes with *BONUS ITEM* downloadable Resource and Activity Books!

M&T Bank, one of the Baltimore area’s largest corporate givers, committed $333,500 in charitable donations, the majority of which is intended for more than a dozen nonprofit organizations helping Baltimore’s residents and businesses recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. The bank’s contributions approved during its initial grant-making round of 2021 include: - $50,000 to the Associated Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore’s COVID-19 emergency food fund; - $50,000 to sponsor Coppin State University’s Our House mentoring program for incoming freshmen; - $35,000 to Mercy Medical Center in downtown Baltimore; - $30,000 to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF); - $25,000 to support the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore’s new Black-Owned and Operated Storefront Tenancy (BOOST) program; and, - $10,000 to GreenLight Fund, which supports organizations that address urban issues affecting primarily low-income families and children in education, youth development, workforce development, and health care. M&T’s latest donations come after the bank contributed more than $3.5 million to about 240 nonprofit partners in greater Baltimore last year. Like much of the money donated by M&T in 2020, most of the funds allocated this round also target programs providing basic living and health care needs, education, job training and financial relief from hardships brought on by the pandemic. One of those efforts is the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore’s BOOST program. Launched in February 2020, BOOST will provide build-out grants, technical assistance, marketing support, and other important business services to five creative, black-owned small businesses that move into vacant storefronts in downtown Baltimore. M&T’s $25,000 contribution will help cover the cost of the grants intended to spur economic activity in the city’s most densely populated neighborhoods. The bank’s $10,000 donation to the GreenLight Fund addresses needed support for children and families living in poverty in Baltimore City. The fund works with other nonprofit organizations to create a sustainable approach to address the critical needs of low-income communities in urban areas. The GreenLight Fund, which launched in Boston 15 years ago and operates in eight other U.S. cities, is raising money to get underway in Baltimore. As part of this month’s funding, M&T also allocated $75,000 for Baltimore’s arts and entertainment sectors — two industries that have suffered devastating losses because of the pandemic. The bank is contributing $30,000 to the Producers Club of Maryland for the 2021 Maryland Film Festival, $25,000 for the Maryland School for the Arts, and $10,000 to both the Baltimore Museum of Industry and Maryland Science Center. M&T also donated $30,000 to this year’s Maryland SPCA of Baltimore’s Virtual Festival for the Animals.

As we do every year, we attended the NY Comic Con with the little Jewdars another way in which the comic book universe tends to fail in diversity while it pretends to care is that characters seem to be various versions of the same physical type--in shape, when in fact, just looking around the country, it seems pretty likely that were an average, random American to get super powers, he or she would be a bit on the doughy side of things. Because as a Jew who always wanted to see Jewish characters, we get it. We don’t claim to be in the same position, because as a white guy, we could still see plenty of white guys to identify with or dream about being like, but we get it enough to want black kids or latino kids or gay kids to pick up a comic book and read stories about people like them. As the Wonder Woman display at Comic Con this past weekend shows, Israeli sheyna punim Gal Gadot (in the old country, that was pronounced "Greenstein") has been given a place front and center as the current brightest star in the Amazon princess' galaxy. He's gone from head writer on Jon Stewart's The Daily Show to the brains behind one of the funnest - and funniest - Marvel Comics stories in ages. Elliott Kalan chats with HEEB about comedy, comic books, and his cult podcast "Flop House" When Jewdar heard that superhero Atom Smasher, aka, Albert Rothstein, was going to be appearing on season premier of The Flash, we were pretty jazzed. Until... Lots of people struggle with mental illness, and most of them don't go around trying to poison the water supply of major metropolitan areas. Indeed, many of them go on to do some remarkable things. From New Gods to punching Hitler, we chat with historian and designer Arlen Schumer to find out what made Jack Kirby the king of comics. Listen up Hollywood, this is how you do right by Ben Grimm.

|Part of a series on| |Category Portal WikiProject| |Repentance in Judaism Teshuva |Repentance, atonement and higher ascent in Judaism |In the Hebrew Bible| |Altars · Korban Temple in Jerusalem Prophecy within the Temple |Confession · Atonement Love of God · Awe of God Meditation · Services Tzedakah · Mitzvot |In the Jewish calendar| |Month of Elul · Selichot Shofar · Tashlikh Ten Days of Repentance Kapparot · Mikveh Sukkot · Simchat Torah Ta'anit · Tisha B'Av Passover · The Omer |In contemporary Judaism| |Baal Teshuva movement Mikveh (sometimes spelled as mikvah, or either way without the ending -"h") (Hebrew: מִקְוֶה / מקווה, Modern Mikve Tiberian Miqwā; plural: mikva'ot or mikves (Yiddish) Hebrew: מִקְוֶוֹת / מִקְוָאות) is a bath used for the purpose of ritual immersion in Judaism. The word "mikveh", as used in the Hebrew Bible, literally means a "collection" – generally, a collection of water. Several biblical regulations specify that full immersion in water is required to regain ritual purity after ritually impure incidents have occurred. Most forms of impurity can be nullified through immersion in any natural collection of water. However, some impurities, such as a Zav, require "living water," such as springs or groundwater wells. Living water has the further advantage of being able to purify even while flowing, as opposed to rainwater which must be stationary in order to purify. The mikveh is designed to simplify this requirement, by providing a bathing facility that remains in ritual contact with a natural source of water. Its main uses nowadays are: - by Jewish women to achieve ritual purity after menstruation or childbirth; - by Jewish men to achieve ritual purity (see details below); - as part of a traditional procedure for conversion to Judaism; - for utensils used for food. In Orthodox Judaism, these regulations are steadfastly adhered to, and consequently the mikveh is central to an Orthodox Jewish community, and they formally hold in Conservative Judaism as well. The existence of a mikveh is considered so important in Orthodox Judaism, that an Orthodox community is required to construct a mikveh before building a synagogue, and must go to the extreme of selling Torah scrolls or even a synagogue if necessary, to provide funding for the construction. Reform Judaism and Reconstructionist Judaism regard the biblical regulations as anachronistic to some degree, and consequently do not put much importance on the existence of a mikveh. Some opinions within Conservative Judaism have sought to retain the ritual requirements of a mikveh while recharacterizing the theological basis of the ritual in concepts other than ritual purity. Ancient mikvehs dating from before the late first century can be found throughout the land of Israel as well as in historic communities of the Jewish diaspora. In modern times, mikvehs can be found in most communities in Orthodox Judaism. Jewish funeral homes may have a mikveh for immersing a body during the purification procedure (tahara) before burial. Requirements of a mikveh The traditional rules regarding the construction of a mikveh are based on those specified in classical rabbinical literature. According to these rules, a mikveh must be connected to a natural spring or well of naturally occurring water, and thus can be supplied by rivers and lakes which have natural springs as their source. A cistern filled by the rain is also permitted to act as a mikveh's water supply. Similarly snow, ice and hail are allowed to act as the supply of water to a mikveh, as long as it melts in a certain manner. A river that dries up on a regular basis cannot be used because it is presumed to be mainly rainwater, which cannot purify while flowing. Oceans for the most part have the status of natural springs. A mikveh must, according to the classical regulations, contain enough water to cover the entire body of an average-sized person; based on a mikveh with the dimensions of 3 cubits long, 1 cubit wide, and 1 cubit deep, the necessary volume of water was estimated as being 40 seah of water. The exact volume referred to by a seah is debated, and classical rabbinical literature specifies only that it is enough to fit 144 eggs; most Orthodox Jews use the stringent ruling of the Avrohom Yeshaya Karelitz, according to which one seah is 14.3 litres, and therefore a mikveh must contain approximately 575 litres. This volume of water could be topped up with water from any source, but if there were less than 40 seahs of water in the mikveh, then the addition of 3 or more pints of water from an unnatural source would render the mikveh unfit for use, regardless of whether water from a natural source was then added to make up 40 seahs from a natural source; a mikveh rendered unfit for use in this way would need to be completely drained away and refilled from scratch. There are also classical requirements for the manner in which the water can be stored and transported to the pool; the water must flow naturally to the mikveh from the source, which essentially means that it must be supplied by gravity or a natural pressure gradient, and the water cannot be pumped there by hand or carried. It was also forbidden for the water to pass through any vessel which could hold water within it (however pipes open to the air at both ends are fine) As a result, tap water could not be used as the primary water source for a mikveh, although it can be used to top the water up to a suitable level. To avoid issues with these rules in large cities, various methods are employed to establish a valid mikveh. One is that tap water is made to flow over the top of a kosher mikveh, and through a conduit into a larger pool. A second method is to create a mikveh in a deep pool, place a floor with holes over that and then fill the upper pool with tap water. In this way, the person dipping is actually "in" the pool of rain water. Most contemporary mikvehs are indoor constructions, involving rain water collected from a cistern, and passed through a duct by gravity into an ordinary bathing pool; the mikveh can be heated, taking into account certain rules, often resulting in an environment not unlike a spa. Reasons for immersion in a Mikveh Historic reasons Traditionally, the mikveh was used by both men and women to regain ritual purity after various events, according to regulations laid down in the Torah and in classical rabbinical literature. The Torah requires full immersion - after Keri — normal emissions of semen, whether from sexual activity, or from nocturnal emission; bathing in a mikveh due to Keri is known as tevilath Ezra (“the immersion of Ezra”); - after Zav/Zavah — abnormal discharges of body fluids; - after Tzaraath — certain skin condition(s). These are termed lepra in the Septuagint, and therefore traditionally translated into English as leprosy; this is probably a translation error, as the Greek term lepra mostly refers to psoriasis, and the Greek term for leprosy was elephas/elephantiasis. - by anyone who came into contact with someone suffering from Zav/Zavah, or into contact with someone still in Niddah (normal menstruation), or who comes into contact with articles that have been used or sat upon by such persons. - by Jewish priests when they are being consecrated; - by the Jewish high priest on Yom Kippur, after sending away the goat to Azazel, and by the man who leads away the goat; - by the Jewish priest who performed the Red Heifer ritual; - after contact with a corpse or grave, in addition to having the ashes of the Red Heifer ritual sprinkled upon them; - after eating meat from an animal that died naturally Classical rabbinical writers conflated the rules for zavah and niddah. It also became customary for priests to fully immerse themselves before Jewish holidays, and the laity of many communities subsequently adopted this practice. Converts to Judaism are required to undergo full immersion in water. R' Aryeh Kaplan in Waters of Life connects the laws of impurity to the narrative in the beginning of Genesis. According to Genesis, by eating of the fruit, Adam and Eve had brought death into the world. Kaplan points out that most of the laws of impurity relate to some form of death (or in the case of Niddah the loss of a potential life). One who comes into contact with one of the forms of death must then immerse in water which is described in Genesis as flowing out of the Garden of Eden (the source of life) in order to cleanse oneself of this contact with death (and by extension of sin). In Modern Judaism Orthodox Judaism Orthodox Judaism generally adheres to the classical regulations and traditions, and consequently Orthodox Jewish women are obligated to immerse in a mikveh between Niddah and sexual relations with their husbands. This includes brides before their marriage, and married women after their menstruation period or childbirth. In accordance with Orthodox rules concerning modesty, men and women are required to immerse in separate mikveh facilities in separate locations, or to use the mikveh at different designated times. Converts to Orthodox Judaism, regardless of gender, are also required to immerse in a mikveh. It is customary for Orthodox Jews to immerse before Yom Kippur, and married women sometimes do so as well. In the customs of certain Jewish communities, men also use a mikveh before Jewish holidays; the men in certain communities, especially hasidic and haredi groups, also practice immersion before each Shabbat, and some immerse in a mikveh every single day. Although the Temple Mount is treated by many Orthodox Jewish authorities as being forbidden territory, a small number of groups permit access, but require immersion before ascending the Mount as a precaution. Orthodox Judaism requires that vessels and utensils must be immersed in a mikveh before being used for food, if they had been purchased from a non-Jew. Obligatory immersion in Orthodox Judaism Immersion in a mikveh is obligatory in contemporary Orthodox Jewish practice in the following circumstances: - Either gender. - As part of a conversion to Judaism - Immersion of utensils acquired from a gentile Customary immersion in Orthodox Judaism Immersion in a mikveh is customary in contemporary Orthodox Jewish practice in the following circumstances: - By a bridegroom, on the day of his wedding, according to the custom of some communities - By a father, prior to the circumcision of his son, according to the custom of some communities[which?]. - By a kohen prior to a service in which he will recite the priestly blessing, according to the custom of some communities - Before Yom Kippur, according to the custom of some communities - Before a Jewish holiday, according to the custom of some communities - Weekly before Shabbat, under Hasidic and Haredi customs - Every day, under Hasidic customs Conservative Judaism In a series of responsa on the subject of Niddah in December 2006, the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of Conservative Judaism reaffirmed a requirement that Conservative women use a mikveh monthly following the end of the niddah period following menstruation, while adapting certain leniencies including reducing the length of the period. The three responsa adapted permit a range of approaches from an opinion reaffirming the traditional ritual to an opinion declaring the concept of ritual purity does not apply outside the Temple in Jerusalem, proposing a new theological basis for the ritual, adapting new terminology including renaming the observances related to menstruation from taharat hamishpacha family purity to kedushat hamishpaha [family holiness] to reflect the view that the concept of ritual purity is no longer considered applicable, and adopting certain leniencies including reducing the length of the niddah period. Isaac Klein's A Guide to Jewish Religious Practice, a comprehensive guide frequently used within Conservative Judaism also addresses Conservative views on other uses of a mikveh, but because it predates the 2006 opinions it describes an approach more closely resembling the Orthodox one and does not address the leniencies and views those opinions reflected. Rabbi Miriam Berkowitz's recent book Taking the Plunge: A Practical and Spiritual Guide to the Mikveh (Jerusalem: Schechter Institute, 2007) offers a comprehensive discussion of contemporary issues and new mikveh uses along with traditional reasons for observance, details of how to prepare and what to expect, and how the laws developed. Conservative Judaism encourages but does not require immersion before Jewish Holidays (including Yom Kippur), nor the immersion of utensils purchased from non-Jews. New uses are being developed throughout the liberal world for healing (after rape, incest, divorce etc.) or celebration (milestone birthdays, anniversaries, ordination, or reading Torah for the first time). As in Orthodox Judaism, converts to Judaism through the Conservative movement are required to immerse themselves in a mikveh. Two Jews must witness the event, at least one of which must actually see the immersion. Immersion into a mikveh has been described as a very emotional, life-changing experience similar to a graduation. Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism do not hold the halachic requirements of mikveh the way Orthodox Judaism does. However, there are growing trends toward using mikveh for conversions, wedding preparation, and even before holidays. While most Reform Jews will probably never see the inside of a mikveh, there are many (particularly converts) who will fulfill the mitzvah at least once in their lives. Requirements during use of a mikveh The classical requirement for full immersion was traditionally interpreted as requiring water to literally touch every part of the body, and for this reason all clothing, jewellery, and even bandages must be removed; in a contemporary mikveh used by women, there is usually an experienced attendant, commonly called the mikveh lady, to watch the immersion and ensure that the woman has been entirely covered in water. According to rabbinical tradition, the hair counts as part of the body, and therefore water is required to touch all parts of it, thus meaning that braids cannot be worn during immersion; this has resulted in debate between the different ethnic groups within Judaism, about whether hair combing is necessary before immersion. The Ashkenazi community generally supports the view that hair must be combed straight so that there are no knots, but some Black Jews take issue with this stance, particularly when it comes to dreadlocks. A number of rabbinical rulings argue in support of dreadlocks, on the basis that - dreadlocks can sometimes be loose enough to become thoroughly saturated with water, particularly if the person had first showered - combing dreadlocked hair can be painful - although a particularly cautious individual would consider a single knotted hair as an obstruction, in most cases hair is loose enough for water to pass through it, unless each hair is individually knotted Allegorical uses of the term Mikveh The word mikveh makes use of the same root letters in Hebrew as the word for "hope" and this has served as the basis for homiletical comparison of the two concepts in both biblical and rabbinic literature. For instance, in the Book of Jeremiah, the word mikveh is used in the sense of "hope," but at the same time also associated with "living water": - O Hashem, the Hope [mikveh] of Israel, all who forsake you will be ashamed ... because they have forsaken Hashem, the fountain of living water - Are there any of the worthless idols of the nations, that can cause rain? or can the heavens give showers? Is it not you, Hashem our God, and do we not hope [nekaveh] in you? For you have made all these things. In the Mishnah, following on from a discussion about Yom Kippur, immersion in a Mikveh is compared by Rabbi Akiva with the relationship between God and Israel. Akiva refers to the description of God in the Book of Jeremiah as the "Mikveh of Israel", and suggests that "just as a mikveh purifies the contaminated, so does the Holy One, blessed is he, purify Israel". A different allegory is used by many Jews adhering to a belief in resurrection as one of the Thirteen Principles of Faith. Since "living water" in a lifeless frozen state (as ice) is still likely to again become living water (after melting), it became customary in traditional Jewish bereavement rituals to read the seventh chapter of the Mikvaot tractate in the Mishnah, following a funeral; the Mikvaot tractate covers the laws of the mikveh, and the seventh chapter starts with a discussion of substances which can be used as valid water sources for a mikveh - snow, hail, frost, ice, salt, and pourable mud. See also - Conversion to Judaism - Mikva'ot - section of the Mishnah discussing the laws pertaining to the building and maintenance of a mikveh. - Ritual washing in Judaism - Bath (unit) - Sivan, Reuven; Edward A Levenston (1975). The New Bantam-Megiddo Hebrew & English dictionary. Toronto; New York: Bantam Books. ISBN 0-553-26387-0. - Lauden, Edna (2006). Multi Dictionary. Tel Aviv: Ad Publications. p. 397. ISBN 965-390-003-X. - Jewish Encyclopedia - Leviticus 15:13 - Berlin, Meshib Dabar, 2:45 - Sifra on Leviticus 11:36 - Mikvaot 7:1. - Eruvin 4b - Yoma 31a - Numbers Rabbah, 18:17 - about 3 Koku, about 116 qafiz, about 126 Imperial Gallons, about 143 Burmese tins, and about 150 U.S. liquid gallons - Mikvaot 3. - Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah 201:36 - 15:16&verse=&src=! Leviticus 15:16 - 15:13&verse=&src=! Leviticus 15:13 - 14:6-9&verse=&src=! Leviticus 14:6-9 - 15:5-10&verse=&src=! Leviticus 15:5-10 - 15:19-27&verse=&src=! Leviticus 15:19-27 ; - 29:4&verse=&src=! Exodus 29:4 , 40:12&verse=&src=! Exodus 40:12 - 16:24&verse=&src=! Leviticus 16:24 , 16:26&verse=&src=! , 16:28&verse=&src=! - 19:7-8&verse=&src=! Numbers 19:7-8 - 19:19&verse=&src=! Numbers 19:19 - 17:15&verse=&src=! Leviticus 17:15 - Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chayim, 581:4 and 606:4 - Rabbi Miriam Berkowitz, Mikveh and the Sanctity of Family Relations, Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, Rabbinical Assembly, December 6, 2006 - Rabbi Susan Grossman, MIKVEH AND THE SANCTITY OF BEING CREATED HUMAN, Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, Rabbinical Assembly, December 6, 2006[dead link] - Rabbi Avram Reisner, OBSERVING NIDDAH IN OUR DAY: AN INQUIRY ON THE STATUS OF PURITY AND THE PROHIBITION OF SEXUAL ACTIVITY WITH A MENSTRUANT, Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, Rabbinical Assembly, December 6, 2006[dead link] - Rabbi Miriam Berkowitz, RESHAPING THE LAWS OF FAMILY PURITY FOR THE MODERN WORLD, Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, Rabbinical Assembly, December 6, 2006 - Freudenheim, Susan. "Becoming Jewish: Tales from the Mikveh." Jewish Journal. 8 May 2013. 8 May 2013. - "Sue Fishkoff, Reimagining the Mikveh, Reform Judaism Magazine, Fall 2008". Reformjudaismmag.org. Retrieved 2012-12-25. - Kolel Menachem, Kitzur Dinei Taharah: A Digest of the Niddah Laws Following the Rulings of the Rebbes of Chabad (Brooklyn, New York: Kehot Publication Society, 2005). - Jeremiah 17:13 - Jeremiah 14:22 - Yoma 85b - Isaac Klein, A Guide to Jewish Religious Practice, JTS Press, New York, 1992 - Kolel Menachem, Kitzur Dinei Taharah: A Digest of the Niddah Laws Following the Rulings of the Rebbes of Chabad, Kehot Publication Society, Brooklyn, New York, 2005 |Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Mikvaot| - Global Mikvah Directory (Mikvah.org) - The Mikvah, by Rivkah Slonim (Chabad.org) - The Mikvah: A Spiritual Experience - Pathways to the Sacred video clip with Anita Diamant - Mikvahs / Mikveh: Immersion in the Bible - Europe's Oldest Mikveh in Syracuse, Italy - Purification Rituals in Mediaeval Judaism - Videos made by scientists of the German Research Foundation for DFG Science TV

Neo-Darwinian Thought and Human History Slightly amended version of a paper delivered on the 2nd of April 2004 Georgia Association of Historians Kennesaw State University Dr. Thomas H. Keene Professor of History Kennesaw State University In the history of science, the eighteenth century is sometimes called Newton’s century because of the far-reaching way Newton’s ideas influenced thinking in the one hundred years after his work. Newton’s way of studying nature, and the conclusions he reached, not only influenced every branch of science, they profoundly altered humans’ sense of themselves. In our own time updated versions of the evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin are having the same impact. Many people, in America as elsewhere, continue to find Darwin’s ideas unsettling for religious reasons. Others fear that applications of Darwinian thought in any form to human history will tend to legitimize racist, colonialist, and sexist thinking. But neo-Darwinian thought of recent decades is a far cry from Social Darwinism of the late 19th century. The insights it offers into human nature and social development are vastly more nuanced. New evolutionary thinking tied to advances in genetic research, game theory, and computer applications has had a tremendous impact on the social and biological sciences in the last decade. More historians should consider the explanatory value of the neo-Darwinians work. Charles Darwin was far from being the first advocate of the idea of living species developing through an evolutionary process. What set Darwin’s ideas apart, what gave them great explanatory power, was the clarity with which he specified the evolutionary process. To understand the later impact of Darwinian thought it is vital for us also to be completely clear on his core ideas. Darwin believed biological evolution occurred in two stages, (1) random variation and (2) natural selection. For Darwin, variations -- what we today sometimes call mutations -- occur only occasionally between generations. These variations have no direction, no goal. They are random. Most do not persist. The reason they do not is the process Darwin called natural selection. Most major variations actually weaken the individual organism, reducing its chances of reproducing. So such variations quickly disappear. But a few changes, or packages of changes, make the individual organism stronger -- that is, better adapted to current conditions. Such variations enhance its chances of surviving and successfully reproducing. Because the survival rates are better for the improved version of the organism, over time the variations spread throughout the species as a whole. A third component of Darwin’s model was species divergence. Divergence explains how the process of variation and selection, which began with single-celled organisms, has resulted in such a profusion of organisms, many highly complex. Species survive by finding a niche in the mixture of life forms among which they live. Variations that permit some individuals to occupy a new, less competitive niche, or a more specialized version of an old one, are highly advantageous. Over time organisms filling new, more specialized niches may become new species altogether. That is, species diverge toward greater specialization. Each round of new species, in turn creates a more complex ecology with ever more opportunities for further specialization. It is true that a sudden and catastrophic change in the climate can sharply reverse the tendency to specialization. But during the long intervals between such catastrophies, for hundreds of thousand of years on the earth, Darwinian divergence has slowly built up more and more specialized environments. Thus the operation of the three-part system (variation, selection and divergence) has produced the complex ecosystems we see today. The most outspoken critics of Darwin’s ideas were of course those who objected that the process he described made no mention of God. Indeed, almost 150 years after the publication of The Origin of the Species, that discussion continues, not least in my home state in the U. S., where there was a public furor over the teaching of evolution just in recent weeks. But that is a subject for another day. We are here concerned, not with Darwin’s critics, but rather with those who enthusiastically embraced his ideas, or at least a simplified version of them. It is scarcely surprising that Darwin’s ideas were quickly applied to human social development, for that was where Darwin got them in the first place. Like most scientists in every age, Darwin drew his models from the intellectual currents of his time. He was deeply influenced by liberal economists like Adam Smith and David Ricardo, with their ideas about forces weeding out inefficient enterprises. Darwin gave particular credit to Thomas Malthus’ argument that human population increases tended to outstrip the expansion in food supply, thus setting cruel limits to demographic growth. Darwin simply applied this way of thinking to understand change in the natural world. But popularizers of Darwin’s work, like Herbert Spencer, went beyond merely connecting biological and human development. They used evolutionary thinking to explain Europe’s ascendancy in the late 19th century world. Spencer was enormously popular. He coined the phrase “survival of the fittest,” and even popularized the word evolution, which Darwin rarely used. In innumerable lectures and many popular books Spencer argued that evolution provided a clear and scientific explanation for the superiority of European culture, and the white race. In fact, Spencer’s theories of social development were not purely Darwinian, but rather an amalgam of Darwin’s ideas and those of Jean-Baptist Lamarck. Across Europe, major scholars like Emile Durkheim and Max Weber soon discredited such thinking. They argued human cultures were discrete entities that entirely transcended human biological origins. Despite this, well into the twentieth century, long after the scholarly dismissals, so-called Social Darwinist thought continued to be widely accepted. Nowhere were such ideas more influential than in America, where they were routinely used to justify inhumane industrial and colonial policies. At the beginning of the twentieth century in America, non-scientist supporters typically saw evolution as God’s way of engineering progress. Advocates ranged from semi-literate, racist Social Darwinists to well-educated, perfectly humane clergymen. Evolution and progress, they believed, went hand in hand, whether the progress be material or moral. But by the 1920s, breakthroughs in physics and genetics provided compelling evidence for an evolutionary process such as Darwin had originally envisioned, without the Lamarckian elements -- that is, a model featuring much randomness and quite without direction. “Classical” non-progressivist Darwinism was fully confirmed in the scientific community. The idea of evolution as God’s way of engineering a progressive world was now difficult to sustain. Social Darwinism began to lose its following. Great events also played a role. During the First World War, citizens of the supposedly advanced nations slaughtered one another by the hundreds of thousands. Then in quick succession the Depression, Totalitarianism, World War II and the Jewish Holocaust knocked for a loop all but the sturdiest historical optimists. Nazi and fascist use of crude Social Darwinist arguments underlined the dangers of applying notions of Darwinian struggle to human affairs. Meanwhile on the totalitarian left, Stalin’s clumsy effort to revive a Lamarckian view of biological evolution only served further to discredit any linking of biological and human history. Evolution and politics was evidently a toxic combination. For a decade or more after the Second World War a strong anti-positivist streak ran through the social sciences. Darwinian evolution was strictly reserved for the biology department. Any thinking that suggested a biological influence on human society was quickly dismissed. Yet by the mid-1960s a new generation of zoologists began to discern Darwinian processes not only in the physiological history of animals, but in their social adaptations as well. The start came when William Hamilton noted the adaptational advantages of altruistic behavior at the cellular level. Genetically identical cells often sacrificed themselves to benefit mates. Hamilton applied this thinking to studies of insects and birds, concluding that apparently altruistic behavior wasn’t so selfless after all. Both in sexual selection and in parenting, seemingly suicidal behavior had clear adaptational advantages. It strengthened the survival chances of offspring. Hamilton’s concept of kin-directed altruism is the foundation of neo-Darwinian thinking. Before long, Robert Trivers, a more combative personality than Hamilton, publicly argued for a genetic explanation of even the most intimate and culturally charged human affairs: romantic love, parental affection and even marital infidelity. Hamilton’s and Trivers’ key contribution was their suggestion that the crucial unit in Darwinian adaptation was not the individual organism, but rather individual genes. Whether a particular characteristic proves adaptive, they demonstrated, was a function not of the survival of an individual organism, but of the survival of a particular gene, or bundle of genes. That mothers instinctively sacrifice their lives for their children is not an adaptational advantage for the mother, who may die prematurely as a direct result of the instinct. Nor need it promote the survival of her daughters; having inherited the instinct, they may also sacrifice themselves for their children. It is however plainly an advantage for the genes that the mother and children share. At the time, one wag put the new argument this way: “The chicken is just the eggs way of reproducing itself.” That got students’ attention, but was not quite the point. Both the chicken and the eggs are, in a sense, merely elements in the reproductive strategy of their shared genes. E. O. Wilson, a student of insect behavior, pulled together much of this work in his 1975 synthesis Sociobiology. Wilson was widely criticized, even though he was extremely guarded in his applications to human society. Only when thus baited, did Wilson publish On Human Nature, a more explicit discussion of sociobiology’s implications for humans. Richard Dawkins, a British zoologist with a flair for popular writing, and for controversy, had none of Wilson’s reticence. Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene was a best seller and, together with Wilson’s work, provoked powerful opponents. Steven Jay Gould, a Harvard paleontologist and perhaps America’s most popular science writer, led the attack on sociobiology. Gould had no doubt that the emergence of human reasoning and language abilities meant a complete break with biological Darwinian evolution. Natural history is ruled by chance and is without direction, while human history is a matter of conscious choice and purposeful striving. Gould’s point of view was fully in accord with American liberal tastes. First, the hand of God is kept at a distance and the fundamentalists are held at bay. Second, human history is about rational and moral choices; biology is emphatically not destiny. But despite Gould’s brilliant dismissals, the neo-Darwinists continued to push into once forbidden territory. During the 1980s and early 90s, the Darwinists gained powerful new analytical tools: greatly improved computer modeling techniques, breakthroughs in genetics, and an explosion in the use of game theory. By the mid-90s a new, if still contested, paradigm emerged that argued for a significant Darwinian role in our understanding of human society. The new thinking has come on two fronts. First, many studies demonstrate that a wide range of behaviors that previously seemed to be culturally driven have a biological basis. An influential example is the fifteen-year study of child abuse and pedocide by Martin Daly and Margo Wilson. Their study revealed that in households with a step-father (that is, an unrelated male), children were from 10 to 100 times more likely to suffer serious physical abuse, including injuries that result in death, than in households with a biological father. This was true in all five societies they studied. David Buss and others have likewise shown that some sexual selection preferences are universal, and thus apparently have a biological basis. In every culture, males place greater value on physical appearance, while females are more attracted to wealth and status. A related conclusion from a recent study will come as no surprise to advertisers, nor perhaps to many women. The mere sight of beautiful women, it seems, makes men markedly more inclined to spend money. In his book The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, Steven Pinker surveys a large and persuasive list of studies along these lines. He demonstrates that, contrary to John Locke’s idea of a tabula rasa, biology retains a significant impact on human behavior. The neo-Darwinists’ second claim involves the assertion that the new evolutionary thinking could profitably be used to examine interaction within social groups, and by extension, to analyze human history. A major problem with efforts to apply Darwinian thinking to social development is the lack of any distinct unit of transmission like the gene. The British sociologist W. G. Runciman picked up on Richard Dawkins’ suggestion of the term meme, for a unit of cultural transmission. For example Runciman identified four memes, or “bundles of instruction and obligation,” that supported the bonding and the code of honor among hoplite warriors in classical Greece: 1. The ‘always be ready to go to war’ meme. 2. The ‘commemorate the fallen’ meme. 3. The ‘dedicate the spoils to the gods’ meme. 4. The ‘avoid shame and guilt’ meme. Each of these bundles was itself a complex of ideas and norms. Taken together, Runciman argued, they constituted a powerful basis for the hoplites’ code of honor. They could be transmitted severally or as a package, as conditions warranted. New memes could be generated continuously during day-to-day life. Most memes, like most biological variations, do not prove adaptive. But a few survive the historical selection process and help to transform society, thus creating a new social context in which still more memes will be generated. Runciman also took up the crucial question of self-awareness and intentionality. Critics contend that the Darwinian model became irrelevant when humans became self-aware and approached problem-solving with conscious intent. For Homo sapiens, they argue, new variations are not random, they are rationally conceived. The selection process is also much impacted by conscious choice; it is not just an external process. While granting that self-awareness does give an added dimension to the evolutionary process, Runciman contends the significance of intentionality is less than meets the eye. First, few human choices are fully intentional. We are programmed by our language, our culture and our situation – by the memes we share with those around us. Moreover, in those rare instances where truly creative, original thought takes place, the process is far less intentional than is supposed. Creative people generate tremendous numbers of ideas, not in any particular order or drawing much on their reasoning powers. That is why we make a distinction between analytical and creative thinking. Creative people use their reasoning ability, rather, to project the possible consequences of each idea, discarding those that do not work, and selecting the few that may. Reason gives humans the ability to conduct quick thought experiments so they do not have to test all ideas in the real world. Nonetheless, the human creative process closely parallels Darwin’s model of random variation followed by natural selection. Other neo-Darwinist thinkers argue that no social equivalent of the biological gene is necessary, in part because biology has wired humans to certain social tendencies. Robert Trivers’ concept of reciprocal altruism is the foundation of their thinking. Building on his own and William Hamilton’s idea of kin selected altruism, Trivers showed that a slow build-up of trust and cooperation was a key element in many complex animal societies. Individuals with a predisposition to trust and cooperate with others had adaptational advantages over loners and misanthropes. But they could not trust uncritically, for undetected cheaters would make out best of all freeloading in a general atmosphere of trust. An inclination to trust must be matched with sharp eye for cheaters and ruthless punishment of them when detected. Trivers’ thinking was supported by Robert Axelrod’s early work in game theory. Axelrod became intrigued with the Prisoner’s Dilemma and other games that turned on choices of trust and betrayal, or, if you will, altruistic cooperation or selfish cheating. Axelrod set up a number of computer programs that sought to simulate evolution, and invited other game theorists to submit programs that represented adaptational strategies. The study was thus a kind of tournament of strategies for evolution as simulated by Axelrod’s various programs. The winner of this competition was Anatol Rapaport’s strategy called “Tit for Tat.” Like many good ideas, Rapaport’s strategy was simple but elegant. On the first encounter with any opposing program it would cooperate. On every future encounter it would whatever the opposing program had done on the immediately previous encounter. It rewarded cooperation with cooperation and punish cheating with cheating. Informed the Tit for Tat was the strategy to beat, opponents specifically designed programs to beat it. Rapaport still won. Not only did Rapaport’s program win the competition but, the longer simulations ran, the more it tended to build up a network of stable, trusting cooperative relationships that were beneficial to all involved. Robert Wright, a respected science writer, drew from the recent neo-Darwinian scholarship to produce two popular books that synthesized the impact of the new thinking. In his first book, The Moral Animal, Wright made extensive use of Trivers concept of reciprocal altruism to explain how social animals, including humans, developed patterns of mutually beneficial cooperation. He concluded that human “conscience and sympathy and even love, [are] all grounded ultimately in genetic self-interest.” Wright next turned to human history. Zero and Nonzero In Nonzero and the Logic of Human Destiny, Wright offered a synthesis of the neo-Darwinians’ work and its application to human history. At the heart of the book are two arguments: First, Wright noted recent work that asserted, contrary to classical Darwinism, that biological evolution in fact has a direction. It has no particular goal, to be sure, but does have a general direction, which grows out of Darwin’s principle of divergence. That principle, it will be recalled, notes the tendency to greater specialization in life-forms because more specialized forms are often better adapted to particular conditions. Each new more specialized life form in turn creates a more complex ecosystem and opportunities for still more specialization. And so on. The direction of biological evolution, Wright noted, was the same as in the evolution of human societies; that is, persistent, if often interrupted, movement toward higher levels of social specialization. Second, Wright contended that, in natural as in human history, cooperative, win-win strategies have persistently had adaptational advantages. Cooperation works. Hence the title of his book. A zero-sum game is one in which all participants fight for a portion of fixed sum of money. Each participant’s gain is the others’ loss, for it removes a portion of the prize from the table. That is how much competition works. But, Wright concluded, life is not purely a zero sum game. Despite much competition, both in nature and in human society, cooperation is frequent and highly adaptive. Life is not a fight over a fixed sum, because cooperation can increase overall wealth so there is more for everyone. Beginning as single cells, genetically distinct organisms joined in ever more intricate symbiotic relationships to form the complex organisms that populate today’s natural world. In the same way, in human history simple social structures gave way to more complex ones because of the overwhelming advantages of cooperation and specialization. Increased social complexity develops because historical selection rewards groups that accept the social restraint necessary for cooperation while simultaneously using efficient communication methods (like literacy) to negotiate and enforce mutually beneficial compromises. On the other hand, historical selection tends to punish individuals and groups that are unable to establish the communication and trust necessary to cooperate with and learn from their neighbors. I believe that in the Moral Animal and Nonzero Wright got the significance of neo-Darwinian thinking on human social development about right. I have also been much influenced by the works of Jared Diamond, Steven Pinker, and Frank Sulloway. Before proceeding to elaborate these views and to apply them to the current scene, I would be remiss if I did not mention that all do not share my enthusiasm for neo-Darwinian thinking. In addition to methodological doubts, objections have come from both left and right on the political spectrum. In both cases the critics argue from an admirably moral point of view, for which I have the deepest respect. On the right, critics influenced by traditional religious beliefs reject the very idea of Darwinian evolution, even if it is not applied to humans. They find it quite inconceivable that human emotions like love and compassion could have their origin in the material biological world. There must be something else. Meanwhile, on the left, many critics fear any argument that even implies support for biological determinism will strengthen the hand of racist and reactionary forces. They think the case is weak, and that it is dangerous and unwise to treat it as respectable. Steven Jay Gould, who had challenged the sociobiologists in the 1970s, continued fighting on this line right up to his all too premature death 2002. Not The 19th Century Version Despite his brilliant contributions in many areas, I believe Steven Jay Gould overestimated the danger that neo-Darwinist thinking poses. Take the example of colonialism. Early Social Darwinists saw colonialism as simply the introduction of Europe’s superior social arrangements into a new situation. This was historically moral, the White Man’s Burden. But in light of neo-Darwinian thinking their analysis looks wildly over-simple. It does not take into account how disruptive colonial arrangements were to functioning societies, or how psychologically traumatic the process was for millions of people. Valuable new ideas were doubtless introduced into colonies. But elaborate arrangements of reciprocal altruism and nonzero behaviors that had been built up over many centuries suffered tremendous damage. Assessing colonialism is thus a complex calculus, to neo-Darwinists as to other thoughtful observers. In short, this is not 19th century Social Darwinism. The political implications of the new Darwinist ideas are almost the opposite of the old. The early social evolutionists believed that the laws of history, like the laws of Newtonian physics, were highly deterministic. Modern European society, they were sure, was the inevitable outcome of a predetermined plan for mankind. We now appreciate that the evolutionary process is highly contingent, that is to say it is a historical process. It is messy, often ironic, and always unpredictable. While there may be a broad movement toward greater complexity and specialization, the exact form that complexity takes is quite unpredictable. A famous episode in historiography illustrates the difference in the two ways of thinking. In the 1930s Herbert Butterfield criticized the so-called Whig historians because they presented their heroes in British history, the Protestant opponents of the Stuart kings, in terms that mostly resembled the British present. The tradition of religious freedom was well established in late Victorian Britain. Whig historians credited their Protestant forebearers with bringing that about. But many of the Protestants who fought Charles I and James II did not actually want freedom of religion; they wanted to impose their religious and social views on everyone else. It was only because they, like the Stuarts, failed in their quest that they settled, not entirely happily, on the principle of freedom of religion. The end result was less due to the farsightedness and genius of Protestant Whig statesmen than to a haphazard process set in motion by people whose aims were quite different than the ultimate outcome. It is hard to sustain a Newtonian deterministic view of history in the face of such irony and complexity. But this course of events is perfectly in keeping with the neo-Darwinian perspective, which emphasizes that evolution often takes crooked path. We now have a far more complex picture of biological evolution. We understand, for instance, that every modification that survives the selection process will not be an adaptational advantage. Particular variations that are neutral, or even disadvantageous may persist if they are part of a larger package that enhances survival. And so it is in human history as well. Steven Jay Gould used the term spandrel to illustrate these non-adaptive byproducts. In architecture spandrels are the two roughly triangular spaces left between an arch and the lintel it supports. The arch has considerable architectural value; the “left over” spandrels to each side of it have none. It is even a bit of a nuisance for builders to fill these awkward spaces. You might discover, Gould notes, that an exposed spandrel in the doorway to your living room is a fine place to display the souvenir boomerang you bought in Australia. But that does not mean the spandrel was created in order to display your boomerang. Instead, in a small, but typical bit of evolutionary irony, a thing with no value at its origin turned out to have a use in a subsequent environment. All complex organisms, and complex social arrangements, are replete with spandrels. Far from being pre-determined by Newton-like laws, history is filled with chance, coincidence, irony, and oddity – even as it develops in a general direction toward greater social specialization. Other recent studies place interesting spins on reciprocal altruism and its relation to humans’, and female capuchin monkeys’ sense of fairness. Sarah Bosnan and Frans deWaal tested the monkeys by departing from an established system of rewards. The monkeys were trained to give researchers pebbles and were rewarded with a piece of cucumber. The discord began when Bosnan gave some monkeys a sweet and tasty grape instead of the bland cucumber slice. The slighted monkeys often refused to eat their cucumber; a significant number stopped trading entirely. That is, the offended monkeys denied themselves a desirable reward rather than continue to cooperate with the researchers who had betrayed them. Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis studied the commitment to fairness and equality in many human societies, from the simplest to the most complex. They concluded that the inclination to cooperation and to assist those denied basic needs is universal. But so is a strong disposition to punish cheating, even to the point of hurting oneself. “What accounts for our moral dispositions?” they ask. “The answer is some combination of genes and culture. Though neither is immutable, neither is amenable to arbitrary reconstructions.” Boles and Gintis concluded that these insights into humans’ moral sense should be taken into account in designing programs in a welfare state. As many polls show, people are overwhelmingly willing to help those denied basic needs through no fault of their own. But they must be assured that assistance programs do not permit, and certainly do not encourage, significant cheating. Public policy would benefit, in other words, if we designed those policies taking into account the clearer understanding we have of ourselves as a result of neo-Darwinian thinking. To my mind the study of history will also benefit from the new insights. Take macro-history first. The new social Darwinism is subtler than earlier versions, but for Wright, for Jared Diamond, and for me, the overall view of history remains broadly progressive. A progressive view of course assumes that no catastrophic climate event impacts human history, like a large meteor striking the earth and dropping average temperatures fifty degrees. In an environmental catastrophe, natural or man-made, nature could trump human ingenuity permanently. But until such a catastrophe, history is broadly progressive, even though particular episodes are alternately tragic, ironic, and farcical. The achievement of the amazing levels of specialization in today’s advanced societies (i.e., modernization) is indeed the culmination of the historical process to date. That is the master narrative of human history, a narrative of great, though not always glorious, achievement. But this narrative is far different than Herbert Spencer’s. We are now well aware that modernization is not the achievement of any one culture, but a product of the interaction of people and ideas from many cultures. Competence is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for success. Contingent factors like luck and coincidence are as also part of the equation. Those who lag behind are frequently as bright and deserving as those who succeed. The race does not always go to the swift. Nor does progress come without costs, for in the crush of modernization much is lost. Often the losses are poignant and cruel. Above all there is no place in this version of the narrative of human history for expressions of the ultimate superiority of any one nationality, ethnic group, or religious tradition. There are only the cautionary tales of self-defeating cultural arrogance and parochialism. The application to macro history of an evolutionary view with its origins in nature is fairly easy. Natural history is the ultimate Big History. But what of applying neo-Darwinian thinking to micro history, to the life of a specific individual in a particular cultural and historical context? In fact, one of the strengths of neo-Darwinian thinking is that it can help us understand some of those quirks and oddities of individual character and motivation. The work of Frank Sulloway is an example. Sulloway has used Darwinian theory to study family dynamics and the development of personality. In Born to Rebel, he examined the family background of many of the greatest intellectual and political revolutionaries of western culture. After having graduate students research the family lives of scores of these rebels and conservatives, Sulloway discovered that almost without exception the revolutionaries were younger siblings. Equally consistently the intellectual and political conservatives were first-borns. Sulloway concluded that the family functions something like an ecosystem, in which the thing mostly vied for by children is parental attention and approval. In a large family, the first-born child of each gender gains parental attention by a pleasing conformity and conventional ambition. This leaves younger siblings to situate themselves psychologically in unconventional, often contrarian, ways. Thus, as is often stressed, the human family is a foundation for harmony and continuity in history, but is also an inexhaustible source of critical insights and what might be called productive alienation. Human creative genius, the summit of human cultural achievement, would seem to be the aspect of culture least likely to operate according to biologically founded Darwinian principles. What can Darwin have to do with Mozart? Yet Dean Keith Simonton and others have shown that the Darwinian model of blind variation and selective retention has great explanatory value when applied to human genius. Simonton stresses the importance of the distinction between primary Darwinism, meaning purely the biological evolutionary process, and secondary Darwinism, which refers to use of the variation/selection model to explain growth, change and development in a wide range of areas, including human behavior and culture. Simonton considers the work of a wide rage of neo-Darwinists on human creativity and applies their models to the lives of many acknowledged geniuses, including Darwin himself. He concludes that “Darwinian theories can account not just for the origin of genius but for the origin of the Origin of Species besides.” But history is only rarely about genius and often about understanding individual’s motivation for day-to-day actions. Imaginative attempts at psychohistory have left many historians leary of attempting to probe too deeply into their subjects motivation. But neo-Darwinian concepts like Hamilton’s kin-directed altruism and Trivers’ reciporical altruism provide us with exceptionally useful ways of thinking about ourselves as siblings, lovers, parents and citizens. Just as we can better understand our own intimate feelings and personal choices through neo-Darwinian thinking, we can also use the new thinking to gain insight into the people and cultures in our historical studies. In seeking to understand history and historical figures, as in trying to understand ourselves, we need all the help we can get. Whether we are considering macro-history or micro-history, or the many levels in between, neo-Darwinism has valuable insights to contribute. All Darwinian thinking is historical in it very nature. It explains by tracing a narrative of slow change over time. Many natural and social scientists already use neo-Darwinian thought to make our world more comprehensible. Historians have been slow to do so. It is time to move beyond the notion that any application of Darwinian thinking to human history is the thin edge of racist or Western triumphalist thinking. Neo-Darwinian thought offers insights at every level of history. It is time we historians began to make better use of it. Axelrod, Robert. The Evolution of Cooperation. New York: Basic Books, 1984. Bowler, Peter J. Evolution: The History of an Idea, 3rd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. Bowles, S. and H. Gintis. “Is Equality Passe?” Boston Review. Dec. 1989/Jan. 1990. <http://www.bostonreview.net/BR23.6/bowles.html> (9 March 2004). Burger, M. “History and the Other Disciplines.” Historically Speaking, November 2003, 10-11. David Buss, “Mate Preference Mechanisms: Consequences for Partner Choice and Intrasexual Competition,” in The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture . J. Barkow et. al. eds. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992). Caldwell, Christopher. “Select All.” The New Yorker, 1 March 2004, 91-93. Daly, Martin and Margo Wilson. Homicide. Hawthorne, N.Y.: Aldine de Gruyter, 1988. Dawkins, Richard. The Blind Watchmaker. New York: W. W. Norton, 1986. --- The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987. Desmond, Adrian, and James Moore. Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist. New York: Warner Books, Inc., 1991. Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs, and Steel. New York: W.W. Norton, 1997. Elias, Norbert. On Civilization, Power and Knowledge. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. Ferris, Timothy. Coming of Age in the Milky Way. New York: Anchor Books, 1988. Gould, Steven Jay. Full House. New York: Three Rivers Press, 1996. --- “Evolution: The Pleasures of Pluralism.” The New York Review of Books, 26 June 1997, 47-52 --- The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2002. “Hey, big spender.” The Economist. 20 December 2003. “How to make Africa smile: a survey of Sub-Saharan Africa.” The Economist, 17 January 2004. Kauffman, Stuart. At Home in the Universe. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Konnor, Melvin. “Darwin’s Truth, Jefferson’s Vision.” The American Prospect July/August 1999. Numbers, Ronald L. Darwinism Comes to America. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1998. Pinker, Steven. The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. New York: Viking, 2002. Ridley, Matt. The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation. New York: Viking. 1997. Runciman, W.G. “The Selectionist Paradigm and Its Implications for Sociology.” Sociology 32(1) (1998a): 163-188. --- “Greek Hoplites, Warrior Culture, and Indirect Bias.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 4(4) (1998b): 731-751. --- The Social Animal Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2000. Simonton, Dean Keith. Origins of Genius: Darwinian perspectives on creativity. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Smolins, Lee. The Life of the Cosmos. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. Sulloway, Frank J. Born to Rebel. New York: Vintage Books, 1996. Surowieki, J. “The Coup de Grasso.” The New Yorker, 6 October 2003, 50. Trivers, Robert. “Parental Investment and Sexual Selection.” In Sexual Selection and the Decent of Man, edited by Bernard Campbell. Chicago: Aldine de Gruyter, 1972. Wilson, Edward O. Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975. --- Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998. Wright, Robert. The Moral Animal. New York: Vintage Books, 1994. --- Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny. New York: Pantheon Books, 2000. Delivered at the April 2, 2004 meeting of the GAH. Significant portions of this paper were first presented as a guest lecture for the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Lagos, Nigeria on February 24, 2004. Peter J. Bowler, Evolution: The History of an Idea, 3rd ed. (Berkeley, 2003), 297. Bowler, 297. There was considerable acceptance even in the American South. See Ronald L. Numbers, Darwinism Comes to America (Cambridge, MA, 1998), Ch. 3. Bowler, 298. Bowler, Ch. 9. Robert Trivers, “Parental Investment and Sexual Selection,” in Sexual Selection and the Decent of Man, ed. By Bernard Campbell (Chicago, 1972) Martin Daly and Margo Wilson, Homicide (Hawthorne, NY, 1988). David Buss, “Mate Preference Mechanisms: Consequences for Partner Choice and Intrasexual Competition,” in The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture . J. Barkow et. al. eds. (New York, 1992). “Hey, Big Spender,” The Economist, 20 December 2003, 115. Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (New York, 2002). W.G. Runciman, “Greek Hoplites, Warrior Culture, and Indirect Bias,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 4(4) (1998b): 731-751. Dean Keith Simonton, Origins of Genius: Darwinian Perspectives on Creativity (New York, 1999), 137 Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation (New York, 1984). Also see Pinker, ch. 14; and Robert Wright, Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny (New York, 2000), App. I. Robert Wright, The Moral Animal (New York, 1994), 378. Wright, Nonzero. Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel (New York, 1997). Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate. Frank J. Sulloway, Born to Rebel (New York, 1996). Gould’s book length rejection of the link between human progress and increased complexity is Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin (New York, 1996). M. Burger, “History and the Other Disciplines,” Historically Speaking, November 2003, 10-11. Stephen Jay Gould, “Evolution: The Pleasures of Pluralism,” The New York Review of Books 44(11), June 26, 1967, 47-52. J. Surowieki, “The Coup de Grasso,” New Yorker, 6 October 2003, 50. Bowles and Gintis, 13 of 15. Simonton, 16 Simonton, 248.

Thank you for your editorial calling out Gov. LePage for proclaiming that clean energy would cost jobs and hurt Maine’s economy (“Our View: Industry-funded study bad basis for energy policy,” Nov. 28). You were correct that he should not have based his proclamation solely on research funded by big oil. However, his proclamation also showed that he is out of touch with reality. Climate change is doing terrible harm to the U.S. economy, and Maine will not escape. Witness Sandy and New York City, witness the Associated Press news reports of Nov. 28 on the economic impact of the Great Lakes shrinking and the Mississippi River drying up (“Low water sinking Great Lakes resorts“). The only thing that will save Maine’s economy is a clean energy revolution that will slow climate change. But the governor is not just out of touch with reality. He has also forgotten what makes a leader good. A good leader can see what needs to be done and rally people to do it for the sake of their community and their descendants, even if in the short term it might hurt their personal finances. If I am only for myself, then what am I? And if not now, when? Rabbi Judy Weiss member, Citizens Climate Lobby Families may be suffering, but Petraeus betrayed us all Much has been written about Gen. David Petraeus’ adultery and the harm it had potentially done (Do we really know?) to the families involved. However, the American citizenry has been just as betrayed. He had unofficially pledged to adhere to the unwritten rules of our trust. He put the position of the CIA director in jeopardy by such behavior and self-indulgence. We, the American people, honored him with this exalted position so responsible for our national security. Gen. Petraeus defiled his office and broke the trust of America. Increase in tax revenues won’t stop excess spending The president says he “has a plan” for our economy and our jobs. Do you realize that if the president gets all the tax increases he is proposing, we would still be borrowing more than $1 trillion next year and every year of his term to continue the spending he wants? Every responsible person would agree that massive borrowing every year with no plan to pay back the debt is wrong. This borrowing will result in a severe contraction of our economy with massive loss of jobs and income. Many experts say unless we stop our borrowing, we will soon use half of the tax money we pay to satisfy just the interest on our debt (projected to be more than $20 trillion by the end of Obama’s second term). I would suggest the president’s spending plans have set us on a course of a death spiral for our economy, jobs and, thus, our nation. I am not surprised Obama has this fantasy plan for our nation’s economy — after all, he has never had experience in our private-sector economy. What does surprise me is the lack of criticism of this Obama spending from Reps. Chellie Pingree and Mike Michaud and Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe. Do these representatives of Maine approve of the spending policies that are sending our country into this economic death spiral? So far the actions of Pingree, Michaud, Collins and Snowe show no decrease in this irresponsible spending. Why? They have the time to create for themselves large pensions (Social Security is not enough for them), private free health care (no Obamacare for them), housing allowances, travel allowances, and the list goes on. But by their actions, they seem to be fine with the economic death spiral we are on. I pray for a miracle. U.S. policies value wealth over public service work As a psychologist, I am sometimes confronted by people who don’t want to grow up. Strangely enough, this phenomenon and what leads from it have a bearing on the current budget debate in Washington. One of the appeals of childhood, of course, is the ability to rely on someone else to do the worrying, get out to work, pay the bills, provide all the goodies. And even though there’s initial excitement at the independence of adulthood, soon the responsibilities that go along with it make themselves felt. It’s sobering. But as we live longer and if we adequately reflect, we come to realize how much we continue to depend on each other — not as children do on adults, but as adults do on each other. That’s true at the personal level, where we can actually see it happening, as well as on the national level, which often seems so far away, so hard to grasp. As a society we tend to measure success by our professional and economic accomplishments. It’s good to be smart, resourceful, hardworking. However, we soon come to realize that these identical qualities are rewarded very differently in different walks of life. Some activities lead to the amassing of great wealth. Others serve important needs for modest financial gain. In recent decades, our national fiscal policies have tended to privilege the amassing of great wealth (through favorable tax treatment) over public service (as evidenced by social program budget cuts). We can reverse that trend by allowing tax cuts to expire on the richest 2 percent of households — those earning more than $250,000 a year — and using the money to pay down debt and invest in our common good. That would be the mature thing to do, so I’m sure Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins will support it. Krauthammer encourages needless killing of innocent I believe Charles Krauthammer has gone beyond the pale in his criticism of the Palestinians in Gaza (“Powerful allies help Hamas to keep trying to destroy Israel,” Nov. 23). Krauthammer states that Israel wanted nothing more than to live in peace with this independent Palestinian entity. “After all, the world has incessantly demanded that Israel give up land for peace,” he writes. Unfortunately, the outcome of such battles, instigated by the shelling of Israeli settlements, always ends up with a disproportionate number of Palestinian innocents paying the price in these conflicts. One thing is clear: Israel is no David; nor is Hamas Goliath. The foolhardy shelling by the Hamas faction is no match for the military might of the Jewish state. Krauthammer is certainly aware of this fact and should not encourage such massacres by the disinformation in his columns.

Back in late April, Google announced its attempt to combat the circulation of “fake news” and “inciteful” content on its search engine with new tools that allow “users” to report misleading or offensive content, and it made a pledge to improve the results generated by its algorithm. It was just a matter of time before this scam impacted The New Nationalist (TNN). Additionally, as this article from Ynet News appears to advocate, Israeli Hasbara ops are utilizing a new high-tech ap with which they can kvetch on whatever suits their fancy. The new app—which appears to be the newest game changing weapon in the fight for Israel’s image in the world—is already a smashing success. Within only two weeks, it was downloaded by over 6,000 people in 27 countries around the world. “In the months before the app’s launch, we ran it in a pilot among a group of some 800 students, most of them Americans,” Ben-Yosef says. “Even then, during the pilot, we realized the power behind the group tasks that could be done using the app. We’re working with the IDF and the Shin Bet, who are giving us information on such inciting content, and even they couldn’t keep us with how fast we were getting things removed.” Further reinforcing the censorship campaign, a new “delete hate speech or pay up” law passed in Germany this week that fines large social media for failing to remove threats or insults on line. It covers a wide swath and is an extremis sticky wicket. The law requires companies to decide on content that has been flagged as offensive but that may not be clearly defamatory or inciting violence. TNN’s traffic was growing steadily all year, with a record average of 1,500 visitors per day during the month of April. But in June, traffic slipped noticeably to about 950 a day. We are estimating that sometime in the third week of June, TNN made it to the “censored” group. In the last 90 days, close to 20,000 views came in via search engines, almost entirely sourced from Google. That’s roughly 1,500 per week, which represents about 16% of TNN’s traffic. In the last two weeks, however, search-engine-sourced visitor levels have been halved to about 726 a week. Meanwhile, we have more content than ever. Facebook for TNN has always been less active. In the last 90 days, it produced 270 views a week. This has dropped to 81 views. At Twitter, traffic has dropped by a similar amount. There the issue seems to be the aggressive banning of certain accounts who often link to our articles. Even on the Web-server side, there has been ongoing issues. We have seen the following message on websites that share our work. And we have noticed that on a few like-minded websites, we can’t post in comments as the server connection is broken. Another dirty trick is Reddit banning. We believe some of it involves shadow banning, meaning that the person isn’t aware of or notified that they’re being banned. About the only subreddit that we are allowed to post is at r/conspiracy. Here, little echo chambers are permitted and participants mostly chat about distractions and misdirections. We surmise it gives the mind-hive thought police the means to sweep names into their apps so as to identify influence centers to muffle, shut down and conduct social media purges. One of the more mind-blowing experiences TNN had at Reddit was when it removed our article on Chabad Lubovitcher Jared Kusher’s failed negotiations with the Palestinians. We posted this at r/Palestine. The article was up an hour before we were banned from participation. In that hour, the article was well recieved, with 89% up votes and 100 views. Smelling a rat, I looked into the “moderators” and concluded that they were the usual suspects: hive-mind posers. So here we have a subreddit clearly used by real Palestinians, but the content is (per usual) gatekept by Hasbara shills. It is probably just a matter of time before TNN’s content and traffic is blocked or shadow banned even more. We sort of doubt our website will be actually taken down (at least in the short term), as the enemy can glean our rhetoric and thinking as useful intelligence. Blocking and banning eventually becomes demoralizing for writers. Frankly, for those who read and support our work, it is incumbent on you to share on social media with links while you can. We can only produce content and have no ability to overcome the censorship. A strategy to overcome censorship and fight back is to return in kind. In other words, instead of engaging in juvenile trolling and stupid online harassment — as encouraged by sites like Daily Stormer — activists should adopt Hasbara tactics to report “insults and offensive comments” made by social and pervert justice warriors, anti-whites, Jewish supremacists, etc. Seriously- Why should the hive-mind people have a monopoly and sole franchise on kvetching about “offensive” speech? We could organize, for example, to bring down the Youtube child-grooming videos. There is opportunity in adversity.

I know I’m a little bit off my regular posting schedule lately (usually I try to publish my posts on Wednesday/the middle of the week). Life has been kind of crazy since the new job and also by some miracle, I’ve been able to still be in school even when I thought I would have to drop out. Anyway, I’m probably going to be posting twice this weekend because I have a lot. This past Sunday I gave my first sermon at my new church, which was an incredible experience and I’m still finding it surreal. So, I figured I’d share my transcript from that and maybe post the link to the recording of it if you’re interested at the end of the post. It was also a communion Sunday. I plan on doing the other post on Lent/my first Ash Wednesday observance. Not All Who Wander Are Lost Vs. 19-23: What would you do if life as you know it completely changed overnight? What you thought you knew about your world got flipped upside down and you were left devastated. Would you be afraid? I think most of us would be. So…what are we so uncomfortable with fear and doubt? Specifically, when it comes to doubting God and our faith. We give the disciples such a hard time. The disciples were faced with an uncomfortable reality that their world has been turned upside down. And then Jesus shows up in the middle of their grief and turns this fear to hope. Fear of the Jewish leaders is contrasted with Jesus’ pronouncement of peace. Don’t miss what Jesus means by peace here. It’s a common phrase that’s used in the early church but in light of the Resurrection, it is anything but common. In a world that seems to be falling apart in this current political climate, we need to know what this peace means for us. It’s certainly not an absence of conflict or leaving things the way they are. By challenging the Jewish leaders and government authorities who held power at the time, many of the disciples would face a great deal of conflict. Many of them would die. There is risk involved in this peace Jesus talks about but it’s a risk that leads to life. Jesus was sentenced to death for challenging the power structures of his day at the urging of his own people. Let it not be said of us in the church that we would in a sense do the same to other human beings for the sake of holding onto power. Whether it’s policing who uses what bathroom because it makes us uncomfortable or not letting certain people into our churches or our country, our job is not to be driven by our fear. Your belief in God should not be used to oppress people with your self-righteousness and rules. God is the God of the vulnerable, the outsider, the misfits of the world. (Parallel Passages: 16:1-8 – focus on fear of disciples/Mary Magdalene/women at the tomb and their reaction to the Resurrection of Christ) (Vs. 23: This verse poses some complications as it implies the disciples will have the ability to forgive sins or not forgive sins.) To understand what’s going on here, it’s helpful to look at the parallel passages of Jesus commissioning his disciples in Matthew 28, Mark 16, and Acts 1-2. It seems to be referencing Pentecost as well when the disciples and followers of Jesus received the Holy Spirit. It’s more of a precursor to the day of Pentecost and highlights the disciples being commissioned to help others know and believe in Jesus. Vs. 24-29: This now brings me to Thomas who was missing in action during the events of the previous verses. Why do we give those who doubt such a hard time? Interestingly enough, the word translated as doubt has less to do with doubt as we understand it. I mean, we call Thomas “doubting Thomas.” I think this is because we don’t want to deal with how uncomfortable doubt makes us. Because maybe we know all too well what it’s like to not be sure if what we believe is true. What’s interesting about this encounter is that Thomas wasn’t the only one who was afraid and doubting, but maybe he was the one to voice it the most. There’s much we can learn from Thomas’s response of “My Lord and my God” to the Resurrected Christ both about Jesus and about doubt in our own lives. How does this change how we live our lives in light of this truth? What does it mean for us today and not just for our eternal future? Does this help us in the midst of a chaotic world when we can’t make sense of our doubt? Doubt is unnerving. It taps into our insecurities and questions we have about our reality and what’s going on in the world around us. We are afraid to ask questions because of what that may reveal about what’s going on in our souls. But maybe, instead of a sign of weakness and lack of faith…doubt is perhaps a sign of deep faith in God. Thomas wanted to know for sure that Jesus really was alive. From the disciples’ perspective, they desperately needed to know that this Jesus they had been following and sharing life with was worth following. The disciples walked with Jesus and saw him do miracles no one else could do. They watched their hopes and dreams of a better world–because HE IS THE MESSIAH after all–they watched those dreams of a King who would save them…die for crimes he did not commit. Thomas says, in effect, I need to see him with my own eyes. I need to touch the scars. Then I will believe. He isn’t saying, he doubts that it could possibly be true. He wants it to be true and wants proof. Why does he need this to be true? And why do we need it to be true? Because…A God who can be killed and bring Himself back to life is a God worth following. That God is a God who has walked in our shoes and seen us in our suffering and seen the broken, marginalized, oppressed and said: I see you. And I am for you. And I have been where you are. We need to know that this God who can die and be raised to life again is the real thing. Rachel Held Evans, in her book, Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church, she writes, “We could not become like God, so God became like us. God showed us how to heal instead of kill, how to mend instead of destroy, how to love instead of head, how to live instead of long for more. When we nailed God to a tree, God forgave. And when we buried God in the ground, God got up.” Vs. 29-31: This doesn’t just need to be true for Thomas. Jesus says at the end of this interaction with Thomas: “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” On a more personal note, I can honestly say that I need this to be true. And that I’m not always sure I have all the answers or that this journey is worth it. Sometimes it feels like wandering around in the darkness and hoping to bump into God there. I believe this God is real, but I have so many questions. I grew up in a very conservative environment where God was painted as angry, waiting to judge me for messing up if I didn’t follow all the rules. My relationship with the church is in a word, complicated. But I’ve been in love with Jesus since I was a little girl. I have been both the Pharisee and the man beaten and left for dead on the road to Jericho. More recently, I have doubted that God loves me because how can he love someone so many hate and want to change? I have had people say to the effect: This Jesus is not for you unless you stop being who you are. I don’t know if you know what it’s like to be estranged from people who say they love you but that their God is not for you. Some of you do know what it’s like to feel Other. To feel the doubt that comes from the Church not looking like Christ. Can I just say, who I am and who you are, whether others are comfortable with our existence in this space or not, does not change who Jesus is and what He has done. Because Jesus knows what this is like. Jesus knows what it is like to be Other. To never be enough and to be too much for this world. And there is room for your doubt here. Because this Jesus is the One who says: This is my body broken for you. This is my blood poured out for you. To quote Rachel Held Evans again: “Something about communion triggers our memory and helps us see things as they really are. Something about communion opens our eyes to Jesus at the table…This is what God’s kingdom is like: a bunch of outcasts and oddballs gathered at a table, not because they are rich or worthy or good, but because they are hungry, because they said yes. And there’s always room for more.” For all my doubt and confusion sometimes about Jesus and my faith, there is room for all of us here at this table. For he knows us and has walked in our shoes and his body and blood and his resurrection bring us together in love because one thing we know for sure: Not all who wander are lost and He was there in the darkness of death and here in these moments as we join together to remember that He brought peace for us to be here even in our doubt. Here’s the link to the recording: http://hillsong.org/sermons/

Intel's current logo, used since 2006 |N M Electronics (1968)| |Founded||July 18, 1968| |Headquarters||Santa Clara, California, U.S.| Robert H. Swan |Products||Central processing units| Integrated graphics processing units (iGPU) Network interface controllers Solid state drives Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Chipsets Vehicle automation sensors |Revenue||US$70.8 billion (2018)| |US$23.3 billion (2018)| |US$21.0 billion (2018)| |Total assets||US$127.9 billion (2018)| |Total equity||US$74.5 billion (2018)| Number of employees Intel Corporation (commonly known as Intel and stylized as intel) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, in the Silicon Valley. It is the world's second largest and second highest valued semiconductor chip manufacturer based on revenue after being overtaken by Samsung Electronics, and is the inventor of the x86 series of microprocessors, the processors found in most personal computers (PCs). Intel ranked No. 46 in the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue. Intel supplies processors for computer system manufacturers such as Apple, Lenovo, HP, and Dell. Intel also manufactures motherboard chipsets, network interface controllers and integrated circuits, flash memory, graphics chips, embedded processors and other devices related to communications and computing. Intel Corporation was founded on July 18, 1968, by semiconductor pioneers Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore (of Moore's law), and is associated with the executive leadership and vision of Andrew Grove. The company's name was conceived as portmanteau of the words integrated and electronics, with co-founder Noyce having been a key inventor of the integrated circuit (microchip). The fact that "intel" is the term for intelligence information also made the name appropriate. Intel was an early developer of SRAM and DRAM memory chips, which represented the majority of its business until 1981. Although Intel created the world's first commercial microprocessor chip in 1971, it was not until the success of the personal computer (PC) that this became its primary business. During the 1990s, Intel invested heavily in new microprocessor designs fostering the rapid growth of the computer industry. During this period Intel became the dominant supplier of microprocessors for PCs and was known for aggressive and anti-competitive tactics in defense of its market position, particularly against Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), as well as a struggle with Microsoft for control over the direction of the PC industry. The Open Source Technology Center at Intel hosts PowerTOP and LatencyTOP, and supports other open-source projects such as Wayland, Mesa3D, Intel Array Building Blocks, Threading Building Blocks (TBB), and Xen. This section needs to be updated.June 2019)( - Client Computing Group – 55% of 2016 revenues – produces hardware components used in desktop and notebook computers. - Data Center Group – 29% of 2016 revenues – produces hardware components used in server, network, and storage platforms. - Internet of Things Group – 5% of 2016 revenues – offers platforms designed for retail, transportation, industrial, buildings and home use. - Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group – 4% of 2016 revenues – manufactures NAND flash memory and 3D XPoint, branded as Optane, products primarily used in solid-state drives. - Intel Security Group – 4% of 2016 revenues – produces software, particularly security, and antivirus software. - Programmable Solutions Group – 3% of 2016 revenues – manufactures programmable semiconductors (primarily FPGAs). According to IDC, while Intel enjoyed the biggest market share in both the overall worldwide PC microprocessor market (73.3%) and the mobile PC microprocessor (80.4%) in the second quarter of 2011, the numbers decreased by 1.5% and 1.9% compared to the first quarter of 2011. In the 1980s Intel was among the top ten sellers of semiconductors (10th in 1987) in the world. In 1992, Intel became the biggest chip maker by revenue and has held the position ever since. Other top semiconductor companies include TSMC, Advanced Micro Devices, Samsung, Texas Instruments, Toshiba and STMicroelectronics. Competitors in PC chipsets include Advanced Micro Devices, VIA Technologies, Silicon Integrated Systems, and Nvidia. Intel's competitors in networking include NXP Semiconductors, Infineon, Broadcom Limited, Marvell Technology Group and Applied Micro Circuits Corporation, and competitors in flash memory include Spansion, Samsung, Qimonda, Toshiba, STMicroelectronics, and SK Hynix. The only major competitor in the x86 processor market is Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), with which Intel has had full cross-licensing agreements since 1976: each partner can use the other's patented technological innovations without charge after a certain time. However, the cross-licensing agreement is canceled in the event of an AMD bankruptcy or takeover. Some smaller competitors such as VIA Technologies produce low-power x86 processors for small factor computers and portable equipment. However, the advent of such mobile computing devices, in particular, smartphones, has in recent years led to a decline in PC sales. Since over 95% of the world's smartphones currently use processors designed by ARM Holdings, ARM has become a major competitor for Intel's processor market. ARM is also planning to make inroads into the PC and server market. Intel has been involved in several disputes regarding violation of antitrust laws, which are noted below. Intel was founded in Mountain View, California, in 1968 by Gordon E. Moore (known for "Moore's law"), a chemist, and Robert Noyce, a physicist and co-inventor of the integrated circuit. Arthur Rock (investor and venture capitalist) helped them find investors, while Max Palevsky was on the board from an early stage. Moore and Noyce had left Fairchild Semiconductor to found Intel. Rock was not an employee, but he was an investor and was chairman of the board. The total initial investment in Intel was $2.5 million convertible debentures and $10,000 from Rock. Just 2 years later, Intel became a public company via an initial public offering (IPO), raising $6.8 million ($23.50 per share). Intel's third employee was Andy Grove, a chemical engineer, who later ran the company through much of the 1980s and the high-growth 1990s. In deciding on a name, Moore and Noyce quickly rejected "Moore Noyce", near homophone for "more noise" – an ill-suited name for an electronics company, since noise in electronics is usually undesirable and typically associated with bad interference. Instead, they founded the company as N M Electronics on July 18, 1968, but by the end of the month had changed the name to Intel which stood for Integrated Electronics.[note 1] Since "Intel" was already trademarked by the hotel chain Intelco, they had to buy the rights for the name. At its founding, Intel was distinguished by its ability to make logic circuits using semiconductor devices. The founders' goal was the semiconductor memory market, widely predicted to replace magnetic-core memory. Its first product, a quick entry into the small, high-speed memory market in 1969, was the 3101 Schottky TTL bipolar 64-bit static random-access memory (SRAM), which was nearly twice as fast as earlier Schottky diode implementations by Fairchild and the Electrotechnical Laboratory in Tsukuba, Japan. In the same year, Intel also produced the 3301 Schottky bipolar 1024-bit read-only memory (ROM) and the first commercial metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) silicon gate SRAM chip, the 256-bit 1101. While the 1101 was a significant advance, its complex static cell structure made it too slow and costly for mainframe memories. The three-transistor cell implemented in the first commercially available dynamic random-access memory (DRAM), the 1103 released in 1970, solved these issues. The 1103 was the bestselling semiconductor memory chip in the world by 1972, as it replaced core memory in many applications. Intel's business grew during the 1970s as it expanded and improved its manufacturing processes and produced a wider range of products, still dominated by various memory devices. Intel created the first commercially available microprocessor (Intel 4004) in 1971. The microprocessor represented a notable advance in the technology of integrated circuitry, as it miniaturized the central processing unit of a computer, which then made it possible for small machines to perform calculations that in the past only very large machines could do. Considerable technological innovation was needed before the microprocessor could actually become the basis of what was first known as a "mini computer" and then known as a "personal computer". Intel also created one of the first microcomputers in 1973. Intel opened its first international manufacturing facility in 1972, in Malaysia, which would host multiple Intel operations, before opening assembly facilities and semiconductor plants in Singapore and Jerusalem in the early 1980s, and manufacturing and development centres in China, India and Costa Rica in the 1990s. By the early 1980s, its business was dominated by dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) chips. However, increased competition from Japanese semiconductor manufacturers had, by 1983, dramatically reduced the profitability of this market. The growing success of the IBM personal computer, based on an Intel microprocessor, was among factors that convinced Gordon Moore (CEO since 1975) to shift the company's focus to microprocessors and to change fundamental aspects of that business model. Moore's decision to sole-source Intel's 386 chip played into the company's continuing success. By the end of the 1980s, buoyed by its fortuitous position as microprocessor supplier to IBM and IBM's competitors within the rapidly growing personal computer market, Intel embarked on a 10-year period of unprecedented growth as the primary (and most profitable) hardware supplier to the PC industry, part of the winning 'Wintel' combination. Moore handed over to Andy Grove in 1987. By launching its Intel Inside marketing campaign in 1991, Intel was able to associate brand loyalty with consumer selection, so that by the end of the 1990s, its line of Pentium processors had become a household name. Slowing demand and challenges to dominance in 2000Edit After 2000, growth in demand for high-end microprocessors slowed. Competitors, notably AMD (Intel's largest competitor in its primary x86 architecture market), garnered significant market share, initially in low-end and mid-range processors but ultimately across the product range, and Intel's dominant position in its core market was greatly reduced. In the early 2000s then-CEO, Craig Barrett attempted to diversify the company's business beyond semiconductors, but few of these activities were ultimately successful. Intel had also for a number of years been embroiled in litigation. US law did not initially recognize intellectual property rights related to microprocessor topology (circuit layouts), until the Semiconductor Chip Protection Act of 1984, a law sought by Intel and the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). During the late 1980s and 1990s (after this law was passed), Intel also sued companies that tried to develop competitor chips to the 80386 CPU. The lawsuits were noted to significantly burden the competition with legal bills, even if Intel lost the suits. Antitrust allegations had been simmering since the early 1990s and had been the cause of one lawsuit against Intel in 1991. In 2004 and 2005, AMD brought further claims against Intel related to unfair competition. Regaining of momentum (2005–2007)Edit In 2005, CEO Paul Otellini reorganized the company to refocus its core processor and chipset business on platforms (enterprise, digital home, digital health, and mobility). In 2006, Intel unveiled its Core microarchitecture to widespread critical acclaim; the product range was perceived as an exceptional leap in processor performance that at a stroke regained much of its leadership of the field. In 2008, Intel had another "tick" when it introduced the Penryn microarchitecture, which was 45 nm. Later that year, Intel released a processor with the Nehalem architecture. Nehalem had positive reviews. Sale of XScale processor business (2006)Edit On June 27, 2006, the sale of Intel's XScale assets was announced. Intel agreed to sell the XScale processor business to Marvell Technology Group for an estimated $600 million and the assumption of unspecified liabilities. The move was intended to permit Intel to focus its resources on its core x86 and server businesses, and the acquisition completed on November 9, 2006. Acquisitions and investments (2010–present)Edit In 2010, Intel purchased McAfee, a manufacturer of computer security technology, for $7.68 billion. As a condition for regulatory approval of the transaction, Intel agreed to provide rival security firms with all necessary information that would allow their products to use Intel's chips and personal computers. After the acquisition, Intel had about 90,000 employees, including about 12,000 software engineers. In September 2016, Intel sold a majority stake in its computer-security unit to TPG Capital, reversing the five-year-old McAfee acquisition. In August 2010, Intel and Infineon Technologies announced that Intel would acquire Infineon's Wireless Solutions business. Intel planned to use Infineon's technology in laptops, smart phones, netbooks, tablets and embedded computers in consumer products, eventually integrating its wireless modem into Intel's silicon chips. In March 2011, Intel bought most of the assets of Cairo-based SySDSoft. In July 2011, Intel announced that it had agreed to acquire Fulcrum Microsystems Inc., a company specializing in network switches. The company used to be included on the EE Times list of 60 Emerging Startups. In October 2011, Intel reached a deal to acquire Telmap, an Israeli-based navigation software company. The purchase price was not disclosed, but Israeli media reported values around $300 million to $350 million. In July 2012, Intel agreed to buy 10% of the shares of ASML Holding NV for $2.1 billion and another $1 billion for 5% of the shares that need shareholder approval to fund relevant research and development efforts, as part of a EUR3.3 billion ($4.1 billion) deal to accelerate the development of 450-millimeter wafer technology and extreme ultra-violet lithography by as much as two years. In July 2013, Intel confirmed the acquisition of Omek Interactive, an Israeli company that makes technology for gesture-based interfaces, without disclosing the monetary value of the deal. An official statement from Intel read: "The acquisition of Omek Interactive will help increase Intel's capabilities in the delivery of more immersive perceptual computing experiences." One report estimated the value of the acquisition between US$30 million and $50 million. The acquisition of a Spanish natural language recognition startup, Indisys was announced in September 2013. The terms of the deal were not disclosed but an email from an Intel representative stated: "Intel has acquired Indisys, a privately held company based in Seville, Spain. The majority of Indisys employees joined Intel. We signed the agreement to acquire the company on May 31 and the deal has been completed." Indysis explains that its artificial intelligence (AI) technology "is a human image, which converses fluently and with common sense in multiple languages and also works in different platforms." In December 2014, Intel bought PasswordBox. In January 2015, Intel purchased a 30% stake in Vuzix, a smart glasses manufacturer. The deal was worth $24.8 million. In February 2015, Intel announced its agreement to purchase German network chipmaker Lantiq, to aid in its expansion of its range of chips in devices with Internet connection capability. In June 2017, Intel Corporation announced an investment of over Rs.1100 crore ($170 million) for its upcoming Research and Development (R&D) centre in Bangalore. In January 2019, Intel announced an investment of over $11 billion on a new Israeli chip plant, as told by the Israeli Finance Minister. Acquisition table (2009–present)Edit |Number||Acquisition announcement date||Company||Business||Country||Price||Used as or integrated with||Ref(s).| |1||June 4, 2009||Wind River Systems||Embedded Systems||US||$884M||Software||| |2||August 19, 2010||McAfee||Security||US||$7.6B||Software||| |3||August 30, 2010||Infineon (partial)||Wireless||Germany||$1.4B||Mobile CPUs||| |4||March 17, 2011||Silicon Hive||DSP||Netherlands||N/A||Mobile CPUs||| |5||September 29, 2011||Telmap||Software||Israel||N/A||Location Services||| |6||October 30, 2011||Invision||Software||Israel||$50–60M||Software||| |7||April 13, 2013||Mashery||API Management||US||$180M||Software||| |8||May 6, 2013||Stonesoft Corporation||Security||Finland||$389M||Software||| |9||July 16, 2013||Omek Interactive||Gesture||Israel||N/A||Software||| |10||September 13, 2013||Indisys||Natural language processing||Spain||N/A||Software||| |11||March 25, 2014||BASIS||Wearable||US||N/A||New Devices||| |12||August 13, 2014||Avago Technologies (partial)||Semiconductor||US||$650M||Communications Processors||| |13||December 1, 2014||PasswordBox||Security||Canada||N/A||Software||| |14||January 5, 2015||Vuzix||Wearable||US||$24.8M||New Devices||| |15||February 2, 2015||Lantiq||Telecom||Germany||undisclosed||Gateways||| |16||June 1, 2015||Altera||Semiconductor||US||$16.7B||FPGA||| |17||June 18, 2015||Recon||Wearable||US||$175M||New Devices||| |18||October 26, 2015||Saffron Technology||Cognitive computing||US||undisclosed||Software||| |19||January 4, 2016||Ascending Technologies||UAVs||Germany||undisclosed||New Technology||| |20||March 9, 2016||Replay Technologies||Video technology||Israel||undisclosed||3D video technology||| |21||April 5, 2016||Yogitech||IoT security and Advanced Driver Assistance Systems.||Italy||undisclosed||Software||| |22||August 9, 2016||Nervana Systems||Machine learning technology||US||$350M||New Technology||| |23||Sept 6, 2016||Movidius||Computer vision||Ireland||undisclosed||New Technology||| |24||March 16, 2017||MobilEye||Autonomous vehicle technology||Israel||$15B||Self driving technology||| |25||April 16, 2019||Omnitek||FPGA Video Acceleration||UK||undisclosed||Video acceleration||| In 2008, Intel spun off key assets of a solar startup business effort to form an independent company, SpectraWatt Inc. In 2011, SpectraWatt filed for bankruptcy. In February 2011, Intel began to build a new microprocessor manufacturing facility in Chandler, Arizona, completed in 2013 at a cost of $5 billion. The building was never used. The company produces three-quarters of its products in the United States, although three-quarters of its revenue come from overseas. In December 2011, Intel announced that it reorganized several of its business units into a new mobile and communications group that would be responsible for the company's smartphone, tablet, and wireless efforts. Opening up the foundries to other manufacturers (2013)Edit Finding itself with excess fab capacity after the failure of the Ultrabook to gain market traction and with PC sales declining, in 2013 Intel reached a foundry agreement to produce chips for Altera using 14-nm process. General Manager of Intel's custom foundry division Sunit Rikhi indicated that Intel would pursue further such deals in the future. This was after poor sales of Windows 8 hardware caused a major retrenchment for most of the major semiconductor manufacturers, except for Qualcomm, which continued to see healthy purchases from its largest customer, Apple. As of July 2013, five companies were using Intel's fabs via the Intel Custom Foundry division: Achronix, Tabula, Netronome, Microsemi, and Panasonic – most are field-programmable gate array (FPGA) makers, but Netronome designs network processors. Only Achronix began shipping chips made by Intel using the 22-nm Tri-Gate process. Several other customers also exist but were not announced at the time. The Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) was launched in October 2013 and Intel is part of the coalition of public and private organisations that also includes Facebook, Google, and Microsoft. Led by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the A4AI seeks to make Internet access more affordable so that access is broadened in the developing world, where only 31% of people are online. Google will help to decrease Internet access prices so that they fall below the UN Broadband Commission's worldwide target of 5% of monthly income. Product and market historyEdit This section needs additional citations for verification. (January 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) SRAMS and the microprocessorEdit Intel's first products were shift register memory and random-access memory integrated circuits, and Intel grew to be a leader in the fiercely competitive DRAM, SRAM, and ROM markets throughout the 1970s. Concurrently, Intel engineers Marcian Hoff, Federico Faggin, Stanley Mazor and Masatoshi Shima invented Intel's first microprocessor. Originally developed for the Japanese company Busicom to replace a number of ASICs in a calculator already produced by Busicom, the Intel 4004 was introduced to the mass market on November 15, 1971, though the microprocessor did not become the core of Intel's business until the mid-1980s. (Note: Intel is usually given credit with Texas Instruments for the almost-simultaneous invention of the microprocessor) From DRAM to microprocessorsEdit In 1983, at the dawn of the personal computer era, Intel's profits came under increased pressure from Japanese memory-chip manufacturers, and then-president Andy Grove focused the company on microprocessors. Grove described this transition in the book Only the Paranoid Survive. A key element of his plan was the notion, then considered radical, of becoming the single source for successors to the popular 8086 microprocessor. Until then, the manufacture of complex integrated circuits was not reliable enough for customers to depend on a single supplier, but Grove began producing processors in three geographically distinct factories,[which?] and ceased licensing the chip designs to competitors such as Zilog and AMD. When the PC industry boomed in the late 1980s and 1990s, Intel was one of the primary beneficiaries. Intel, x86 processors, and the IBM PCEdit Despite the ultimate importance of the microprocessor, the 4004 and its successors the 8008 and the 8080 were never major revenue contributors at Intel. As the next processor, the 8086 (and its variant the 8088) was completed in 1978, Intel embarked on a major marketing and sales campaign for that chip nicknamed "Operation Crush", and intended to win as many customers for the processor as possible. One design win was the newly created IBM PC division, though the importance of this was not fully realized at the time. IBM introduced its personal computer in 1981, and it was rapidly successful. In 1982, Intel created the 80286 microprocessor, which, two years later, was used in the IBM PC/AT. Compaq, the first IBM PC "clone" manufacturer, produced a desktop system based on the faster 80286 processor in 1985 and in 1986 quickly followed with the first 80386-based system, beating IBM and establishing a competitive market for PC-compatible systems and setting up Intel as a key component supplier. In 1975, the company had started a project to develop a highly advanced 32-bit microprocessor, finally released in 1981 as the Intel iAPX 432. The project was too ambitious and the processor was never able to meet its performance objectives, and it failed in the marketplace. Intel extended the x86 architecture to 32 bits instead. During this period Andrew Grove dramatically redirected the company, closing much of its DRAM business and directing resources to the microprocessor business. Of perhaps greater importance was his decision to "single-source" the 386 microprocessor. Prior to this, microprocessor manufacturing was in its infancy, and manufacturing problems frequently reduced or stopped production, interrupting supplies to customers. To mitigate this risk, these customers typically insisted that multiple manufacturers produce chips they could use to ensure a consistent supply. The 8080 and 8086-series microprocessors were produced by several companies, notably AMD, with which Intel had a technology-sharing contract. Grove made the decision not to license the 386 design to other manufacturers, instead, producing it in three geographically distinct factories: Santa Clara, California; Hillsboro, Oregon; and Chandler, a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona. He convinced customers that this would ensure consistent delivery. In doing this, Intel breached its contract with AMD, which sued and was paid millions of dollars in damages but could not manufacture new Intel CPU designs any longer. (Instead, AMD started to develop and manufacture its own competing x86 designs.) As the success of Compaq's Deskpro 386 established the 386 as the dominant CPU choice, Intel achieved a position of near-exclusive dominance as its supplier. Profits from this funded rapid development of both higher-performance chip designs and higher-performance manufacturing capabilities, propelling Intel to a position of unquestioned leadership by the early 1990s. 486, Pentium, and ItaniumEdit Intel introduced the 486 microprocessor in 1989, and in 1990 established a second design team, designing the processors code-named "P5" and "P6" in parallel and committing to a major new processor every two years, versus the four or more years such designs had previously taken. Engineers Vinod Dham and Rajeev Chandrasekhar (Member of Parliament, India) were key figures on the core team that invented the 486 chip and later, Intel's signature Pentium chip. The P5 project was earlier known as "Operation Bicycle," referring to the cycles of the processor through two parallel execution pipelines. The P5 was introduced in 1993 as the Intel Pentium, substituting a registered trademark name for the former part number (numbers, such as 486, cannot be legally registered as trademarks in the United States). The P6 followed in 1995 as the Pentium Pro and improved into the Pentium II in 1997. New architectures were developed alternately in Santa Clara, California and Hillsboro, Oregon. The Santa Clara design team embarked in 1993 on a successor to the x86 architecture, codenamed "P7". The first attempt was dropped a year later but quickly revived in a cooperative program with Hewlett-Packard engineers, though Intel soon took over primary design responsibility. The resulting implementation of the IA-64 64-bit architecture was the Itanium, finally introduced in June 2001. The Itanium's performance running legacy x86 code did not meet expectations, and it failed to compete effectively with x86-64, which was AMD's 64-bit extension of the 32-bit x86 architecture (Intel uses the name Intel 64, previously EM64T). In 2017, Intel announced that the Itanium 9700 series (Kittson) would be the last Itanium chips produced. In June 1994, Intel engineers discovered a flaw in the floating-point math subsection of the P5 Pentium microprocessor. Under certain data-dependent conditions, the low-order bits of the result of a floating-point division would be incorrect. The error could compound in subsequent calculations. Intel corrected the error in a future chip revision, and under public pressure it issued a total recall and replaced the defective Pentium CPUs (which were limited to some 60, 66, 75, 90, and 100 MHz models) on customer request. The bug was discovered independently in October 1994 by Thomas Nicely, Professor of Mathematics at Lynchburg College. He contacted Intel but received no response. On October 30, he posted a message about his finding on the Internet. Word of the bug spread quickly and reached the industry press. The bug was easy to replicate; a user could enter specific numbers into the calculator on the operating system. Consequently, many users did not accept Intel's statements that the error was minor and "not even an erratum." During Thanksgiving, in 1994, The New York Times ran a piece by journalist John Markoff spotlighting the error. Intel changed its position and offered to replace every chip, quickly putting in place a large end-user support organization. This resulted in a $475 million charge against Intel's 1994 revenue. Dr. Nicely later learned that Intel had discovered the FDIV bug in its own testing a few months before him (but had decided not to inform customers). The "Pentium flaw" incident, Intel's response to it, and the surrounding media coverage propelled Intel from being a technology supplier generally unknown to most computer users to a household name. Dovetailing with an uptick in the "Intel Inside" campaign, the episode is considered to have been a positive event for Intel, changing some of its business practices to be more end-user focused and generating substantial public awareness, while avoiding a lasting negative impression. "Intel Inside" and other campaignsEdit During this period, Intel undertook two major supporting advertising campaigns. The first campaign, the 1991 "Intel Inside" marketing and branding campaign, is widely known and has become synonymous with Intel itself. The idea of "ingredient branding" was new at the time, with only NutraSweet and a few others making attempts to do so. This campaign established Intel, which had been a component supplier little-known outside the PC industry, as a household name. The second campaign, Intel's Systems Group, which began in the early 1990s, showcased manufacturing of PC motherboards, the main board component of a personal computer, and the one into which the processor (CPU) and memory (RAM) chips are plugged. The Systems Group campaign was lesser known than the Intel Inside campaign. Shortly after, Intel began manufacturing fully configured "white box" systems for the dozens of PC clone companies that rapidly sprang up. At its peak in the mid-1990s, Intel manufactured over 15% of all PCs, making it the third-largest supplier at the time. During the 1990s, Intel Architecture Labs (IAL) was responsible for many of the hardware innovations for the PC, including the PCI Bus, the PCI Express (PCIe) bus, and Universal Serial Bus (USB). IAL's software efforts met with a more mixed fate; its video and graphics software was important in the development of software digital video, but later its efforts were largely overshadowed by competition from Microsoft. The competition between Intel and Microsoft was revealed in testimony by then IAL Vice-President Steven McGeady at the Microsoft antitrust trial (United States v. Microsoft Corp.). 2018-2019 security flawsEdit In early January 2018, it was reported that all Intel processors made since 1995 (besides Intel Itanium and pre-2013 Intel Atom) have been subject to two security flaws dubbed Meltdown and Spectre. The impact on performance resulting from software patches is "workload-dependent". Several procedures to help protect home computers and related devices from the Spectre and Meltdown security vulnerabilities have been published. Spectre patches have been reported to significantly slow down performance, especially on older computers; on the newer 8th generation Core platforms, benchmark performance drops of 2–14 percent have been measured. Meltdown patches may also produce performance loss. It is believed that "hundreds of millions" of systems could be affected by these flaws. On March 15, 2018, Intel reported that it will redesign its CPU processors (performance losses to be determined) to protect against the Spectre security vulnerability, and expects to release the newly redesigned processors later in 2018. On May 3, 2018, eight additional Spectre-class flaws were reported. Intel reported that they are preparing new patches to mitigate these flaws. On August 14, 2018, Intel disclosed three additional chip flaws referred to as L1 Terminal Fault (L1TF). They reported that previously released microcode updates, along with new, pre-release microcode updates can be used to mitigate these flaws. On January 18th, 2019, Intel disclosed three new vulnerabilities affecting all Intel CPUs, named "Fallout", "RIDL", and "ZombieLoad", allowing a program to read information recently wrote, read data in the line-fill buffers and load ports, and leak information from other processes and virtual machines. Recent Coffeelake-series CPUs are even more vulnerable, due to hardware mitigations for Spectre. Remote Keyboard Android AppEdit Intel has decided to discontinue with their recent Intel Remote Keyboard Android app after encountering several security bugs. This app was launched in early 2015 to help users control Intel single-board computers and Intel NUC. The company has asked Remote Keyboard Users to delete the app at their first convenience. Solid-state drives (SSD)Edit In 2008, Intel began shipping mainstream solid-state drives (SSDs) with up to 160 GB storage capacities. As with their CPUs, Intel develops SSD chips using ever-smaller nanometer processes. These SSDs make use of industry standards such as NAND flash, mSATA, PCIe, and NVMe. In 2017, Intel introduced SSDs based on 3D XPoint technology under the Optane brand name. The Intel Scientific Computers division was founded in 1984 by Justin Rattner, to design and produce parallel computers based on Intel microprocessors connected in hypercube internetwork topology. In 1992, the name was changed to the Intel Supercomputing Systems Division, and development of the iWarp architecture was also subsumed. The division designed several supercomputer systems, including the Intel iPSC/1, iPSC/2, iPSC/860, Paragon and ASCI Red. In November 2014, Intel revealed that it is going to use light beams to speed up supercomputers. Mobile Linux softwareEdit In 2007 Intel formed the Moblin project to create an open source Linux operating system for x86-based mobile devices. Following the success of Google's Android platform which ran exclusively on ARM processors, Intel announced on February 15, 2010, that it would partner with Nokia and merge Moblin with Nokia's ARM-based Maemo project to create MeeGo. MeeGo was supported by the Linux Foundation. In February 2011 Nokia left the project after partnering with Microsoft, leaving Intel in sole charge of MeeGo. An Intel spokeswoman said it was "disappointed" by Nokia's decision but that Intel was committed to MeeGo. In September 2011 Intel stopped working on MeeGo and partnered with Samsung to create Tizen, a new project hosted by the Linux Foundation. Intel has since been co-developing the Tizen operating system which runs on several Samsung devices. Competition, antitrust and espionageEdit Two factors combined to end this dominance: the slowing of PC demand growth beginning in 2000 and the rise of the low-cost PC. By the end of the 1990s, microprocessor performance had outstripped software demand for that CPU power. Aside from high-end server systems and software, whose demand dropped with the end of the "dot-com bubble", consumer systems ran effectively on increasingly low-cost systems after 2000. Intel's strategy of producing ever-more-powerful processors and obsoleting their predecessors stumbled, leaving an opportunity for rapid gains by competitors, notably AMD. This, in turn, lowered the profitability of the processor line and ended an era of unprecedented dominance of the PC hardware by Intel. Intel's dominance in the x86 microprocessor market led to numerous charges of antitrust violations over the years, including FTC investigations in both the late 1980s and in 1999, and civil actions such as the 1997 suit by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) and a patent suit by Intergraph. Intel's market dominance (at one time[when?] it controlled over 85% of the market for 32-bit x86 microprocessors) combined with Intel's own hardball legal tactics (such as its infamous 338 patent suit versus PC manufacturers) made it an attractive target for litigation, but few of the lawsuits ever amounted to anything.[clarification needed] A case of industrial espionage arose in 1995 that involved both Intel and AMD. Bill Gaede, an Argentine formerly employed both at AMD and at Intel's Arizona plant, was arrested for attempting in 1993 to sell the i486 and P5 Pentium designs to AMD and to certain foreign powers. Gaede videotaped data from his computer screen at Intel and mailed it to AMD, which immediately alerted Intel and authorities, resulting in Gaede's arrest. Gaede was convicted and sentenced to 33 months in prison in June 1996. Use of Intel products by Apple Computer (2005–present)Edit On June 6, 2005, Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, announced that Apple would be transitioning from its long favored PowerPC architecture to the Intel x86 architecture because the future PowerPC road map was unable to satisfy Apple's needs. The first Macintosh computers containing Intel CPUs were announced on January 10, 2006, and Apple had its entire line of consumer Macs running on Intel processors by early August 2006. The Apple Xserve server was updated to Intel Xeon processors from November 2006 and was offered in a configuration similar to Apple's Mac Pro. Core 2 Duo advertisement controversy (2007)Edit In July 2007, the company released a print advertisement for its Intel Core 2 Duo processor featuring six African-American runners appearing to bow down to a Caucasian male inside of an office setting (due to the posture taken by runners on starting blocks). According to Nancy Bhagat, Vice President of Intel Corporate Marketing, viewers found the ad to be "insensitive and insulting", and several Intel executives made public apologies. Introduction of Classmate PC (2011)Edit Introduction of new mobile processor technology (2011)Edit In June 2011, Intel introduced the first Pentium mobile processor based on the Sandy Bridge core. The B940, clocked at 2 GHz, is faster than existing or upcoming mobile Celerons, although it is almost identical to dual-core Celeron CPUs in all other aspects. According to IHS iSuppli's report on September 28, 2011, Sandy Bridge chips have helped Intel increase its market share in global processor market to 81.8%, while AMD's market share dropped to 10.4%. Intel planned to introduce Medfield – a processor for tablets and smartphones – to the market in 2012, as an effort to compete with ARM. As a 32-nanometer processor, Medfield is designed to be energy-efficient, which is one of the core features in ARM's chips. Update to server chips (2011)Edit In July 2011, Intel announced that its server chips, the Xeon series, will use new sensors that can improve data center cooling efficiency. Introduction of Ivy Bridge 22 nm processors (2011)Edit Development of Personal Office Energy Monitor (POEM) (2011)Edit As part of its efforts in the Positive Energy Buildings Consortium, Intel has been developing an application, called Personal Office Energy Monitor (POEM), to help office buildings to be more energy-efficient. With this application, employees can get the power consumption info for their office machines, so that they can figure out a better way to save energy in their working environment. IT Manager seriesEdit Intel has introduced some simulation games, starting in 2009 with web-based IT Manager 3: Unseen Forces. In it, the player manages a company's IT department. The goal is to apply technology and skill to enable the company to grow from a small business into a global enterprise.[better source needed] The game has since been discontinued and succeeded in 2012 by the web-based multiplayer game IT Manager: Duels, which is no longer available. Car Security System (2011)Edit In 2011, Intel announced that it is working on a car security system that connects to smartphones via an application. The application works by streaming video to a cloud service if a car armed with the system is broken into. High-Bandwidth Digital Content ProtectionEdit Intel also developed High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) to prevent access of digital audio and video content as it travels across connections. Move from Wintel desktop to open mobile platforms (2013–2014)Edit In 2013, Intel's Kirk Skaugen said that Intel's exclusive focus on Microsoft platforms was a thing of the past and that they would now support all "tier-one operating systems" such as Linux, Android, iOS, and Chrome. Introduction of Haswell processors (2013)Edit Wearable fashion (2014)Edit Intel developed a reference design for wearable smart earbuds that provide biometric and fitness information. The Intel smart earbuds provide full stereo audio, and monitor heart rate, while the applications on the user's phone keep track of run distance and calories burned. On November 19, 2015, Intel, alongside ARM Holdings, Dell, Cisco Systems, Microsoft, and Princeton University, founded the OpenFog Consortium, to promote interests and development in fog computing. Intel's Chief Strategist for the IoT Strategy and Technology Office, Jeff Faders, became the consortium's first president. In 2009, Intel announced that it planned to undertake an effort to remove conflict resources—materials sourced from mines whose profits are used to fund armed militant groups, particularly within the Democratic Republic of the Congo—from its supply chain. Intel sought conflict-free sources of the precious metals common to electronics from within the country, using a system of first- and third-party audits, as well as input from the Enough Project and other organizations. During a keynote address at Consumer Electronics Show 2014, Intel CEO at the time, Brian Krzanich, announced that the company's microprocessors would henceforth be conflict free. In 2016, Intel stated that it had expected its entire supply chain to be conflict-free by the end of the year. Self driving carsEdit Intel is one of the biggest stakeholders in the self-driving car industry, having joined the race in mid 2017 after joining forces with Mobileye. The company is also one of the first in the sector to research consumer acceptance, after an AAA report quoted a 78% nonacceptance rate of the technology in the US. Safety levels of the technology, the thought of abandoning control to a machine, and psychological comfort of passengers in such situations were the major discussion topics initially. The commuters also stated that they did not want to see everything the car was doing. This was primarily a referral to the auto-steering wheel with no one sitting in the driving seat. Intel also learned that voice control regulator is vital, and the interface between the humans and machine eases the discomfort condition, and brings some sense of control back. It is important to mention that Intel included only 10 people in this study, which makes the study less credible. In a video posted on YouTube, Intel accepted this fact and called for further testing. Leadership and corporate structureEdit Robert Noyce was Intel's CEO at its founding in 1968, followed by co-founder Gordon Moore in 1975. Andy Grove became the company's president in 1979 and added the CEO title in 1987 when Moore became chairman. In 1998, Grove succeeded Moore as Chairman, and Craig Barrett, already company president, took over. On May 18, 2005, Barrett handed the reins of the company over to Paul Otellini, who had been the company president and COO and who was responsible for Intel's design win in the original IBM PC. The board of directors elected Otellini as President and CEO, and Barrett replaced Grove as Chairman of the Board. Grove stepped down as chairman but is retained as a special adviser. In May 2009, Barrett stepped down as chairman of the Board and was succeeded by Jane Shaw. In May 2012, Intel vice chairman Andy Bryant, who had held the posts of CFO (1994) and Chief Administrative Officer (2007) at Intel, succeeded Shaw as executive chairman. In November 2012, president and CEO Paul Otellini announced that he would step down in May 2013 at the age of 62, three years before the company's mandatory retirement age. During a six-month transition period, Intel's board of directors commenced a search process for the next CEO, in which it considered both internal managers and external candidates such as Sanjay Jha and Patrick Gelsinger. Financial results revealed that, under Otellini, Intel's revenue increased by 55.8 percent (US$34.2 to 53.3 billion), while its net income increased by 46.7% (US$7.5 billion to 11 billion). On May 2, 2013, Executive Vice President and COO Brian Krzanich was elected as Intel's sixth CEO, a selection that became effective on May 16, 2013, at the company's annual meeting. Reportedly, the board concluded that an insider could proceed with the role and exert an impact more quickly, without the need to learn Intel's processes, and Krzanich was selected on such a basis. Intel's software head Renée James was selected as president of the company, a role that is second to the CEO position. As of May 2013, Intel's board of directors consists of Andy Bryant, John Donahoe, Frank Yeary, Ambassador Charlene Barshefsky, Susan Decker, Reed Hundt, Paul Otellini, James Plummer, David Pottruck, and David Yoffie and Creative director will.i.am. The board was described by former Financial Times journalist Tom Foremski as "an exemplary example of corporate governance of the highest order" and received a rating of ten from GovernanceMetrics International, a form of recognition that has only been awarded to twenty-one other corporate boards worldwide. On June 21, 2018, Intel announced the resignation of Brian Krzanich as CEO, with the exposure of a relationship he had with an employee. Bob Swan was named interim CEO, as the Board began a search for a permanent CEO. This section needs additional citations for verification. (October 2008) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) The firm promotes very heavily from within, most notably in its executive suite. The company has resisted the trend toward outsider CEOs. Paul Otellini was a 30-year veteran of the company when he assumed the role of CEO. All of his top lieutenants have risen through the ranks after many years with the firm. In many cases, Intel's top executives have spent their entire working careers with Intel. Intel has a mandatory retirement policy for its CEOs when they reach age 65. Andy Grove retired at 62, while both Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore retired at 58. Grove retired as Chairman and as a member of the board of directors in 2005 at age 68. Intel's headquarters are located in Santa Clara, California, and the company has operations around the world. Its largest workforce concentration anywhere is in Washington County, Oregon (in the Portland metropolitan area's "Silicon Forest"), with 18,600 employees at several facilities. Outside the United States, the company has facilities in China, Costa Rica, Malaysia, Israel, Ireland, India, Russia, Argentina and Vietnam, in 63 countries and regions internationally. In the U.S. Intel employs significant numbers of people in California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, Washington and Utah. In Oregon, Intel is the state's largest private employer. The company is the largest industrial employer in New Mexico while in Arizona the company has over 10,000 employees. Intel invests heavily in research in China and about 100 researchers – or 10% of the total number of researchers from Intel – are located in Beijing. In 2011, the Israeli government offered Intel $290 million to expand in the country. As a condition, Intel would employ 1,500 more workers in Kiryat Gat and between 600–1000 workers in the north. In January 2014, it was reported that Intel would cut about 5,000 jobs from its work force of 107,000. The announcement was made a day after it reported earnings that missed analyst targets. In March 2014, it was reported that Intel would embark upon a $6 billion plan to expand its activities in Israel. The plan calls for continued investment in existing and new Intel plants until 2030. As of 2014 Intel employs 10,000 workers at four development centers and two production plants in Israel. Intel has a Diversity Initiative, including employee diversity groups as well as supplier diversity programs. Like many companies with employee diversity groups, they include groups based on race and nationality as well as sexual identity and religion. In 1994, Intel sanctioned one of the earliest corporate Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender employee groups, and supports a Muslim employees group, a Jewish employees group, and a Bible-based Christian group. Intel received a 100% rating on the first Corporate Equality Index released by the Human Rights Campaign in 2002. It has maintained this rating in 2003 and 2004. In addition, the company was named one of the 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers in 2005 by Working Mother magazine. In January 2015, Intel announced the investment of $300 million over the next five years to enhance gender and racial diversity in their own company as well as the technology industry as a whole. In February 2016, Intel released its Global Diversity & Inclusion 2015 Annual Report. The male-female mix of US employees was reported as 75.2% men and 24.8% women. For US employees in technical roles, the mix was reported as 79.8% male and 20.1% female. NPR reports that Intel is facing a retention problem (particularly for African Americans), not just a pipeline problem. Economic impact in Oregon in 2009Edit In 2011, ECONorthwest conducted an economic impact analysis of Intel's economic contribution to the state of Oregon. The report found that in 2009 "the total economic impacts attributed to Intel's operations, capital spending, contributions and taxes amounted to almost $14.6 billion in activity, including $4.3 billion in personal income and 59,990 jobs". Through multiplier effects, every 10 Intel jobs supported, on average, was found to create 31 jobs in other sectors of the economy. School funding in New Mexico in 1997Edit Ultrabook fund (2011)Edit In 2011, Intel Capital announced a new fund to support startups working on technologies in line with the company's concept for next generation notebooks. The company is setting aside a $300 million fund to be spent over the next three to four years in areas related to ultrabooks. Intel announced the ultrabook concept at Computex in 2011. The ultrabook is defined as a thin (less than 0.8 inches [~2 cm] thick) notebook that utilizes Intel processors and also incorporates tablet features such as a touch screen and long battery life. At the Intel Developers Forum in 2011, four Taiwan ODMs showed prototype ultrabooks that used Intel's Ivy Bridge chips. Intel plans to improve power consumption of its chips for ultrabooks, like new Ivy Bridge processors in 2013, which will only have 10W default thermal design power. Intel has become one of the world's most recognizable computer brands following its long-running Intel Inside campaign. The idea for "Intel Inside" came out of a meeting between Intel and one of the major computer resellers, MicroAge. In the late 1980s, Intel's market share was being seriously eroded by upstart competitors such as Advanced Micro Devices (now AMD), Zilog, and others who had started to sell their less expensive microprocessors to computer manufacturers. This was because, by using cheaper processors, manufacturers could make cheaper computers and gain more market share in an increasingly price-sensitive market. In 1989, Intel's Dennis Carter visited MicroAge's headquarters in Tempe, Arizona, to meet with MicroAge's VP of Marketing, Ron Mion. MicroAge had become one of the largest distributors of Compaq, IBM, HP, and others and thus was a primary – although indirect – driver of demand for microprocessors. Intel wanted MicroAge to petition its computer suppliers to favor Intel chips. However, Mion felt that the marketplace should decide which processors they wanted. Intel's counterargument was that it would be too difficult to educate PC buyers on why Intel microprocessors were worth paying more for ... and they were right. But Mion felt that the public didn't really need to fully understand why Intel chips were better, they just needed to feel they were better. So Mion proposed a market test. Intel would pay for a MicroAge billboard somewhere saying, "If you're buying a personal computer, make sure it has Intel inside." In turn, MicroAge would put "Intel Inside" stickers on the Intel-based computers in their stores in that area. To make the test easier to monitor, Mion decided to do the test in Boulder, Colorado, where it had a single store. Virtually overnight, the sales of personal computers in that store dramatically shifted to Intel-based PCs. Intel very quickly adopted "Intel Inside" as its primary branding and rolled it out worldwide. As is often the case with computer lore, other tidbits have been combined to explain how things evolved. "Intel Inside" has not escaped that tendency and there are other "explanations" that had been floating around. Intel's branding campaign started with "The Computer Inside" tagline in 1990 in the US and Europe. The Japan chapter of Intel proposed an "Intel in it" tagline and kicked off the Japanese campaign by hosting EKI-KON (meaning "Station Concert" in Japanese) at the Tokyo railway station dome on Christmas Day, December 25, 1990. Several months later, "The Computer Inside" incorporated the Japan idea to become "Intel Inside" which eventually elevated to the worldwide branding campaign in 1991, by Intel marketing manager Dennis Carter. The case study of the Inside Intel Inside was put together by Harvard Business School. The five-note jingle was introduced in 1994 and by its tenth anniversary was being heard in 130 countries around the world. The initial branding agency for the "Intel Inside" campaign was DahlinSmithWhite Advertising of Salt Lake City. The Intel swirl logo was the work of DahlinSmithWhite art director Steve Grigg under the direction of Intel president and CEO Andy Grove. The Intel Inside advertising campaign sought public brand loyalty and awareness of Intel processors in consumer computers. Intel paid some of the advertiser's costs for an ad that used the Intel Inside logo and xylo-marimba jingle. In 2008, Intel planned to shift the emphasis of its Intel Inside campaign from traditional media such as television and print to newer media such as the Internet. Intel required that a minimum of 35% of the money it provided to the companies in its co-op program be used for online marketing. The Intel 2010 annual financial report indicated that $1.8 billion (6% of the gross margin and nearly 16% of the total net income) was allocated to all advertising with Intel Inside being part of that. The famous D♭ D♭ G♭ D♭ A♭ xylophone/xylomarimba jingle, sonic logo, tag, audio mnemonic was produced by Musikvergnuegen and written by Walter Werzowa, once a member of the Austrian 1980s sampling band Edelweiss. The sonic Intel logo was remade in 1999 to coincide with the launch of the Pentium III, and a second time in 2004 to coincide with the new logo change (although it overlapped with the 1999 version and was not mainstreamed until the launch of the Core processors in 2006), with the melody unchanged. Advertisements for products featuring Intel processors with prominent MMX branding featured a version of the jingle with an embellishment after the final note. Processor naming strategyEdit In mid-January 2006, Intel announced that they were dropping the long running Pentium name from their processors. The Pentium name was first used to refer to the P5 core Intel processors and was done to comply with court rulings that prevent the trademarking of a string of numbers, so competitors could not just call their processor the same name, as had been done with the prior 386 and 486 processors (both of which had copies manufactured by IBM and AMD). They phased out the Pentium names from mobile processors first, when the new Yonah chips, branded Core Solo and Core Duo, were released. The desktop processors changed when the Core 2 line of processors were released. By 2009, Intel was using a good-better-best strategy with Celeron being good, Pentium better, and the Intel Core family representing the best the company has to offer. According to spokesman Bill Calder, Intel has maintained only the Celeron brand, the Atom brand for netbooks and the vPro lineup for businesses. Since late 2009, Intel's mainstream processors have been called Celeron, Pentium, Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7, in order of performance from lowest to highest. The first generation core products carry a 3 digit name, such as i5 750, and the second generation products carry a 4 digit name, such as the i5 2500. In both cases, a K at the end of it shows that it is an unlocked processor, enabling additional overclocking abilities (for instance, 2500K). vPro products will carry the Intel Core i7 vPro processor or the Intel Core i5 vPro processor name. In October 2011, Intel started to sell its Core i7-2700K "Sandy Bridge" chip to customers worldwide. Since 2010, "Centrino" is only being applied to Intel's WiMAX and Wi-Fi technologies. Intel Clear is a global font announced in 2014 designed for to be used across all communications. The font family was designed by Red Peek Branding and Daltan Maag Ltd. Initially available in Latin, Greek and Cyrillic scripts, it replaced Neo Sans Intel as the company's corporate typeface. Intel Clear Hebrew, Intel Clear Arabic were added by Daltan Maag Ltd. Intel Brand BookEdit It is a book produced by Red Peak Branding as part of new brand identity campaign, celebrating Intel's achievements while setting the new standard for what Intel looks, feels and sounds like. Open source supportEdit Intel has a significant participation in the open source communities since 1999.[self-published source] For example, in 2006 Intel released MIT-licensed X.org drivers for their integrated graphic cards of the i965 family of chipsets. Intel released FreeBSD drivers for some networking cards, available under a BSD-compatible license, which were also ported to OpenBSD. Binary firmware files for non-wireless Ethernet devices were also released under a BSD licence allowing free redistribution. Intel ran the Moblin project until April 23, 2009, when they handed the project over to the Linux Foundation. Intel also runs the LessWatts.org campaigns. However, after the release of the wireless products called Intel Pro/Wireless 2100, 2200BG/2225BG/2915ABG and 3945ABG in 2005, Intel was criticized for not granting free redistribution rights for the firmware that must be included in the operating system for the wireless devices to operate. As a result of this, Intel became a target of campaigns to allow free operating systems to include binary firmware on terms acceptable to the open source community. Linspire-Linux creator Michael Robertson outlined the difficult position that Intel was in releasing to open source, as Intel did not want to upset their large customer Microsoft. Theo de Raadt of OpenBSD also claimed that Intel is being "an Open Source fraud" after an Intel employee presented a distorted view of the situation at an open-source conference. In spite of the significant negative attention Intel received as a result of the wireless dealings, the binary firmware still has not gained a license compatible with free software principles. Declining PC salesEdit Due to declining PC sales, in 2016 Intel cut 12,000 jobs. Litigation and regulatory issuesEdit Patent infringement litigation (2006–2007)Edit In October 2006, a Transmeta lawsuit was filed against Intel for patent infringement on computer architecture and power efficiency technologies. The lawsuit was settled in October 2007, with Intel agreeing to pay US$150 million initially and US$20 million per year for the next five years. Both companies agreed to drop lawsuits against each other, while Intel was granted a perpetual non-exclusive license to use current and future patented Transmeta technologies in its chips for 10 years. Anti-trust allegations and litigation (2005–2009)Edit In September 2005, Intel filed a response to an AMD lawsuit, disputing AMD's claims, and claiming that Intel's business practices are fair and lawful. In a rebuttal, Intel deconstructed AMD's offensive strategy and argued that AMD struggled largely as a result of its own bad business decisions, including underinvestment in essential manufacturing capacity and excessive reliance on contracting out chip foundries. Legal analysts predicted the lawsuit would drag on for a number of years since Intel's initial response indicated its unwillingness to settle with AMD. In 2008 a court date was finally set, but in 2009, Intel settled with a $1.25 billion payout to AMD (see below). On November 4, 2009, New York's attorney general filed an antitrust lawsuit against Intel Corp, claiming the company used "illegal threats and collusion" to dominate the market for computer microprocessors. On November 12, 2009, AMD agreed to drop the antitrust lawsuit against Intel in exchange for $1.25 billion. A joint press release published by the two chip makers stated "While the relationship between the two companies has been difficult in the past, this agreement ends the legal disputes and enables the companies to focus all of our efforts on product innovation and development." Allegations by Japan Fair Trade Commission (2005)Edit In 2005, the local Fair Trade Commission found that Intel violated the Japanese Antimonopoly Act. The commission ordered Intel to eliminate discounts that had discriminated against AMD. To avoid a trial, Intel agreed to comply with the order. Allegations by the European Union (2007–2008)Edit In July 2007, the European Commission accused Intel of anti-competitive practices, mostly against AMD. The allegations, going back to 2003, include giving preferential prices to computer makers buying most or all of their chips from Intel, paying computer makers to delay or cancel the launch of products using AMD chips, and providing chips at below standard cost to governments and educational institutions. Intel responded that the allegations were unfounded and instead qualified its market behavior as consumer-friendly. General counsel Bruce Sewell responded that the Commission had misunderstood some factual assumptions as to pricing and manufacturing costs. In February 2008, Intel stated that its office in Munich had been raided by European Union regulators. Intel reported that it was cooperating with investigators. Intel faced a fine of up to 10% of its annual revenue, if found guilty of stifling competition. AMD subsequently launched a website promoting these allegations. In June 2008, the EU filed new charges against Intel. In May 2009, the EU found that Intel had engaged in anti-competitive practices and subsequently fined Intel €1.06 billion (US$1.44 billion), a record amount. Intel was found to have paid companies, including Acer, Dell, HP, Lenovo and NEC, to exclusively use Intel chips in their products, and therefore harmed other companies including AMD. The European Commission said that Intel had deliberately acted to keep competitors out of the computer chip market and in doing so had made a "serious and sustained violation of the EU's antitrust rules". In addition to the fine, Intel was ordered by the Commission to immediately cease all illegal practices. Intel has stated that they will appeal against the Commission's verdict. In June 2014, the General Court, which sits below the European Court of Justice, rejected the appeal. Allegations by regulators in South Korea (2007)Edit In September 2007, South Korean regulators accused Intel of breaking antitrust law. The investigation began in February 2006, when officials raided Intel's South Korean offices. The company risked a penalty of up to 3% of its annual sales, if found guilty. In June 2008, the Fair Trade Commission ordered Intel to pay a fine of US$25.5 million for taking advantage of its dominant position to offer incentives to major Korean PC manufacturers on the condition of not buying products from AMD. Allegations by regulators in the United States (2008–2010)Edit New York started an investigation of Intel in January 2008 on whether the company violated antitrust laws in pricing and sales of its microprocessors. In June 2008, the Federal Trade Commission also began an antitrust investigation of the case. In December 2009, the FTC announced it would initiate an administrative proceeding against Intel in September 2010. In November 2009, following a two-year investigation, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo sued Intel, accusing them of bribery and coercion, claiming that Intel bribed computer makers to buy more of their chips than those of their rivals, and threatened to withdraw these payments if the computer makers were perceived as working too closely with its competitors. Intel has denied these claims. On July 22, 2010, Dell agreed to a settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to pay $100M in penalties resulting from charges that Dell did not accurately disclose accounting information to investors. In particular, the SEC charged that from 2002 to 2006, Dell had an agreement with Intel to receive rebates in exchange for not using chips manufactured by AMD. These substantial rebates were not disclosed to investors, but were used to help meet investor expectations regarding the company's financial performance; "These exclusivity payments grew from 10 percent of Dell's operating income in FY 2003 to 38 percent in FY 2006, and peaked at 76 percent in the first quarter of FY 2007." Dell eventually did adopt AMD as a secondary supplier in 2006, and Intel subsequently stopped their rebates, causing Dell's financial performance to fall. Corporate responsibility recordEdit Intel has been accused by some residents of Rio Rancho, New Mexico of allowing VOCs to be released in excess of their pollution permit. One resident claimed that a release of 1.4 tons of carbon tetrachloride was measured from one acid scrubber during the fourth quarter of 2003 but an emission factor allowed Intel to report no carbon tetrachloride emissions for all of 2003. Another resident alleges that Intel was responsible for the release of other VOCs from their Rio Rancho site and that a necropsy of lung tissue from two deceased dogs in the area indicated trace amounts of toluene, hexane, ethylbenzene, and xylene isomers, all of which are solvents used in industrial settings but also commonly found in gasoline, retail paint thinners and retail solvents. During a sub-committee meeting of the New Mexico Environment Improvement Board, a resident claimed that Intel's own reports documented more than 1,580 pounds (720 kg) of VOCs were released in June and July 2006. Intel's environmental performance is published annually in their corporate responsibility report. In its 2012 rankings on the progress of consumer electronics companies relating to conflict minerals, the Enough Project rated Intel the best of 24 companies, calling it a "Pioneer of progress". In 2014, chief executive Brian Krzanich urged the rest of the industry to follow Intel's lead by also shunning conflict minerals. Age discrimination complaintsEdit Intel has faced complaints of age discrimination in firing and layoffs. Intel was sued in 1993 by nine former employees, over allegations that they were laid off because they were over the age of 40. A group called FACE Intel (Former and Current Employees of Intel) claims that Intel weeds out older employees. FACE Intel claims that more than 90 percent of people who have been laid off or fired from Intel are over the age of 40. Upside magazine requested data from Intel breaking out its hiring and firing by age, but the company declined to provide any. Intel has denied that age plays any role in Intel's employment practices. FACE Intel was founded by Ken Hamidi, who was fired from Intel in 1995 at the age of 47. Hamidi was blocked in a 1999 court decision from using Intel's email system to distribute criticism of the company to employees, which overturned in 2003 in Intel Corp. v. Hamidi. Tax dispute in IndiaEdit In August 2016, Indian officials of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) parked garbage trucks on Intel's campus and threatened to dump them for evading payment of property taxes between 2007 and 2008, to the tune of 340 million Indian rupees (US$4.9 million). Intel had reportedly been paying taxes as a non-air-conditioned office, when the campus in fact had central air conditioning. Other factors, such as land acquisition and construction improvements, added to the tax burden. 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Pdf file downloadable here (680 Kb) In the summer of 1987 the National Caucus of Labor Committees (NCLC) submitted a document in a legal action that attempted to prove that Roy Frankhouser, a well-known KKK member and Lyndon LaRouche's longtime paid "security consultant," was highly connected inside the CIA. The document, "Attachment 2," began: During 1974-75, Roy Frankhauser [sic], claiming to be working on behalf of the CIA, established contact with the NCLC. In approximately June 1975, Frankhauser submitted to three days of intensive debriefings, during which time he provided details of his employment with the National Security Council on a special assignment to penetrate a Canada-based cell of the Palestinian terrorist Black September organization, and other aspects of his CIA career dating back to his involvement in the Bay of Pigs.2 Frankhauser said he served as the "babysitter" for [Mario] Garcia-Kholy [sic], one of the Brigade leaders who was to have a high government post in a post-Castro Cuba.3 Subsequently, NCLC researchers found a brief reference in PRAVDA citing a 1962 expulsion of one "R. Frankhauser" from a low-level post at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow on charges that he was spying.4 The NCLC reference to a "R. Frankhauser" being in Moscow in 1962 as somehow relevant evidence that Roy E. Frankhouser was working for the CIA suggests just how much we have entered the Mad Hatter's World. As I have shown in previous chapters on Frankhouser in Smiling Man from a Dead Planet, Roy Frankhouser was living very publicly in Reading, Pennsylvania, and not in Rostov-on-Don. When he was not picketing the White House dressed in Nazi regalia, he was being regularly arrested for causing public disorder.5 In late 1962 – the very year the NCLC claimed "R. Frankhauser" was working as an American spy in Moscow – Roy Frankhouser was arrested in center city Philadelphia for handing out anti-Semitic, anti-black and pro-Nazi literature to Christmas holiday shoppers.6 Even if there truly was an "R. Frankhauser" in Moscow who was some kind of American agent – a big "if" to put it mildly – the troubled youth who dropped out of high school in the ninth grade and certainly did not know Russian clearly was not the alleged spy in question.7 Yet what is of value in "Attachment 2" is the information that in June 1975 the NCLC spent three full days intensively "debriefing" Frankhouser. Some months later, the NCLC publicly declared that Frankhouser's revelations would prove critical in unmasking the "real killers" of John F. Kennedy. This bold assertion first surfaced in a 27 October 1975 New Solidarity story penned by a top member of the group's "Security Staff" named Scott Thompson, who maintained close ties with select members of the radical right.8 On 20 November 1975, the same Scott Thompson wrote what was billed to be the first of a series of articles highlighting Frankhouser's claims about a plot to kill Kennedy.9 To this day Frankhouser is perhaps most famous for the fact that in late 1965 the "Jewish Nazi" Dan Burros killed himself in Frankhouser's Reading, Pennsylvania, home after the New York Times published an expose on Burros' Jewish roots. Burros' spectacular death, however, has until now overshadowed a closer look at Frankhouser's activities inside the far right. Now with the help of newly released FBI files, we can shed remarkable new light on his subterranean world. Following the Frankhouser bread crumbs in New Solidarity, I hope to incorporate new information from FBI and other sources to illuminate the almost unknown underworld of far right politics in the late 1950s and early 1960s.10 In so doing, I also wish to advance research first begun by Professor Jerry Rose who in 1996 first cited Frankhouser's strange saga in the pages of The Fourth Decade, the journal on the Kennedy assassination that Rose also edited.11 I propose to read the two articles in New Solidarity as a palimpsest of a sort into Roy Frankhouser's eldritch world in the late 1950s and early 1960s as he blithely slithered into political organization on both the far left and far right. In so doing, I hope to shed new light not only on Frankhouser but also on his associates such as the Klan Bureau of Investigation (KBI) leader Eugene Tabbutt. Their saga will take us into the subterranean universe of a still highly cryptic group called the "Knights of Malta," a pseudo-chivalric "Order" which maintained ties to key members of the far-right.12 Finally, Frankhouser's serpentine sojourn inside the Trotskyist movement raises the possibility that when Frankhouser claimed to have met LaRouche during the period he operated in the world of the SWP, he may well have been telling the truth. If so, the question then has to be asked whether or not the Frankhouser-LaRouche connection began much earlier but only surfaced publicly in the mid-1970s. What is of interest here is a detailed examination of Roy Frankhouser's attempt – starting sometime in late 1959 and early 1960 – to infiltrate a small Trotskyist organization headquartered in New York City called the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and its youth group, the Young Socialist Alliance (YSA). Frankhouser claimed that what he learned while infiltrating the SWP would prove relevant to the question of who shot Kennedy. He tried at least three times to peddle his revelations; first to the Warren Commission in 1964, to New Orleans DA Jim Garrison in 1967, and, finally, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) in 1975, this last attempt with help from the NCLC. Recently declassified FBI files show that Frankhouser did infiltrate the ranks of the local SWP in the Philadelphia region in the late 1950s as well as in New York where the SWP had its national headquarters. Frankhouser's tale, then, includes some eerie links to the future NCLC. Although the NCLC only officially came into contact with Frankhouser sometime in either late 1974 or early 1975, Frankhouser claimed that he had first met Lyndon LaRouche ("Lynn Marcus") while he was infiltrating the SWP in late 1959-early 1960, an assertion LaRouche denied.13 Yet one of Frankhouser's key contacts inside the YSA/SWP, George Larrabee, happened to be the first husband of Carol White (nee Schnitzer).14 Sometime after the Larrabees broke up, Carol became LaRouche's common-law wife and remained so until early 1972.15 She and LaRouche co-founded what became the NCLC in 1966-67. ROOTS OF A SPY Born in Reading on 11 April 1939, Royson Everett Frankhouser, Jr., led a classic troubled childhood. His father, who in the late 1950s made his living as a barber, had a violent temper and the family lived in constant fear. Frankhouser recalled that his father – whom he said had once been a musician – wound up joining the KKK.16 Frankhouser's father reportedly served time in a Federal prison for at least two armed robberies. Frankhouser's mother Lottie, who divorced her husband in 1950, testified that Royson, Sr., "was always drinking, was violent and profane, went into rages, threatened suicide often, and 'always said he hated Jews and Catholics.' He used to shout 'Heil Hitler' just to annoy the neighbors." After the divorce, Frankhouser lived with his mother and step-father. He may have been at times a ward of the state. A Berks County Juvenile Probation Officer told the FBI that while Frankhouser "was never placed under the care of his office by the Court . . . they had supervised him unofficially because of parental troubles." For his part, Frankhouser recalled that around the time of the divorce he spent time in a children's home and he later recalled that "living in a children's home . . . I admired strength. I lived in a society that seemed to be absolutely weak. They could break up my family and throw me into a home and where was the all-American bounty? What kind of country was this?"17 Frankhouser became a problem in school, twice flunking the ninth grade. Around the same time, he began passionately collecting World War II Nazi regalia. Possibly through his father's old Reading KKK connection, he met Clarence Seidel, described in the FBI files as a "former Exalted Cyclops of RDG. [Reading], Number 265, Great Titan of Berks County, Pa." After Frankhouser dropped out of high school to join the U.S. Army paratroopers, he told the librarian at the Fort Bragg Army base in North Carolina that he wanted to develop contact with the local KKK. He then gave the librarian a letter of recommendation written by Seidel to prove Frankhouser's "authenticity and sincerity" in seeking membership in the Klan. During his time in the Army, Frankhouser established ties to Elton Lee Edwards of East Point, Georgia. A one-time paint sprayer at GM's Fisher Body plant in Atlanta, Edwards was the Grand Imperial Wizard of the U.S. Klans, Knights of the Ku Klux Klans, Inc.18 FROM THE ARMY TO THE FBI "BOMB SUSPECT LIST" The little we know about Frankhouser's time in the U.S. Amy comes from an investigation of Frankhouser's career as a far-rightist/U.S. government informant extraordinaire conducted by John George and Laird Wilcox for their book Nazis, Communists, Klansmen and Others on the Fringe.19 They report that Frankhouser joined the U.S. Army on 6 November 1956 and specifically volunteered for the 82nd Airborne Division in order to be sent to Germany. As a devout collector of Nazi memorabilia as well as "a Ku Klux Klan sympathizer even as a young man," Frankhouser soon engaged "in a number of half-baked plots that immediately brought him to the attention of army authorities" at Fort Bragg. Frankhouser even developed a scheme to have himself declared officially dead so he could leave the army and join the neo-Nazi movement, hoping to rise to a position of prominence. On July 2, 1957, Frankhauser stated that he planned to desert the U.S. Army and join the revolutionary forces in Cuba. In fact, he went AWOL and arrived in Miami, Florida, on July 5, 1957, to do precisely that. He was taken into custody shortly thereafter and returned to his military unit. Army records reflect that Frankhouser was discharged on November 18, 1957, under the provisions of AR-635-209 (unfit for military service).20 George and Wilcox cite an document based on a series of interviews Frankhouser gave under oath from 13 July to 18 July 1957 after his return to Army custody: (FRANKHAUSER) made a decision to infiltrate organizations such as the Neo-Nazi Party, the Communist Party, and the Ku Klux Klan, to determine their motives, identity, the leaders, and report this information to the proper intelligence agency of the United States Government if their aims were ascertained to be inimical to the interest of the United States. FRANKHAUSER advised he had created a cover story which included causing people to think he was a true Communist or Nazi and the creation of an organization which was to be a large, well-organized unit, but which was composed of only one man – FRANKHAUSER. FRANKHAUSER'S aim at Fort Bragg was to get the Klans of the North together with the Klans of the South to give the United States government the opportunity to destroy these organizations.21 At the time he made these astonishing statements, Roy Frankhouser was 18 years old.22 After a trip to a U.S. Army facility at Fort Bragg for psychiatric treatment, Frankhouser received an honorable discharge on 18 November 1957.23 Frankhouser's claims to military authorities were made after he was returned to the Army after having gone AWOL and are no doubt self-serving. Yet he spent the rest of his life shuttling between extremist groups and U.S. government agencies. A 15 September 1975 article by Norman Kempster in the Washington Star ("He Says Uncle Sam Was His Partner in Crime") reported: Although he does not deny sharing the racist views of the KKK and the Nazis, Frankhouser said he joined many right-wing groups at the suggestion of state and federal law enforcement agencies – the FBI, the Mississippi highway patrol and others. He said his associations with law enforcement go back 15 or 20 years. After his discharge, Frankhouser moved back to Reading but he continued to visit his racist friends in the South. In 1958, for example, he was arrested in Atlanta for assaulting a policeman during a KKK rally in defense of segregation. At the time, Frankhouser said he was also a member of the far right National States Rights Party (NSRP), which had carried out the bombing of a Jewish synagogue in Atlanta (the Atlanta Reform Temple) on 12 October 1958. The bombing was just one of a series of attacks on Jewish institutions in the South.24 The Atlanta bombing – as well as other attacks against Jewish and black institutions – led the FBI to focus on Frankhouser as a potential terrorist. He was even on an FBI "Bomb Suspect List." It was during this same period in the late 1950s that Roy Frankhouser began cultivating connections to the SWP and other leftist groups. Frankhouser would later claim that what he learned during this period would shed new light on President Kennedy's death. Remarkably, Frankhouser's promised "revelations" about the JFK assassination first surfaced not in the pages of the NSRP paper Thunderbolt or in some KKK-affiliated hate sheet but in the pages of the prestigious New York Times. In a 1 November 1965 article on the Daniel Burros suicide, the Times interviewed Frankhouser at his Reading home. After telling the Times that he had served as a spy for the Virginia White Citizens Council (WCC) and in this capacity had infiltrated "Communist and Negro meetings," Frankhouser declared: "soon after the assassination of President Kennedy he offered to give the Federal Bureau of Investigation photostats showing that the Socialist Workers Party had a "training camp" with which Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin, was "connected." Some ten years later, Frankhouser's story became more elaborate. He now claimed that he had even been asked to testify before the Warren Commission. In an article by Norman Kempster in the 12 October 1975 issue of the Washington Star on a renewed investigation by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence into the Kennedy assassination ("Schweiker, Hart Ask JFK Probe Review"), Frankhouser "said he was subpoenaed to testify before the Warren Commission but did not appear because the subpoena was canceled." THE NEW SOLIDARITY "REVELATIONS" A few weeks after the Washington Star story appeared, the NCLC's New Solidarity announced that the organization had begun its own probe into the JFK murder. A month later, New Solidarity would devote a long article to detailing Frankhouser's version of events leading up to the death of JFK. Here now in their entirety are both articles: From the 27 October 1975 New Solidarity: By Scott Thompson Oct. 25 (IPS) 25 — Ken Duggan, a right-wing activist who was in possession of information which linked the Buckley family to Rockefeller's CIA domestic terror apparatus, died under mysterious circumstances at Rikers Island Prison last Friday. Prison guards told IPS they believed that Duggan was murdered, citing conflicting statements as to the cause of death. The first release said Duggan was electrocuted; a subsequent release listed the cause of death as suicide from hanging. Duggan was slated to be released in three days on an appeal bond. A few weeks before his death, Duggan had begun once again to collaborate with IPS after seeing a friend, ex-agent Roy Frankhauser, step forward to expose National Security Council control over most left and right-wing terrorist groups. Duggan had been framed up on attempted murder charges brought by George Wilkie, an ex-member of Duggan's organization, the Provisional National Government, who had been thrown out of the PNG for being a Buckley spy shortly before the frame-up.26 Duggan had not even been present at the shooting for which he was convicted. Wilkie had been at Rikers Island before being introduced into the New York right-wing by leading individuals linked to the Buckley's Conservative Party. At that time he joined the U.S. section of "Tradition, Family, and Property," a right-wing group that directs death squads in Brazil. After being forced out of the PNG, Wilkie taught karate for the Commandoes Libres Nacionales – a small gang of CIA-linked Gusano terrorists located on both the East and West Coast. As IPS has elsewhere documented, the Buckley Family is one of Nelson Rockefeller's main controllers of fascist terrorist groups. They are known to specialize in the use of Cuban exile (Gusano) terrorists through William Buckley's partner Howard Hunt. Through Madrid-based F. Reid Buckley, they control other Latin American and Eastern European organizations. The Buckleys are in command of sectors of the U.S. hard-core rightwing through individuals such as the late George Lincoln Rockwell, fuehrer of the American Nazi Party. Duggan, a leader of the independent, radical-populist right in New York State, had sought for several years to join forces with the left against the Rockefeller family. Prior to his frame-up, Duggan had reprinted New Solidarity articles in his magazine, Illuminator.27 Dissolving the PNG as an agent-ridden body, he began collaborating with the NCLC, mapping the Buckley family networks of CIA-controlled right-wing countergangs. If you have any information on Ken Duggan's death, forward it immediately to this newspaper. Other potential sources of information in Duggan's circle are known to be in danger. It is expected that this intelligence will fit into an NCLC investigation into the Kennedy assassination [my emphasis] along lines now being pursued by Sen. Richard Schweiker of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Next from 20 November 1975 issue of New Solidarity (page 5): Frankhauser Reveals NSC, SWP, Minutemen Role in Kennedy Killing By Scott Thompson Nov. 19 (IPS) — In a series of exclusive interviews with IPS over the past month, former National Security Council operative Roy Frankhauser has provided information which conclusively demonstrates that the National Security Council planned and coordinated the Nov. 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Frankhauser provided details of numerous assassination teams organized for the Kennedy and other operations by known agents of the CIA and FBI within groups ranking from the left-wing Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and the Communist Party (USA) to right-wing groups such as the paramilitary Minutemen. Also included in the preparations for the assassination were Cuban exile groups (Gusanos), the American Nazi Party, and such top CIA agents as G. Gordon Liddy, Frank Sturgis, and E. Howard Hunt, the convicted Watergate burglar and close associate of William F. Buckley. In early 1963, Frankhauser told IPS, "the word came down to get Kennedy and agent-led teams began to spring up all over the place." No other body than the NSC had the authority and capability to direct such broad forces. Among the men who headed the National Security Council at the time of the assassination were McGeorge Bundy, now president of the Ford Foundation, former Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Robert McNamara, now president of the World Bank, and former CIA director John McCone, now a board member of International Telephone and Telegraph. All are top members of the Rockefellers' policy-making establishment. This article, focusing on the Kennedy assassination role of the SWP and the Minutemen, is the first of a series of planned articles which will present the full story of the NSC-CIA role in that operation. Frankhauser confirms that two agents within the SWP periphery, who also had close ties to the Communist Party USA, were a direct part of the Kennedy operation. Frankhauser met the two, Ruth and John [sic] Paine, in 1960 [sic], when he was infiltrating the SWP in New York as an agent for the Mississippi White Citizens Council and for then-Mississippi [sic] Governor Patterson.28 Both Paines have been closely linked to Lee Harvey Oswald (who described himself as the "patsy" in the Kennedy killing moments before he was shot in the Dallas jail) by both the Warren Commission and by independent investigators of the assassination. In the months preceding the assassination, the Paines lived with Marina and Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas. It was Ruth Paine who constructed Oswald's "radical" cover. She was the one who drove Oswald to Mexico City so that he could be photographed by the CIA in front of the Soviet Embassy. She also took Oswald to New Orleans where together they opened a franchise of the SWP front, Fair Play for Cuba, with the approval of SWP national leaders. In New York, the Paines had recruited Frankhauser to a secret paramilitary "leftist" organization after a number of casual meetings at SWP functions. They told Frankhauser that the group had three goals: 1) to break Martin Luther King out of jail should he be arrested; 2) to kill Alabama Sheriff "Bull" Connor, then a notorious opponent of integration; and 3) to assassinate President Eisenhower if revolution could not be fomented "legally." The Paines instructed Frankhauser to intensely study the SWP's paper, the Militant, in order "to learn the jargon of the left." Actual military training for this group was conducted at Camp Midvale in the Ramapo Mountains of northern New Jersey. At this time, Midvale was a Communist Party USA-controlled camp.29 Although all of Frankhauser's reports on this operation were turned over by Governor Patterson's office to the FBI in Mississippi, no arrests were made. It was during this same period that Frankhauser first met Oswald at an International Scientific Socialist meeting in New York to which he was taken by the Paines. Frankhauser's second meeting with Oswald was at a CIA training camp near Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana. The Minutemen Case Beginning in 1961, NSC agents launched an operation in the right-wing Minutemen – founded a year earlier to prepare for "guerrilla warfare" against an expected communist takeover of the U.S. – which transformed the organization into a key NSC center for recruiting and coordinating the psychotic fringe of right-wing groups into a swarm of assassination teams, some of which were specially selected and trained for the Kennedy assassination. This takeover of the Minutemen was conducted under the auspices of FBI Operation COINTELPRO and CIA Operation Scorpio, and within a short time the entire Minutemen national executive committee was composed of agents – with the exception of the organization's founder Robert DePugh, who has remained a controlled dupe of the FBI ever since. Frankhauser, at the time a CIA stringer, was himself deployed into the Minutemen, eventually becoming East Coast director of intelligence and national counterintelligence director. Among the key figures in the Minutemen side of the Kennedy assassination operation, Frankhauser said, was Ken Duggan, who was assistant director of Minutemen counterintelligence under Frankhauser. Also a CIA stringer, Duggan worked within the Buckley family network of Catholic fascist terrorists, recruiting Gusanos for the abortive Bay of Pigs invasion. Duggan also recruited and trained several teams in preparing for the Kennedy assassination. Duggan, who later denounced the Buckleys, was murdered at New York Rikers Island prison approximately a month ago. He was in prison as a result of a frame-up on attempted murder charges brought by one George Wilkie, a protégé of leading members of the Buckleys' Conservative Party operation. Also suspected in profiling and selecting members of the Kennedy and other assassination teams were two agents active in the Minutemen: Vincent De Palma and Eugene Tabett [sic]. De Palma had been a leading CIA assassination expert in Latin America before being planted in the FBI. The FBI in turn deployed him into the Minutemen where he quickly became a national figure. Tabbett [sic] has worked for the FBI in the Klan Bureau of Intelligence before joining De Palma in Connecticut. Among the other operations of these right-wing assassination teams, two incidents became public: aborted attempts to assassinate Senator J. William Fulbright and to poison the United Nations headquarters in New York with cyanide.30 Because of his intimate knowledge, Frankhauser has been a special target of brainwashing and assassination attempts. His 1964 subpoena to testify before the Warren Commission was quashed by the FBI on "national security" grounds. At the time Frankhauser was threatened by two Reading, Pennsylvania-based FBI agents, Kaufman and Davis, who told him that "if you release information on the Paines or the Commission, you'll be in deep trouble with the FBI."31 One day before their visit, Frankhauser was almost struck by two bullets fired through the window of his Reading home. Two weeks ago, the Philadelphia Secret Service participated in an attempt to brainwash Frankhauser under the pretext of giving him a lie detector test. Three days ago, individuals driving a government car and carrying a carbine were observed waiting in front of Frankhauser's empty house. New Solidarity's bombshell expose was rivaled by the paper's truly astonishing inability to get even basic facts correct beginning with the name of Ruth Paine's husband (he was Michael and not "John") to the comical claim that Ruth Paine drove Oswald to Mexico City helped him run his one-man Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPFC) front group in New Orleans. These and other whoppers render Frankhouser's assertions (as reported by New Solidarity) intellectual road kill unusable for anyone hoping to do serious research work into the Kennedy assassination. Yet when read with the intent of learning more about right-wing infiltration by agent provocateurs into groups like the SWP, New Solidarity's tall tale of Frankhouser's strange odyssey – although laced with basic errors of fact – proves surprisingly valuable. One obvious error in the story comes when Roy Frankhouser reportedly said that he infiltrated the SWP on behalf of the "Mississippi White Citizens Council," and "Mississippi Governor John Patterson." John Patterson, however, was the governor of Alabama, not Mississippi. (It is possible that New Solidarity simply mixed up its Pattersons since one of the founders and leading members of the Mississippi WCC was named Robert "Tut" Patterson. Tut Patterson wrote for numerous anti-Semitic publications including the National Renaissance Bulletin.32) Yet another oddity is that Frankhouser told the New York Times a decade earlier that he had worked for the Virginia (and not the Mississippi) branch of the WCC at the time he infiltrated the SWP. The New Solidarity claim, then, may have been yet another Scott Thompson error since it seems hard to believe that Frankhouser would not have known something as basic as the name of the governor of Alabama since he worked so closely with Robert Shelton, head of the United Klans of America (UKA). In the 1958 campaign for the governor of Alabama, the UKA threw its support behind the future governor John Patterson, then the State Attorney General.33 After winning the vote, Patterson served as Alabama's Governor from 1959 to 1963. Throughout this entire period, Shelton's UKA supported Patterson. From Patsy Sims book, The Klan: Patterson retained the Klan's political favor by awarding a $1.6 million government tire contract to B.F. Goodrich with the understanding that Shelton would be promoted from rubber worker to state sales manager. Then the Grand Dragon was also given free access to the executive office.34 In 1963 the UKA shifted its support to George Wallace. Again from Sims: Wallace ensured Klan endorsement for future gubernatorial and presidential campaigns by pressuring a Mobile construction company doing business with the state docks to hire Shelton's father. Shelton himself was placed on the payroll of an engineering firm looking for upcoming interstate highway contracts. . . . On another occasion, a member of the Klan Bureau of Investigation was placed on the state payroll to investigate Klan activities in Alabama.35 Starting the mid-1950s and continuing well into the 1960s, supporters of segregation tried desperately to argue that integration ("race mixing") was a subversive communist plot. Southern state governments – as well as groups like the KKK, NSRP, and the White Citizens Councils – accused the extreme left of promoting violence. Thus when we read New Solidarity's claim that when Frankhouser was in New York: the Paines had recruited Frankhauser to a secret paramilitary "leftist" organization after a number of casual meetings at SWP functions. They told Frankhauser that the group had three goals: 1) to break Martin Luther King out of jail should he be arrested; 2) to kill Alabama Sheriff "Bull" Connor, then a notorious opponent of integration; and 3) to assassinate President Eisenhower if revolution could not be fomented "legally." The Paines instructed Frankhauser to intensely study the SWP's paper, the Militant, in order "to learn the jargon of the left." It seems more than reasonable that we are reading either a complete fantasy or pure disinformation from a textbook agent provocateur.36 Yet as we shall see later, Frankhouser in fact meet someone named "George Payne." "George Payne," it turned out, was the "party name" for an YSA/SWP supporter named George Larrabee (Earl George Larrabee, Jr.). He, in turn, was married to LaRouche's future longtime companion, Carol, whom he first met in 1958. As for Frankhouser's statement in New Solidarity that he also met the real Lee Harvey Oswald at an "International Scientific Socialist" meeting in New York in the company of the "Paines," all one needs to know is that Oswald was either in the Marines or in Russia at the time. After being discharged from the Marines in early September 1959, Oswald took a ship to Europe from New Orleans on 20 September 1959 to France as the first part of his planned defection to Russia. Oswald only returned to the United States via the port of New York on 13 June 1962. Oswald stayed in New York for just two days trying to raise enough travel money to return to the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. However I shall show that in the wake of the Kennedy assassination, the FBI went on a two week hunt in New York City to try to determine if the real Lee Harvey Oswald was active in New York at the time he was said to be in Russia! Was it possible that Frankhouser really did believe he had met the "Paines" simply because he knew George Larrabee, who used the pen name "George Payne?" 37 Could Frankhouser have misremembered the spelling and made an honest mistake? There can be no doubt that the "Payne" Frankhouser really did meet was the pen name of George Larrabee. Nor can there be any confusion over the way to spell the name since Larrabee himself spelled it ""Payne." In its 19 December 1960 edition, the SWP paper the Militant published a letter to the editor by Larrabee which he signed "George Payne."38 The name is spelled "Payne" in a letter Larrabee and Frankhouser wrote and which we shall now examine. In 1965 Frankhouser told the New York Times that while he was infiltrating the SWP he came into the possession of certain documents that he said would shed new light on the Kennedy assassination and which he said he showed to the FBI sometime in 1964, only to have the Bureau summarily reject both them and him. But just what were those documents? Thanks to FBI reports now available on the Mary Ferrell Foundation website, we now know the content of the photostats that Frankhouser first tried to peddle to the FBI shortly after the Kennedy assassination and then a few years later to New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison.39 Curious as to what Frankhouser might have had up his sleeve, the FBI – clearly through the use of informants – obtained copies of the documents Frankhouser wanted to send to Garrison. The lead FBI Philadelphia Office FBI Agent on the 1967 case, William Edward Davis, may even have been the very same "Agent Davis" that Frankhouser mentioned in the 20 November 1975 New Solidarity article.40 From an FBI summary of Frankhouser's activities dated 16 June 1967: Roy E. Frankhouser of Reading, Pennsylvania, is active in the Ku Klux Klan activities in Pennsylvania. He has been described as having grandiose plans which never materialize. He has also been described by a source close to him as a liar and a braggart. In March, 1967, we received information Frankhouser planned to send some letters which he possessed, contents unknown, to the New Orleans District Attorney James C. Garrison. Attached memorandum disclosed Frankhouser had located the letters of interest and plans to send them to Garrison. A source close to Frankhouser has made copies of the data available to the Philadelphia Office. The contents do not make sense and do not appear to be related in any way to the assassination of President Kennedy. The FBI files also show how the Bureau first became aware of Frankhouser's claims.41 From an FBI summary dated 28 June 1967 by Special Agent Davis:@@42 FRANKHOUSER claims he has information of value to the New Orleans DA GARRISON in his investigation of the KENNEDY assassination. . . . PH-T-I stated on March 31, 1967, that ROY FRANKHOUSER had expressed a desire to get from his (FRANKHOUSER's) files and records, which are in a secure place but not readily available, some letters from a man named PAYNE (phonetic). FRANKHOUSER stated that he intends to send them to New Orleans Parish District Attorney GARRISON for his assistance in the investigation he is conducting into the assassination of President KENNEDY. FRANKHOUSER did not say what connection these letters had with the assassination, if any. PH T-6 advised April 5, 1967, that ROY FRANKHOUSER attended a meeting of about 60 to 75 people in Media, Pa., on March 23, 1967, at which he publicly stated that he had given information to two FBI agents concerning the assassination of President KENNEDY. He said that he had offered to testify before the Warren Commission but was never called because the FBI suppressed his evidence, which had to do with a man named PAYNE. FRANKHOUSER said he had met PAYNE while infiltrating communist training schools in the area. FRANKHOUSER also claimed he had met with Russian Agents in the apartment of HELENA RUBENSTEIN while acting as a double agent. PH-T-1 on May 13, 1967, advised that FRANKHOUSER had made further inquiries regarding what he referred to as the "PAYNE letters." FRANKHOUSER insisted they had to be in his files because they could only be there or in the custody of ED LOTZ, and LOTZ denied having them. FRANKHOUSER said that he had been in touch with "GARRISON" and he expected to be subpoenaed. It is very urgent that he find these letters. PH T-1 advised May 16, 1967, that an exhaustive search had been conducted of FRANKHOUSER's correspondence files, which contain mostly very old material, including propaganda of many white supremacy groups, but that nothing had been located relating to the assassination of President KENNEDY, New Orleans, or Dallas, or anything else that appeared to be the material FRANKHOUSER said he had. The name PAYNE, or any variation thereof, had not been located in any of FRANKHOUSER's material. Just a few days later, however, a source informed the FBI that Frankhouser finally found the material that he had been seeking: PH T-1 advised on May 20, 1967, that FRANKHOUSER had located the following material: 1) A membership card in the Young Socialist League (undated) in the name ROY HOUSER. As for the second item, here now is the complete letter that the FBI managed to photocopy from one of its informants:43 March 23, 1960 Dear Comrade BARRETT: Hearing of the formation of the Socialist Discussion Club at the University of Iowa through the Young Socialist, and that you were the chairman of it, the undersigned sends fraternal greetings. This is because, like yourself, we are former paratroopers (82nd Airborne Division) and thought it fitting that we should let you know that former members of a military brotherhood that you once belonged to are also with you in a youth movement that opposes Militarism and War but which may be called upon in the carrying out of its task to display courage and daring even greater than that required by the Paratroops.44 GEORGE LARRABEE (PFC 105th A.T.R. 82nd Airborne 51-53) is an editorial Board Member of the Young Socialist and Young Socialist Supporters National Committee under the name of GEORGE PAYNE. (See Young Socialist March issue cartoon.) ROY FRANKHOUSER ( )45 still jumps with the Pennsylvania Airborne Rangers, but only as part of the air rescue branch of the Rangers, not the commando end of it. The air rescue team will parachute to the assistance of any plane crash survivors irrespective of their military or civilian status. As an organizer for the ILGWU and as a Socialist, I, GEORGE LARRABEE, have met three veterans of the World War II 82nd Airborne, two union organizers, the other a member of the Socialist Workers Party. Having met many other veterans in these categories, and looking upon ourselves, could this mean something? /s/ GEORGE LARRABEE New York City, N.Y. ROY FRANKHOUSER, JR. The FBI report continues: The above-mentioned source advised June 9, 1967, that ROY FRANKHOUSER had reviewed the above two items and appeared overjoyed that they had been located. FRANKHOUSER indicated that these were the items he had been looking for to send to New Orleans District Attorney GARRISON in the near future. This source pointed out, as he has in the past, that FRANKHOUSER is a liar, a braggart, and often makes impressive statements he never carries out. After reading the letter, the FBI remained utterly mystified as to what any of it had to do with the murder of John F. Kennedy. Although the FBI couldn't understand what Frankhouser was up to, he clearly was thrilled to find these two items. The first, his membership card in the Young Socialist League (YSL) under the name "Roy Houser," was no doubt proof positive that he had indeed infiltrated the New York Left.46 As for the YSL, it functioned as the youth organization of the Trotskyist International Socialist League (ISL). The ISL's longtime leader Max Shachtman had been a former leading member of the SWP. In April 1940, however, Shachtman broke with the SWP and created the Workers Party, later renamed the ISL in the 1950s. By the late 1950s, Shachtman felt there was no point to continue to embrace to old Leninist model of revolution. As he gradually became more favorable to aspects of U.S. policy in the Cold War, he looked towards organized social democracy and in 1958 Shachtman dissolved the ISL into the Socialist Party. Yet not every one of Shachtman's followers agreed with his decision. According to one Shachtman biographer: About a third of the Socialist Youth League refused to follow him into the Socialist Party. About half of the Socialist youth rejected his turn to the Democratic Party. The Young Socialist Alliance (linked to the Socialist Workers Party), the third-camp journal New Politics, and the Independent Socialist Clubs were all founded in these years, turning away from Shachtman's social democratic outlook toward the radical impulses of the 1960s.47 The most radical minority in the YSL led by Tim Wohlforth, Shane Mage, and James Robertson now gravitated to a new project launched by the long-time radical A.J. Muste. In the wake of the Soviet 20th Party Congress, Muste founded the American Forum for Socialist Education in New York to try to develop a new radical movement composed of former CPUSA supporters who had left the party over revelations about Stalin, the SWP, and other independent militants.48 Future SWP leader Barry Sheppard recalls: The YSL minority, about 30 people, joined in this process of "regroupment." One result was the launching of united independent socialist election campaigns in California and New York, in which the SWP played a major role. . . . The most important result of regroupment was the formation of Young Socialist newspaper and the Young Socialist Alliance in New York. The leaders of the YSL minority had been won over to the SWP and they became the leadership core of the YSA. The new youth group was called an "alliance" because its members came from the YSL minority, the younger members of the SWP, ex-LYL [former members of the Communist Party's Labor Youth League] and previously unaffiliated youth.49 The attempted CP-SWP "regroupment" first bore fruit at a 1957 May Day rally held at Central Plaza Hall in the East Village sponsored by the Committee for Socialist Unity. At the meeting SWP and CP representatives spoke on the same platform for the first time since 1928.50 "Roy Houser," then, really did infiltrate into this world through the YSL and the New York-based Young Socialist Alliance which published Young Socialist. As for the Larrabee-Frankhouser letter to the head of the socialist discussion group at the University of Iowa, it was written on 23 March 1960 or just a few weeks before the official founding of the YSA at an inaugural conference held in Philadelphia from 15-17 April 1960.51 As it also just so happened, Philadelphia also was where Frankhouser's infiltration of the SWP first began. FRANKHOUSER'S TRAIL: PART 1 — "COMRADE ROY" Thanks to newly-declassified FBI files, we now know far more about Frankhouser's role in the SWP, an affiliation that may have had its roots in Reading's own political history. Besides being a major center for the German-American Bund in Pennsylvania in the 1930s, Reading developed a strong socialist movement. Reading even elected J. Henry Stump, who ran for mayor on the Socialist Party ticket, three times in 1927-1931, 1935-1939, and 1943-1947. In the 1947 election, Stump only lost by less than 200 votes. Reading was the home city of the Socialist Party's Darlington Hoopes, a lawyer and long-time SP member who ran as the SP's presidential candidate in both the 1952 and 1956 elections. Hoopes first came to Reading in the late 1920s to serve in Stump's first government as an assistant city solicitor. He went on to serve three terms in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives under the Socialist Party banner. In 1944, he ran as the party's vice-presidential candidate on a ticket headed by Norman Thomas. In the late 1950s, the "Socialist Party-Social Democratic Federation" still maintained an office at 27 Reed Street in Reading. After returning the Reading from the Army, Frankhouser began reading SP-SDF literature. The FBI learned in early May 1959 that Frankhouser had two local SP-SDF publications. One was a small booklet entitled "The Parable of the Water Tank" by the famed late 19th century American socialist Edward Bellamy that the SP-SDF distributed. He also had an SP-SDF leaflet entitled "Unemployment Hurts Everybody." Tellingly, Frankhouser wrote on the back of the leaflet, "It's too bad that too many Socialists don't understand that the Negro means the end of both Civilization and that means the end of Socialism too." Frankhouser, then, may have been genuinely interested in some of the policies of socialism even as he fought integration.52 "THE GREATEST ARMY IN THE WORLD" In June 1959, just as Frankhouser was becoming involved with the Left, a bizarre incident happened which was soon reported to the FBI. During this time Frankhouser was a regular at the local Civil Air Patrol (CAP) and he practiced parachute jumping with the Berks County Parachute Club. On 30 June 1959, the Ranger Team Commander of the local Civil Air Patrol (CAP) group called the "Para-Rangers" telephoned the FBI to report a strange incident: Last weekend the CAP had a practice problem in night tactics, in preparation for forthcoming exercises. The group was split up and some of them attempted to infiltrate positions protected by the remainder of the group. FRANKHOUSER was one of the men assigned to attempt penetration of the "enemy lines," and was sent off alone. One of the men in the group later reported to Captain ____ that he had been near FRANKHOUSER when the latter apparently thought he was alone, because suddenly subject stood up, extended his clenched fist and said aloud, "I am now a member of the greatest Army in the world, the United Armies of the Soviet Union." Yet another report on Frankhouser's statements to his CAP Para-Ranger comrades was reported by the same CAP commander on 31 March 1960. This time he told the FBI that: Subject is also reported to have told some of the other Rangers about a month ago that he would like to go to Cuba to join (FIDEL) CASTRO. On this same occasion which occurred when the Rangers were temporarily snowbound while on an overnight hike near Hawk Mountain, he also entertained the group with some of the historical background of the Russian Army and the Nazi Army under Hitler. Needless to say, all this only reinforced the FBI's view that Frankhouser might well be insane. As one FBI agent commented upon reading the report about Frankhouser's praise of Russia, "The above action on the part of subject seems to substantiate previous indications that he is mentally unbalanced. . . ." Yet Frankhouser's interest in both the Soviet Union and Cuba may have had even deeper roots. On 18 January 1960, the FBI received a report that Frankhouser carried out regular telephone conversations with one Fred Polzin of Parkesburg, Pennsylvania, located in Chester County, and not very far from both Reading and Philadelphia. From the FBI report: ___ exhibited a few items which ROY had left lying around and several were from the aforementioned ___. A letter addressed to ROY at __ home bore the return address of ______, Parkesburg, Pa. Literary Agent and Importer of Foreign Publications. The letter proper, which is dated January 11, 1960, reads: "Thanks for your call this evening. It's good to hear from one with similar interests. I'm usually home after 5, Saturday afternoon and Sunday, but better call or drop a card before to be sure. Enclosed is some printed matter. I hope to have a new booklet out within a week. The FBI report continued: ___ stated that she had seen several items ROY got from ___, but could only find one, a leaflet from the April, 1958 RIGHT Newsletter, described as Tract #5 advertising an article by FREDERICK CHARLES F. WEISS, Middletown, N.Y. WEISS is described as a German, " Rightist," and mentions "Western Decadence" but in terms of combating this decadence to prevent defeat by Russia. One copy of this leaflet is attached. She also recalled that one pamphlet was captioned "Quo Vadis, Homo?" which she admitted she did not understand. She stated that ROY had called ___ one evening, but she had not overheard the conversation. Immediately afterwards, however, ROY called ___ at the ___ home. He told ___ that he had talked to ___ and that ___ had seen "the KKK business" and had tried to call ROY. (___ assumes ROY was referring to the KKK publicity which appeared in the Reading Record some months ago.) ROY told ___ (on this occasion on the phone) that ___ stated he has a printing press they can use, and has offered to come here and help us organize. According to ROY, ___ said "when you get big enough you can fight back, even if the Papers learn of your organization." Fred Polzin owned a printing press and he regularly printed tracts by his friend Fred Weiss. Polzin served as the secretary of Truth Seeker, a "scientific racist" and proudly atheist publication out of New York City run by Charles Lee Smith.53 Truth Seeker held regular "racist forums" in Manhattan which served in part as a "cover" for meetings by the far-right National Renaissance Party (NRP), officially led by James Madole but bankrolled for a long time by Fred Weiss. Not surprisingly, Polzin was a member of the NRP. Polzin regularly published and distributed Weiss's writings while Truth Seeker issued the first American edition of Francis Parker Yockey's classic far-right manifesto Imperium in 1962 with support from Fred Weiss. The Truth Seeker/NRP network in New York served as a key connection for Roger Pearson's Northern League for Pan-European Friendship, whose American headquarters in Newport News, Virginia, doubled as the headquarters for the Virginia White Citizens Council. Frankhouser, a proud member of the Northern League, attended NRP events in New York City. For our purposes, however, what is most important about Frankhouser's ties to Polzin is that Polzin – whose father the FBI discovered had been a member of the Pennsylvania Communist Party in 1943 – promoted the Weiss-Yockey argument that the radical right should with Russia. The NRP even held public forums in support of Castro's Cuba. For Weiss, charges that the Soviet Union supported anti-Semitism only proved his point. Frankhouser's fascination with both the Soviet Union and Cuba may be less an indication that he was schizophrenic and more evidence that he had adopted a "Yockeyist" point of view. "ROY HAUSER" GETS "CARDED" As we have seen, just at the time that Frankhouser became interested in the Left first through the SP-SDF, the organization was undergoing a major shift as the left wing of ISL resisted the merger with Norman Thomas's SP. This same group (led by Tim Wohlforth and James Robertson) later become the first national leadership of the SWP's YSA just two years later. The SWP's role in the emergence of the YSA dates back to the "regroupment period" after the 20th Party Congress of the CPSU. In an attempt to unite the left following the 20th Party Congress revelations about Stalin, the Young Socialist Forum (YSF) was formed in New York City. It included leftist youth from many different political points of view from Trotskyists to American SP members to former members of the "Gates faction" of the CP who had left the party to circles around the National Guardian. Some of the most active youth were members of American Youth for Socialism, the Left Wing Caucus of the Young Socialist League (YSL), and former members of the CP's Labor Youth League (LYL). The YSF included among its members Frankhouser's future friend George Larrabee. In October 1957, those individuals from the Young Socialist Forum who were most drawn to the SWP's brand of Trotskyism created their own paper entitled Young Socialist, which was published as a monthly out of New York City. In essence, this group functioned as part of the leadership of the SWP's new youth organization, the Young Socialist Alliance (YSA), which had yet to become a fully national organization. In an attempt to help launch the YSA on the path to a national organization, a national conference of "Young Socialist supporters" was held on 27-28 December 1958 to lay the grounds for a new nation-wide youth movement. Frankhouser's involvement with this "new left" led him to spend his weekends in the Philadelphia area. From a 29 October 1959 FBI report: "According to ____, subject [Frankhouser] is becoming increasingly interested in Socialism, and has been going to Philadelphia weekends, where he attends, so he says, Socialist meetings." Frankhouser gravitated to the SWP local in Philadelphia whose secretary was a long time SWP member named Morris Chertov. Frankhouser later told the FBI that in October 1959 he went to New York City as a guest of a local SWP leader to attend an "Independent Socialist Federation" gathering. According to Frankhouser, "This meeting was attended by representatives of all the groups . . . (including the Communists) and was held for the purpose of planning a concerted program to advance the aims of all these groups." During this same month, Frankhouser obtained his "Roy Hauser" membership card in the Young Socialist League. We know this because he later showed his card to FBI agents in the FBI's Reading office on 23 January 1960 when Frankhouser suddenly appeared to talk about his activity. According to a 25 January 1960 FBI report: Subject exhibited a small yellow card with red printing on it reading "Young Socialist Supporter." The number "243" was typed on it and the date and name "10/12/59" and "ROY HOUSER" were printed on it in blue ink. Subject at the time said he used the alias HOUSER to conceal his real identity, and attended this meeting only to get ideas. He is not in agreement with the Communists or Socialists ideas, especially their pro-Negro and anti-segregationist feelings. He belongs to the groups, the Northern League and the White Citizens Councils, and stated that he is attempting to adopt the best features of these groups, and by a process of education promote segregation. FRANKHOUSER AND FARRELL DOBBS Just one month after Frankhouser became a "card-carrying" Young Socialist supporter, he organized a meeting in Reading where SWP National Secretary Farrell Dobs – also the SWP 1960 candidate for President – spoke to an audience of some 10 people. An FBI report dated 1 December 1959 laconically noted: "It will be noted that ___ and ___ have advised that FARRELL DOBBS, the SWP National Secretary, spoke at a house residence in Reading, Pa., on 11/16/59, possibly at the residence of one (FNU) [first name unknown] ____, Reading, Pa." The FBI received a detailed description of the two-hour forum from one of its Reading informants. She told the FBI that in organizing for the Dobbs talk, Frankhouser "had been in touch with the NAACP, and with DARLINGTON HOOPES, and a few Negroes may attend, as well as HOOPES. Roy also expects several Albright College students to attend." Unfortunately, since Dobbs' talk only was attended by about 10 people, "the poor attendance made ROY so angry he went out and sat alone on the front porch for a time." As for "Dobbs," the informant reported that: his speech was very quiet and not the "rabble rousing type" she had expected. ___ stated that the speech was completely over her head, and she had difficulty following its trend. DOBBS quoted statistics extensively, and mentioned that in 1960 the working class should have a political party of their own to combat capitalism. DOBBS repeatedly referred to the poor farmers and the poor workers. . . . ___ advised that apparently DOBBS was speaking over the heads of all present, except possibly ___. He used the term "militant" several times. In the question and answer period that followed, ___ asked what "militant" meant, and DOBBS explained that the workers must fight for their rights, instead of letting the capitalist bosses work them to death. DOBBS said something to the effect that "no one wants war, but we must use force if necessary, and if we are in the majority to accomplish our ends." The meeting ended about 11 PM . . . . ___ could not elaborate further on what transpired as it was most boring and confusing to her, and she had trouble staying awake. THE MOUNTAIN SPRINGS CAMP Despite the poor attendance at the Reading forum, Frankhouser's interest in the SWP and its Young Socialist youth front continued unabated. Just a few days after the Reading gathering, Frankhouser attended another meeting, this time at the SWP's Mountain Spring Camp in New Jersey. From an FBI report dated 23 November 1959: ____, Reading, Pa., telephonically advised as follows: Yesterday (11/19/59) she observed ROY FRANKHOUSER with a mimeographed paper describing a "Socialist Encampment" to be held November 20-22, 1959 at Mountain Spring Camp, N.J. The paper described the affair as a Young Socialist Encampment, and gave directions for reaching Mountain Spring Camp, indicating it was about two (2) miles from Washington, N.J. The fee for the full 2-1/3 days was $10. ____ stated that ROY tried to borrow $10 from her and being unable to do so packed his duffle bag, sleeping bag and took some staples and canned food. He told her he was going to attend this meeting and left, saying he was going to hitchhike. If anyone else was going with him, subject did not say. The Mountain Springs conclave was attended by members of Young Socialist Supporter Clubs from Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore. Yet another FBI informant who met Frankhouser at the "Socialist Encampment" told the FBI that from conversations with Frankhouser, he ascertained that "FRANKHOUSER was from Reading, Pa., and is in the process of establishing a Young Socialist Supporter Club in Reading." Most relevant for our purposes, it was here that Frankhouser first met George and Carol Larrabee. When Frankhouser finally returned to Reading, the FBI learned that he brought back a long list of books including Economic and Philosophical Manuscript of 1844, Critique of the Gotha Program, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, as well as On Capital, The Revolutionary Act. Military Insurrection or Political and Economic Action (an Engels' pamphlet published by the Socialist Labor Party's New York Labor News Co. that came with an appendix by Daniel De Leon) and tracts like Socialism Answers and Underneath Antisemitism (both by the Socialist Labor Party's Eric Hass) and Economics for Beginners by John Keracher, the founder of the Proletarian Party of America in the 1920s and whose members later ran the famed U.S radical publisher Charles Kerr and Co. After returning from Mountain Spring, Frankhouser also attended local SWP functions like the Militant Labor Forums held at 1303 West Girard Avenue which doubled as the headquarters of the Benjamin Franklin Masonic Lodge of the AMORC Rosicrucian Order, and from which the SWP apparently rented space for talks. GEORGE LARRABEE A/K/A "GEORGE PAYNE" While the extent of Frankhouser's activities inside East Coast left remains murky, George Larrabee's history is much clearer. In the 6 February 1966 issue of New York Times, the then 31-year old Larrabee was interviewed at one of the early anti-Vietnam war protests by former Vets. Larrabee stood out at the rally because he was holding an American flag embroidered with a large "76" on it. Larrabee told the Times that he came from an old Vermont family that traced its roots back to the Revolutionary War. "There were at least four Larrabees in the Battle of Bennington in 1776," he explained, "so I thought it would be appropriate to bring this personal trophy along today." Larrabee further stated that he had been a member of the 505th Airborne of the U.S. Army which was a brigade unit of the 82nd Airborne. He also told the Times that he was now working as a commercial artist in New York City. Carol White reports that George Larrabee had been a paratrooper briefly but because he father deserted his mother he was discharged and went home to support her and her two younger brothers. He worked in the local paper mill at that time. He got a lead, I don't know how, and through that was trained and hired as an ILGWU organizer. Perhaps he went for training in Boston. I don't know that. Since he was working in western PA he did not attend local [New York YSA/SWP] meetings. The most detailed description of Larrabee political views comes from the fall 1957 issue of International Socialist Review (18/4), the SWP theoretical journal. Although the cite is fairly long and somewhat cumbersome to read, I quote it in full because it is the only real summary of Larrabee's thinking about leftist politics during that time. From the International Socialist Review: Among the items that have reached our desk since last issue, we would like to single out a circular signed by George Larrabee, Organizational Chairman of the National Committee for a United Socialist Alliance, which is headed by the Rev. Hugh Weston of Boston. Larrabee, who is deeply interested in the regroupment of socialist forces in America, says that as a young worker of twenty-three, he became engaged in the unity movement among radical youth rather than in the adult movement after recently leaving Boston and coming to New York. He reports encouraging developments in America's largest city. The Left Wing Caucus of the Young Socialist League, together with youth around the Socialist Workers party and sympathizers of The American Socialist have organized the Young Socialist Forum. Its first public discussions "have been highly successful, attracting youth of myriad tendencies, LYLers [Labor Youth League] and even some just becoming interested in the issue of socialism." He urges "unstinting support" for the Young Socialist Forum and asks those who are interested to write Tim Wohlforth, 305 E. 21st St., New York City. "On the adult plane of the Left regroupment question," Larrabee continues, "since I have been in New York I have been more and more drawn towards the idea of building unity around some one of the existing parties, one with a clear and honest program, with a serious and determined policy, rather than a mere plea for unity in the abstract, on a vague and program-less call for unity. We have just about passed the stage where we have to call for a discussion of unity . . . those who have made up their minds for or against it by and large are not going to change. So now the questions of who we can actually unite with, rather than who we WANT to unite with, have come to the fore, and on what basis, on what principles." In Larrabee's opinion a radical party is needed, "made up of several similar groupings, in the democratic American tradition, but completely united on the important questions that really count." The tradition Larrabee would like to see embodied in the new party begins with Thomas Paine, Sam Adams, Jefferson and Lincoln, includes Marx, Engels and Lenin, and ends with Debs, Luxemburg and Trotsky. "For guidance in 1957 we should look to the modern adherents of Lenin and Trotsky and investigate the ideas of such anti-Stalinist (anti-bureaucratic degeneration) Communists and Left Socialists as George Lukacs (Hungary, now in exile within the Soviet orbit) and Wolfgang Harich (Communist professor imprisoned by the East German regime) and Milovan Djilas of Yugoslavia, whose new book The New Class is being falsely hailed as a work against Communism." Larrabee declares that he "might not agree on everything with them" and that "all such theorists and leaders who have recently broken with Stalinism (or Rightist Socialism, for that matter) should be measured against those ORIGINAL Bolsheviks who stood up against Stalin while at the same time refusing to capitulate to the Right, the Trotskyites." To Larrabee, Peter Fryer, "who broke with Stalinism in the midst of the Hungarian revolt as a Daily Worker reporter in that country . . . symbolizes the world-wide coming together of principled Left Socialists with Communists and Soviet sympathizers breaking with Stalinism, taking up the banner so long upheld by a comparative handful of isolated and vilified Trotskyists." After investigating, Larrabee says that he changed his mind about the Socialist Workers party, which represents the Trotskyist viewpoint in America. "I previously regarded the SWP as a hidebound, dogmatic, moss-grown and sterile little sect, but I have changed my views on it, and can see that between the pro-Democratic Party Stalinist-dominated sect called the Communist Party and the respectability-seeking reformists called the ISL and SP-SDF, it is the only clear-cut and substantial party worth rallying to." "all socialists who are honest with themselves to seriously take up and study the literature of the Trotskyist movement if they would like to make genuine contributions to the unity process and the creating of an eventual mass party of Socialism. I do not say this as a Trotskyite myself, for . . . I have not had the opportunity to study the vast works of Trotsky as I would like to. "I have merely been able to read a little and talk with members of the Socialist Workers party enough to become certain that here we have the opportunity to find the answers to many burning questions and that here we have serious-minded and dedicated people to work with toward common goals. SWP members are sincere and devoted people with firm ideas, not being marked by cynicism and 'sophistication' that we find in other socialist circles, not concerning themselves with clever schemes for 'advancing' Socialism via Norman Thomas and the Democratic party, quiet Fabian societies or other allegedly 'realistic' methods." "For further clarification on these questions, I suggest that you read How to Build an Anti-Monopoly Coalition in the summer issue of the International Socialist Review . . . The article begins . . . with William F. Warde'sThe Rise and Fall of Progressivism but I found the second part . . . by Joseph Hansen, What the Job Takes, the most enlightening. Both Warde and Hansen are expert Marxists, and people who have been reading only The Worker, the National Guardian, or the Monthly Review are depriving themselves of some really penetrating thought if they have not been reading the International Socialist Review. A debate between Harvey O'Connor and the editors in the spring ISR is another article that I suggest reading." While he holds that the SWP is still too "narrow and purist" and not the "broad Lenin-Debs party that I want to see," Larrabee believes that "it is flexible and democratic enough to eventually become a party" attractive to varied types. We are willing to admit that we found Larrabee's report pleasing as well as instructive. We especially liked his enthusiasm over what the Trotskyist movement has to offer. We hope the account of his experience will help convince others of the need to investigate this much misrepresented movement as he did.54 George Larrabee's comments reflect the views of an extremely well-read member of what would evolve into the "New Left" in the 1960s. But while Larrabee's comments are quite interesting in understanding the very early origins of the New Left, I have quoted them in their entirely for a very different purpose. Does anything that Larrabee wrote either to International Socialist Review in late 1957 – or for that matter in his letter to the socialist forum leader at the University of Iowa in March 1960, or his 19 December 1960 letter to the editor of the Militant – suggest someone so delusional that he would become involved in a secret paramilitary plot to break Martin Luther King out of jail as well as to plan the murder of both Birmingham, Alabama, Sheriff "Bull" Connor and President Dwight Eisenhower? On the other hand, the SWP did put out policy statements almost guaranteed to attract segregationist wrath. On 21 May 1963, for example, the New York Times reported that the SWP's National Committee demanded that President Kennedy supply weapons to blacks in Birmingham, Alabama. According to the SWP, "Able-bodied men chosen by Birmingham's Negro community should be immediately deputized and armed by the Federal Government for that community's self-defense and to exercise police powers therein." The SWP had long supported the right of blacks in the South to arm themselves against attack, a position the party held as far back as 1958 when the SWP publicly embraced Robert F. Williams, a leftist U.S. Army veteran who became the militant leader of the NAACP chapter in Monroe, North Carolina. In 1958 the Militant filled its pages with support for Williams, who became best known for advocating "armed self defense" against racist whites. With organizational support from the SWP, Williams toured the nation, speaking at labor halls, liberal churches, and college campuses. In a series of debates held in New York City (one at New York's Community Church on 1 October 1959 and the other at Libertarian Center on 23 October 1959), Williams publicly challenged A.J. Muste, Bayard Rustin, David Dellinger, and other Gandhi-inspired activists over the question of armed resistance versus total nonviolence.55 That same October Roy Frankhouser said he attended an "Independent Socialist Federation" meeting in New York City with a Philadelphia SWP leader. Hence it is not impossible that Frankhouser did encounter some leftists in New York in the SWP orbit who viewed "non-violent resistance" with disdain and hoped to woo the Pennsylvania ex-paratrooper into some kind of militant support network for the struggle then unfolding in the deep South.56 ROY AND LYN AND CAROL AND GEORGE? Finally, we must ask how Roy Frankhouser could believe that a membership card in the YSL and a letter to the head of a socialist forum at the University of Iowa would be of any value to the FBI, the Warren Commission, Jim Garrison or a Senate Select Committee in throwing new light on the JFK assassination. It may be that Frankhouser thought that by "proving" he had some connection to the New York SWP in the late 1950s, he could sell a far more convoluted story about a leftist plot to kill Kennedy. In February 1964 – around the time Frankhouser says he tried to approach the Warren Commission – the far-right leader and virulent anti-Semite Revilo P. Oliver published the first of a two-part series of articles in the John Birch Society journal American Opinion (wittily entitled "Marxmanship in Dallas") where Oliver tried to argue that Kennedy was killed by a communist plot.57 Frankhouser may have believed that those two pieces of paper that he finally found in June 1967 were a passé-partout that would open all doors and allow him to spin a grim story of conspiratorial Marxist murder mayhem to one and all. At the time Frankhouser worked with George Larrabee, Larrabee was married to the woman who would soon become Lyndon LaRouche's companion. Did Carol and George Larrabee invite Frankhouser to attend an "International Scientific Socialist" meeting in New York? In 1960 the Larrabees were members of the YSA/SWP. The SWP regularly held Friday night talks in New York City under the title "Militant Labor Forums." They took place at the SWP's national headquarters at 116 University Place not far from Union Square in Greenwich Village. These talks were free and open to the public. The Friday night talks and other local leftist events were regularly advertised in the "Weekly Calendar" that appeared in each issue of the Militant. If the Larrabees took Frankhouser to a Militant Labor Forum talk or another SWP event where LaRouche was present, it is possible that Frankhouser was telling the truth when he said he first met LaRouche ("Lynn Marcus") during his time in New York.58 LaRouche, however, denies it. Nor does Carol remember any such meeting. What we do know is that George Larrabee and Roy Frankhouser remained friends at least till the late autumn of 1960. An FBI report dated 22 November 1960 reports on a letter postmarked 31 October 1960 and sent from New York to Frankhouser's Reading address. According to the FBI report, 'the letter is purportedly written by ____, New York, 14, N.Y., who is a professed Socialist, a member of the ILGWU and a former ___. From the tenor of the letter he and Frankhouser are fairly well acquainted." Clearly the sender of the letter was Larrabee who earlier had identified himself in the letter he and Frankhouser were to co-sign as "an organizer for the ILGWU." Hence it seems almost certain that Frankhouser maintained his YSA/SWP connections to Larrabee throughout most of 1960.59 Carol White believes that any contact George Larrabee may have had with Frankhouser was minimal at best: I told Lyn and the NEC crowd about George Larrabee's interchanges with Frankhouser. They met at Mountain Lakes Camp where we were vacationing (I guess there may have been some lectures too at the time, I don't remember.) George and Frankhouser met at the bar one evening and reminisced over their joint experience as paratroopers and Frankhouser then spewed a lot of anti-Semitic stuff to George, telling him he should leave me and join his right wing group (whichever he was pushing at the time). George told him to get lost. One time he called our home and I picked up the phone. George told him he wasn't interested in more contact with him and that as far as I know ended it. After Frankhouser began his strange relationship with the Labor Committee in the mid-1970s, Carol recognized his name and warned the organization about him, to no avail: I definitely remembered Roy Frankhauser but Lyn refused to believe my account. He also said that Mountain Lakes, the SWP camp, was used for secret stuff, as per Roy's briefings to security, but I thought that was ridiculous. Really I didn't know, but I certainly never came on any. There was a lake, a recreation area, cabins to sleep in and some grass to hang out in. Also some structure where conferences and classes were held (maybe the mess hall which was definitely separated from the recreation area). Following Roy Frankhouser's paper trail, there can be little doubt that the strange 20 November 1975 New Solidarity story about the JFK assassination did in some way reflect reality like a fun house mirror. Yet at the end of the day, the mystery as to why Frankhouser thought his experiences had any bearing on the Kennedy assassination remains utterly obscure. To add to the strangeness of it all are the blatant mistakes in the New Solidarity article from the misspellings of names to other errors of basic fact. What is certain, however, is that this article helped signal the NCLC's decision to publicly embrace Frankhouser as a close ally. From at least the summer of 1975 to the NCLC's trial in Boston in the late 1980s, LaRouche and his Security Staff not only defended Roy Frankhouser legally but even made him a paid consultant. But did the bizarre LaRouche-Frankhouser connection really begin sometime in late 1974 or early 1975? Or did it have deeper roots that went as far back as the late 1950s, almost a decade before the NCLC existed. Was it pure accident that the NCLC's Security Staff further developed close ties to far rightists like Frankhouser's friend and fellow Minuteman Ken Duggan in the spring of 1974? Or that the NCLC reportedly "investigated" the NRP allegedly on behalf of the Iraqi government, a government whose ties to the NRP dated back to the late 1950s when the NRP distributed pro-Iraqi literature in New York City?60 When Frankhouser claimed inside knowledge about the Kennedy assassination, had he actually stumbled upon some kind of strange network inside the YSA/SWP that he simply misunderstood? Was he really approached by a mysterious organization and falsely assumed that the man who used the name "Payne" was actually Michael Paine? Or was Frankhouser part of some plan to create such an organization as some kind of "cover"? Could Frankhouser also have discovered something about LaRouche? In short, was the strange New Solidarity article purportedly about Frankhouser's knowledge of the Kennedy assassination really more like a distant mirror reflecting a series of events that dated back to the late 1950s? Or was all this really and truly just a strange coincidence that had no bearing on LaRouche's later embrace of Frankhouser? FRANKHOUSER'S TRAIL: PART 2 — SPIES, LIES, "JEWISH NAZIS," AND "OSWALD"? Starting sometime in 1959 and continuing well into 1960, Roy Frankhouser cultivated connections inside the American Left and the SWP in particular. At that very same time, Frankhouser worked for a series of far right groups, the most important of them being the violent National States Rights Party (NSRP), the KKK and the White Citizens Councils (WCC).61 Frankhouser (like Willis Carto) also joined the Northern League for Pan-European Friendship sometime in either 1958 or 1959. The Northern League, although little known today, served as a critical link between the West European and American far right.62 In 1961, Frankhouser helped arrange for his closest comrade in Reading (and fellow Northern League and NSRP member) to visit England for a one-month visit starting on 29 April. His friend spent time in the company of the British Nationalist Party (BNP) before attending the "Northern European Camp" sponsored by "the Northern European Ring" on 20-26 1961.63 The FBI reported that the Northern European Ring – whose liaison office was at 74 Princedale Road in London – was said to be the "international counterpart of the BNP" with particularly close ties to the Swedish Nordiska Riksparteit. The Northern European Ring also published a journal entitled The Northern European. Frankhouser's rise inside the ranks of the NSRP was so meteoric that at an NSRP national conference held on 26-27 November 1960 he was officially appointed as the NSRP's "National Organizer." Frankhouser also tried to build up a White Citizens Council branch in Reading. When the NAACP on 23 April 1960 picketed two Reading "Dime Stores" with some thirty protesters, they were met by two counter-demonstrators, one of them Roy Frankhouser. He also worked with William H. Osmond who helped coordinate WCC activities in the Philadelphia region. At a time when the SWP sang the praises of Algerian FLN radicals in the pages of the Militant, Frankhouser wrote a 28 January 1960 letter to the editor of the Reading Eagle in which he bitterly attacked De Gaulle for betraying French white settlers in Algeria. In his letter (signed only as "REF, Jr."), Frankhouser stated: It seems that the papers here failed to bring out that the basic issue behind the Algerian civil strife is the same one we were told to hang our heads in shame about the time of Little Rock, that little matter of race, or shall we say "race consciousness." . . . The betrayal of the white supremacy of the French settlers in Algeria would lead to the ruination of the European type of civilization that they have built up there. . . . The peace of civil rights in the shadow of bayonets is an uneasy one.64 Frankhouser's "internationalist perspective" didn't stop with Algeria. On 20 April 1960, he told the FBI that "for about the last year" he "had been gathering information relative to racial matters, civil disorder (particularly where racial issues are involved) and any information he can obtain about matters such as a breakdown of percentages of crimes by race." Frankhouser then turned the information "over to ____, who types it up and sends it to several persons in Johannesburg, Union of South Africa." Frankhouser said he was doing all this for the benefit of SABRA (the South African Bureau of Racial Affairs) but that his work is "wholly unsolicited and he is not paid for this 'work.'" SPYING ON ROCKWELL At the very same time Roy Frankhouser was infiltrating the SWP, he was also spying on George Lincoln Rockwell's World Union of Free Enterprise National Socialists (WUFENS)/American Nazi Party. The FBI files also show that Rockwell was despised both by the White Citizens Councils and the NSRP. The NSRP particularly resented Rockwell's praise of J. Edgar Hoover and his FBI. The NSRP may even have supported Dan Burros and John Patler's anti-Rockwell American National Party for just this reason. For his part, Rockwell hated both the NSRP as well as the "Yockeyists" aligned with Fred Weiss and the National Renaissance Party because of their professed sympathy for Russia. (Rockwell put "Free Enterprise" in the title of the WUFENS to distinguish his views from that of groups like the NRP.65) Believing that the FBI had Rockwell's Arlington, Virginia, headquarters under surveillance anyway, in his 20 April 1960 unscheduled meeting with the FBI, Frankhouser stated that he had spent the previous two weekends at Rockwell's headquarters and that he had visited Rockwell's headquarters four times. Frankhouser then said that: he was not in sympathy with ROCKWELL and his group, and he believes ROCKWELL is hurting the cause of segregation. He is attempting to infiltrate the ROCKWELL group, and then sends all the information he can to the Associated Citizens Councils [the WCC], the group he is really in sympathy with. FRANKHOUSER claimed he had made several outdoor speeches in the area on behalf of the Citizens Councils. The FBI picked up other reports of far right hostility to Rockwell. Frankhouser was a tremendous admirer of the WCC's then-famous rabblerouser John Kasper. The WCC's man in Philadelphia also was described in the 17 February 1957 edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer as a front man for Kasper whose job was to establish a Philadelphia chapter of Kasper's Seaboard WCC, which, in turn, was affiliated with Roger Pearson's Northern League. The FBI learned that Kasper so disliked Rockwell that he finally disbanded his Seaboard WCC "to prevent GEORGE LINCOLN ROCKWELL from using it." ROBERT JOSEPH BURROS Even as Roy Frankhouser worked in Philadelphia to penetrate the SWP and other leftist organizations, a similar operation appears to have been undertaken in New York City by a far-right activist named Robert Burros, who later became the number two leader of James Madole's National Renaissance Party. Newly declassified FBI files on the National Renaissance Party include a brief but fascinating mention of Robert Burros, who in early 1965 was the number two leader of the NRP as its International Secretary. (He also held the title of NRP Regional Director.) Along with his friend Daniel Burros, Robert Burros co-edited The Free American: The Battle Organ of Racial Fascism.66 On 23 February 1965, Robert Burros contacted the FBI to request a meeting which then took place on 4 March 1965. At the time Robert Burros lived with his mother at 215 First Street in Newburgh, New York, where he had been born on 29 November 1937. Burros first made it clear to the FBI that he had contacted them with the permission of the NRP's leader James Madole. Burros then told the FBI about the NRP and its program and said he had come to the FBI to provide it with names of possible Communists in the area. Burros also gave the FBI a radical publication that he felt they should know about. From the 3 March 1965 FBI report on the meeting: "Enclosed with the memorandum is the publication "Bulletin of International Socialism." It is volume #2, Issue #4, dated 2/22/65. He said that he had sources in NYC which furnished him this publication. He merely wanted to bring this publication to the FBI's attention." The obscure Bulletin of International Socialism was the factional publication of a tiny group called the American Committee for the Fourth International (ACFI) headed by Tim Wohlforth. Wohlforth had been the key member of the youth wing of the International Socialist League who refused to merge with the Socialist Party-Social Democratic Federation. Instead, he became the leader of what would ultimately become the SWP's Young Socialist Alliance. In 1964, however, Wohlforth's faction inside the SWP/YSA – which by then had been replaced by a new youth leadership group led by future SWP leader Jack Barnes – left the SWP. However Wohlforth continued to maintain ties with at least one SWP member who wrote for the Bulletin. This individual was Lyndon LaRouche.67 Curious about what Burros was up to, the FBI consulted its files. The agents then discovered that this very same Robert Burros in the late 1950s strongly supported the SWP's "Farrell Dobbs for President Campaign"! In the late 1950s, Robert Burros lived in both Woodside and Elmhurst Queens. The FBI found that the leftist National Guardian on 31 October 1960 published a statement "supporting [Farrell] Dobbs & [Myra] Weiss in 1960 election" that Burros had signed. This same statement appeared in the 31 October 1960 issue of the Militant. On 16 January 1961, Burros wrote another letter to the Militant "criticizing [the] Federal Radiation Council report and advising readers to read World Without War by [the famed scientist and long-time member of the British Communist Party] Dr. John Desmond Bernal." On 9 April 1962 Burros had yet another "letter to the paper telling of a letter to Attorney General Robert Kennedy criticizing his use of the McCarran Act against the CP." Burros' final missive to the Militant that the FBI recorded appeared on 27 August 1962. It was a letter "criticizing Rockefeller." Burros' earliest letter, however, was to the CP paper the Worker. On 8 November 1959 Burros penned a "letter to the editor praising the Peoples Republic of China & Tibet." THE OTHER "JEWISH NAZI" During the same period Burros was writing his letters, he was actively working with the NRP. The NRP and other racists even held a stormy protest in his home town of Newburgh on 4 August 1961 at a time when Newburgh's attempt to implement draconian restrictions on access to welfare won fulsome praise from many on the right.68 In late 1965, Burros' political activities were overshadowed by another startling revelation: he was Jewish. In the wake of Dan Burros death at Roy Frankhouser's Reading home on 31 October 1965 – an event played out on the front page of the New York Times – a local Middletown, New York, paper became curious about Robert Burros. Although he was born in Newburgh and spent part of his high school years at the Newburgh Free Academy, Burros transferred to Middletown High School in his junior year. He graduated from Middletown High School in 1955 with "the highest average grade over four years in American history," according to an expose in the Middletown Times Herald Record. Another long-time Middletown resident was none other than Fred Weiss, who owned the "Mount Hope" farm in Middletown. In the 1950s and early 1960s, Weiss regularly commuted from his farm in Middletown to the Yorkville section of Manhattan. It was during this time that Weiss churned out a number of leaflets and pamphlets praising the Soviet Union which Pennsylvania's Fred Polzin dutifully printed and helped distributed. In a 4 November 1965 article entitled "Local Nazi Jewish Too," Middletown Times Herald Record reporter Helen Bloom broke the news in a front page story that began: "Robert Joseph Burros, regional director and organizer of the extreme right-wing, Neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic, anti-Negro National Renaissance Party (NRP) was born Jewish and was at one time a leftist. Contacted by phone in the party's New York City office, Burros categorically but inconsistently denied any affiliation with the Jewish faith and said his left-wing activities four years ago were done as undercover work for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. . . . Confronted with facts dug from past records in Newburgh and Middletown, Robert Burros coolly but categorically denied them, going as far as to give a different birth date than his mother Marion Burros at 215 First St., Newburgh, gave.69 The Times Herald Record, however, discovered that Robert Burros was born in Newburgh on 29 November 1937 and that his parents were Harry and Marion Burros and that his "religious affiliation" was with a Reform Jewish synagogue, Temple Beth Jacob. According to records supplied to the paper by Rabbi Norman Kahan, Joseph Burros had his bar mitzvah on 26 January 1951 at Temple Beth Jacob. Rabbi Kahan also recalled that in 1957 Burros had written to him and identified himself as the person whom the Rabbi had conducted a bar mitzvah for at Temple Beth Jacob. Rabbi Kahan then recalled that Burros: "wanted to talk to one of our temple organizations, and, at my request, he sent me some literature he had written. . . . The pamphlet was on the extreme left wing. Burros himself said he was a socialist and that the pamphlet was submitted in an international socialist competition on world peace." Rabbi Kahan said he turned all the information and pamphlets to the FBI at the time "because of the extremism in the literature." The Times Herald Record tracked down a former high school classmate of Robert Burros named Ronald Cushing who recalled bumping into Burros on a New York City street in 1961. Cushing told the paper: "I mentioned that I had voted for President Kennedy in 1960 and he said I was wrong to have done that and that I should have voted for the candidate of the Socialist Workers Party. . . . He mentioned Cuba and this was at a time when the United States had broken off diplomatic relations with Cuba, and he was very critical of the American action against Cuba. He called (Fidel) Castro a great man and liberator. I finally said to him that if he liked that type of government as well why doesn't he move to East Germany or Cuba or something of that nature. His reply was that he could do more good here." Rather than denying these encounters, Burros told reporter Helen Bloom: "I was gathering information as part of my duties with the radical right, which I subsequently turned over to the FBI." When asked about contacting Rabbi Kahan and sending him socialist literature, Burros responded, "That was part of my modus operandi. The whole thing was a cover, an experiment to snare the left." Needless to say, there is no indication at all that Burros had any link to the FBI except the one he himself created.70 On 5 November 1965, the New York Times reported that the leadership of the NRP had decided to remove Robert Burros from his post as Madole's number two man but allowed him to continue as a regional leader. The Times said the party had taken this action because Burros concealed the fact that his father was Jewish. Robert Burros was a "tall blond" who looked like an "Aryan." (Dan Burros also was blond haired and blue eyed.71) Robert Burros told the Times Herald Record his mother was a "pure Aryan" of Lithuanian descent who also supported his NRP activities. He also said his late father – although Jewish – hated Zionism as well as Jews in general: My father was Jewish, but he saw the viewpoint of the National Renaissance Party. . . . My father was an American patriot, my father always advocated America first, and my father saw that what Zionism was doing to this country was ruinous and was disastrous. My father believed in the supremacy of the white race, my father always spoke in favor of the supremacy of the white race . . . . My father always ridiculed the Jews . . . you see, the Jews . . . he's always preaching that the Jews must control the world and the Jews are so fanatical in this dedication that in order to control the world they are willing to see the rest of the world destroyed so that they can control it. That's how fanatical and paranoid the Jewish nation is. Now my father always opposed this. My father was always an American first. . . . I found the Jewish language and the Jewish culture so alien to me that I just could not assimilate the culture, the religion, the philosophy into my intellectual bloodstream."72 After Dan Burros died, Robert Burros naturally was asked if he had been related to him. Not surprisingly, Robert Burros – who was intent on concealing his own Jewish background – denied any relationship and said the whole thing was merely a coincidence. Nor did the ADL, the American Jewish Committee (AJC), the FBI, and the New York City police have any "information that would show any blood relationship between the two men," according to a 5 November 1965 New York Times report. Yet when Robert Burros met the FBI on 4 March 1965, he told a different story. At that time – a period when Dan Burros' racial identity still remained unknown – Robert Burros stated that he was in fact related to Dan Burros. From the FBI report of Robert Burros' interview: "He [Robert Burros] said that Major DAN BURROS, who was arrested in connection with NRP activities in New York City last year, is related to him as a distant cousin." Were Robert and Daniel Burros "distant cousins" as well as political comrades? Again, it is impossible to say. All that we know is that with the exception of this one interview, Robert Burros always denied any link. Looking at the strange story of Robert and Daniel Burros, we are confronted with what sounds like a rough draft for a Robert Ludlum novel. Robert and Daniel Burros both were born in 1937. Both had blond hair and blue eyes. Both had fathers who were descended from Russian Jews. Both claimed that they had "Aryan" mothers although in the case of Dan Burros this claim was proven false. For our purposes, however, what is most striking is the fact that Robert Burros seems to have followed a similar script in New York that Roy Frankhouser followed in Philadelphia. "STEPHEN L'EANDES, YOUR MAN ON CAMPUS" Finally, although Frankhouser's fantastic claim of meeting Lee Harvey Oswald in New York City is so obviously absurd as to be easily dismissed, it should be noted that he wasn't the only far rightist to claim that he had encountered "Oswald" in New York City around the very time the real Lee Harvey Oswald was living in Russia. On 22 November 1963, the day President Kennedy was shot, a strange far rightist who called himself "Steven Yves L'Eandes" (sometimes spelled L'Andes in the press) but whose real name turned out to be Stephen Landesberg made a similar claim about "Oswald."73 Using the name "James Rizzuto," Landesberg told the FBI that "Oswald" had accompanied him to left-wing events in New York City. On at least one occasion while Landesberg tried to disrupt one of these gatherings, he claimed that "Oswald" sat in the back of the room quietly taking photos.74 On 29 November 1963, the front page headline of the New York Post screamed "Oswald Pal Hunted Here." The Post reported that FBI agents were searching Greenwich Village "for a Mississippi-born segregationist who has been linked to Lee Harvey Oswald." The New York Times, Newsday and the Village Voice all ran similar stories.75 The press reports focused on the FBI hunt for the mystery man "Stephen Yves L'Eandes."76 The reporters explained that the FBI probe had been triggered by an "informant" who had contacted radio stations and the Village Voice on the day of Kennedy's assassination. The next day, the informant, "James Rizzuto," told the FBI that L'Eandes and Oswald had been active in New York City in 1962 disrupting liberal meetings. The FBI then began to search for the mysterious Mr. L'Eandes. The FBI knew that L'Eandes was a real figure because there were previous press reports about his disruptive activity in Greenwich Village. L'Eandes had even been a guest on Barry Gray's WMCA radio program on 17 November 1961 where he took part in a panel discussion on "CORE Activities in the South."77 At the time L'Eandes presented himself as a representative of the far-right National States Rights Party. "Steve L'Eandes" first attracted attention at a pro-integration rally held at PS 41 in Greenwich Village in December 1961 that featured then-New York State Assemblyman Mark Lane and Tom Hayden from SDS. Speaking in a convincing Southern drawl and claiming to be an ex-Marine, L'Eandes was such a distracting presence that the police were called. Nor was he acting alone. According to The Village Voice, he was part of a "small minority" of protesters that included a young woman who got into a physical altercation at the event. L'Eandes next surfaced at a 10 January 1962 meeting called by the American Jewish Congress (AJC) to protest an attack by some self-avowed Nazis on a local Greenwich Village rabbi named Kurt Flascher. The 39-year-old Rabbi Flascher was a member of the executive committee of the Congress for Racial Equality (CORE). After a CORE meeting in the Village, he and a few other CORE members were in a restaurant on Seventh Avenue discussing the Eichmann case when "two young men approached, one shouting 'Hitler should have killed all the Jews.' They beat the rabbi, overturned tables and chairs, and fled" according to a report in the 20 December 1961 New York Times. The 10 January meeting to protest the attack on Rabbi Flascher was particularly important because L'Eandes told the FBI that while he was heckling the proceedings, "he was assaulted by an individual and photographs of this assault [were] taken by Lee Harvey Oswald. This photo was published in the Thunderbolt magazine. Also believed to be at meeting was one Earl Perry, an associate of Oswald." 78 The FBI's Birmingham, Alabama, office then examined back issues of the NSRP's paper, the Thunderbolt, to determine if any such photo existed but with no success. Later that same month, L'Eandes appeared at the office of The Village Voice intent on placing an ad celebrating Robert E. Lee's birthday. He gave Voice reporter J. R. Goddard his card: "Stephen L'Eandes, Your Man on Campus." It also included a Grand Central Station PO Box. L'Eandes then talked about his links to a mysterious group he called "the Magnolia Rifles."79 On 7 March 1962, "L'Eandes" heckled Hubert Humphrey at a Democratic Party rally in the Village. That same spring, he showed up at the ultra-liberal Judson Memorial Church for a gathering held at the Church's "Hall of Issues." He also attended an NAACP meeting in the Village where he got into yet another fistfight. However, from that point on, he seems to have dropped out of sight. The FBI finally determined that its informant "James Rizzuto" was really Stephen H. Landesberg of Forest Hills, Queens, a/k/a "Steven Yves L'Eandes." Landesberg, who at the time was living in the Village, was arrested for lying to the FBI and sent to Bellevue hospital for observation. On 6 December 1963, the New York Times ran a brief story on the case under the headline "New Yorker Is Held for Tricking F.B.I.": A 23-year-old man who had led the Federal Bureau of Investigation on a futile search for a supposed friend of Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested yesterday on a charge of giving false information. Steven H. Landesberg of 66 West 10th Street was later committed by Federal Judge John M. Cannella to Bellevue Hospital for ten days for psychiatric observation. Landesberg, also known as Steven Yves L'Eandes and James F. Rizzuto, was discharged from the Marine Corps after eight months for a physical disability. His service conduct was officially described as "bizarre" and "unusual." On Nov. 23, the day after the assassination of President Kennedy, Landesberg went to the New York office of the F.B.I.80 He said his name was Rizzuto and he had served with Oswald and L'Eandes in the Marines. He said L'Eandes was a paid agitator. At least once, he said, Oswald photographed a disturbance created by L'Eandes. The agency began an intensive search for L'Eandes in Greenwich Village only to discover, it said, that Landesberg, L'Eandes, and Rizzuto were the same person. Some obvious questions need to be asked. Why did the FBI take "James Rizzuto" so seriously? After all, the government must have been deluged with crank tips in the wake of President Kennedy's assassination. Second, the New York police department's "Red Squad" known as the Bureau of Special Services and Investigation (BOSSI) maintained a remarkably tight surveillance and informant operation inside the extreme right as well as the extreme left. Although Dan Burros and John Patler's tiny American National Party, for example, "did not get much press attention . . . it did fascinate the special anti-subversive squad of the police department of New York City. The squad knew the names of every member of the party and spot checks were kept on each."81 BOSSI detective Tony Ulasewicz was personally assigned to monitor New York neo-Nazis and Minutemen extremists. He even planted a BOSSI agent in the New York branch of the American Nazi Party.82 Presumably, then, BOSSI would have had its own thick "L'Eandes" file that the FBI could have easily checked. Such a file obviously would have included either a photograph or some other kind of physical description. One man who doubted the FBI's story almost immediately was Joachim Joesten. In Oswald: Assassin or Fall Guy, published in 1964 by the Soviet-subsidized left-wing publishing house Marzani & Munsell, Joesten cited a Newsday story which reported that after Rizzuto went to the FBI, government agents "made the rounds of bars in Greenwich Village showing a 'color snapshot of a dark-haired, bearded man in his early, or mid-20s.'" In a later essay, "The Case against J. Edgar Hoover," Joesten cites a story in the 30 November 1963 New York Post that reads: The man the FBI is looking for has been described as about 5 foot 10, slender build, handsome, with brown hair and a large brush-type mustache. He is said to have once described himself as being a member of the Magnolia Rifles, reportedly a Mississippi segregationist group. He has been a frequent figure in the Village during the last two years and has been involved in a number of brawls over racial issues. Joesten also cites the 6 December 1963 issue of Newsday: A 23-year-old self-styled student of philosophy, accused of hoaxing the FBI into a massive two-week search for a non-existent Greenwich Village buddy of President Kennedy's assassin, was arrested yesterday and committed for psychiatric observation at Bellevue Hospital. FBI agents arrested Steven Harris Landesberg yesterday morning at his Greenwich Village apartment reported to be at 66 W. 10th St. They accused him of triggering a widespread FBI manhunt for a Stephen Yves L'Andes [sic], who supposedly was closely associated with Lee Harvey Oswald during the assassin's stay in New York in 1962. The FBI had been led to believe that L'Andes could shed important light on the Nov. 22 assassination. Landesberg identified himself yesterday as a student of philosophy at Columbia University. However, Columbia University officials said that Landesberg was not registered as a student either under his own name or under his alias . . . .83 The FBI named Landesberg's parents as Mr. and Mrs. George Landesberg of 111-50 76th Rd., Forest Hills. Joesten then asks: It is evident that the FBI would not have launched a massive search, lasting two weeks, for a "non-existent" person without some pretty solid data to go upon. If Landesberg was an impostor, the FBI, with its immense facilities for research and verification, would have spotted him as a phony within hours, if not minutes. It is a certainly, therefore, that the information which Landesberg had imparted to the FBI was both credible and of great importance to set in motion the vast sweep through the Village described in Newsday and the Post. Why then did the FBI suddenly "determine" that the whole thing was a hoax and that the elusive L'Eandes was none other than Landesberg himself? Newsday also published a photo of Landesberg in its 6 December 1963 issue. According to Joesten, it showed a man who appeared to be both Jewish and clean-shaven which prompted him to ask: "Would he be identical with a racist and segregationist from Mississippi – and a bearded one at that?" As for Landesberg, when the FBI finally confronted him with the evidence that he really was "L'Eandes," and then after admitting that he himself was "L'Eandes," the FBI report continued: "LANDESBERG then began to state that the information he had furnished to the Federal Bureau of Information on November 22, 1963, was furnished to him by someone else, at which time he began to stutter and become incoherent." When Landesberg first met with the FBI, his "Stephen L'Eandes" persona had been dormant for well over a year as the last reported "L'Eandes" sighting took place in the spring of 1962. Landesberg was enrolled in a philosophy course at Columbia University when Kennedy was killed. So why did he create his "James Rizzuto" pseudonym to tell his strange story? One obvious possibility is that Landesberg already was a mentally unbalanced individual who became even more unhinged at the shocking report of Kennedy's death and on that very day created an elaborate fantasy for reasons known only to him. Was it also possible that Landesberg had been used by someone else to funnel his story to the government as he tried to claim? Or could it be that during his bizarre adventure in the far right, Landesberg came across (or thought he came across) some tidbit of information that he really did think was relevant to the death of President Kennedy and he then constructed a story around it in the belief that the FBI would not be able to crack his "James Rizzuto" cover story? As weirdly interesting as Landesberg's story remains, I cite it here most of all as evidence that when Frankhouser told the New York Times on 1 November 1965 that the SWP had a "training camp" and that Lee Harvey Oswald was "connected" to the camp, his statement came in the wake of Landesberg's claim two years earlier that there indeed was an "Oswald" in New York. This "Oswald" was clearly linked to the NSRP and he went to Jewish and leftist meetings but he stayed in the background in an apparent attempt to gather information on the participants. Did Frankhouser and "Stephen L'Eandes" also cross paths in New York in the early 1960s? And did Frankhouser's claim to have met "Oswald" have any connection to "L'Eandes" strange tale? FRANKHOUSER'S TRAIL: PART 3 — FROM THE KKK TO THE "KNIGHTS OF MALTA" The 1975 New Solidarity article stated that Frankhouser said he had met "Oswald" yet again at the Minuteman Lake Pontchartrain camp in New Orleans.84 We, however, can only assume that Frankhouser could not have met the real Lee Harvey Oswald in New Orleans for a second time when he never met him in New York City for the first time. For the rest of this chapter, then, I propose to look at Frankhouser's references in the New Solidarity article to his three Minutemen cronies, Ken Duggan, Vincent DePalma, and Eugene Tabbutt. Since I have already examined Ken Duggan's career in Smiling Man from a Dead Planet, there is no need to repeat the same information here.85 As for the even more mysterious Vincent DePalma, the only information I have been able to locate on him is summarized in "Note 2" at the end of this chapter. Although the information on DePalma comes directly from the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations, it deals with the circumstances surrounding the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and not President Kennedy. EUGENE TABBUTT: KKK SUPERSPY? This leaves us with the third man in Frankhouser's unholy trinity, the Philadelphia private investigator Eugene Tabbutt, whose background is extensively summarized in "Note 1" at the end of this chapter. In September 1965, Tabbutt became the "counter-intelligence director" of the KKK after the UKA's leader Robert Shelton appointed him head of the UKA's Klan Bureau of Investigation (KBI). The KBI's job was to screen potential KKK recruits while exposing government informers. Tabbutt had considerable experience for the post of KBI head. From 1958 to 1963, for example, he ran his own National Detective Bureau out of Philadelphia. In an 11 October 1965 letter to NY KKK members promoting a talk by Tabbutt, then KBI member Dan Burros trumpeted Tabbutt's investigative expertise this way: The Imperial Director of the KBI has forty years of police experience. He was once chief of a military intelligence agency, was a government investigator, was with the Philadelphia Police, was an investigator for the state of Penn. and has considerable electronics experience. This very knowledgeable man will address our meeting, and later will hold a special course for N.Y. KBI personnel only.86 (After Burros died in Frankhouser's Reading home, the police found among his remains papers "identifying him as a member of the Klan Bureau of Investigation and Security Guard of the KKK."87) Given that Tabbutt already enjoyed a decades' long connection to the KKK, his detective agency may have been employed by government-sponsored espionage agencies in states like Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi like the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission and the Alabama Department of Public Safety to infiltrate and spy on the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), the CP, the SWP, and similar "pro-integration" leftist organizations as part of a broader attempt both to genuinely gather information as well as to discredit the civil rights movement in general as a "communist inspired" plot.88 In a 22 October 1965 interview with the Reading-based newspaper Eagle, Frankhouser also declared that "the Negro civil rights movement has been taken over as a tool of communism and that there is a 'definite plot to destroy America.' . . . the Klan movement is growing because the government has failed to crack down on Communists working within the Negro and civil rights movement.89 The employment of private eyes by the far right to spy on leftist was by no means uncommon. Former FBI Special Agent Guy Banister's New Orleans-based detective agency, Guy Banister Associates, monitored leftist activists in the Big Easy. Frankhouser, who in 1960 would be just 21 years old, may have found employment as a youthful infiltrator through a far-right PI network in the Philadelphia area that had longstanding links to the Klan.90 The use of private investigative agencies as a cover for political espionage was so embraced by Tabbutt that he tried to establish an entire network of such agencies. In the HUAC hearings on the KKK, the Committee questioned a leading Ohio UKA member named Bobby Stephens who had met Tabbutt at a KKK gathering on 26 September 1965 at a Holiday Inn in Zanesville, Ohio. From the Hearings: Mr. MANUEL. Mr. Stephens, you testified that Eugene Tabbutt was in attendance at the September 26 meeting. . . . Did he say he had a position in the United Klans of America? Mr. STEPHENS. Yes, sir; he was head of the KBI. Mr. MANUEL. That is the Klan Bureau of Investigation? Mr. STEPHENS. Yes, sir. Mr. MANUEL. And he made that claim in front of Mr. Shelton? Mr. STEPHENS. Yes, sir; he was one of Mr. Shelton's direct, shall we say, right-hand men in it and mentioned the fact about a protective agency which he had set up, which would be a front for the KBI. Mr. MANUEL. Was this to operate in the State of Ohio? Mr. STEPHENS. He was going to make arrangements to have an office in Columbus, which he assured me that he could use my knowledge, and the records, on different civil rights leaders and different activities going on in Columbus.91 CLOAK AND DAGGER WITH "THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA" Tabbutt's position as Security Chief for Shelton's UKA was not the only one he had held such a post for a far rightist organization. In the late 1950s, Tabbutt ran "security" for the pseudo-chivalric "Sovereign Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, Knights of Malta." The Knights "Grand Chancellor" was a 1930s Nazi sympathizer named "Colonel" Charles Thourot Pichel. The Order maintained its international headquarters not in Monaco or Vaduz in Liechtenstein or in the pages of a Dan Brown novel but in the small town of Shickshinny, Pennsylvania, where Pichel lived. The bizarre history of the Pichel-led Knights of Malta can be found elsewhere.92 For our purposes, it is important to note that in 1958 Tabbutt was listed as the Knights "Chief Security Officer." In 1965 – the same year that Tabbutt took over the KBI – he became the Knights "Security General."93 The full extent of the ties between Frankhouser and his KBI crony Dan Burros and Pichel's Knights remains an open one. However it is worth noting that when Dan Burros met his last girlfriend, the first present he gave her was "a black enamel pendant in the form of a Maltese cross."94 In early September 1978 Eugene Tabbutt's involvement in the Knights even surfaced in the pages of New Solidarity. Just a few weeks earlier, LaRouche engaged in open Holocaust-denial when in a 22 August 1978 New Solidarity article he wrote: "Granted, the Nazis did not kill six million Jews, but they did kill upwards of a million and a half. . . . Whether Hitler killed one and a half million Jews or more, which he did, or six million Jews which he did not, really makes little difference." LaRouche's statement seemed astonishing at the time to many NCLC members because so many cadre – including some who held senior positions inside the group – knew so little about the true nature of the ties between the ultra-right and the NCLC. From 1974-75 on, these overtures between LaRouche and the far right were implemented by a small and carefully chosen group that operated out of the NCLC Security Staff. Yet a fuller understanding of the NCLC relationship with Pichel's Knights may well prove significant in understanding the hidden history of the NCLC. What obvious is that starting in the late summer of 1977 in particular, more and more far right and anti-Semitic references began appearing in the pages of New Solidarity, almost all of them by LaRouche personally or by his clique in the Security Staff. The links between the NCLC's Security Staff and the Pichel Knights became so close that one Knight named Edward von Rothkirch – who also maintained close ties to the Liberty Lobby – let the Security Staff use his Washington, D.C.-based Intercontinental Media Services (IMS) press cards to attend public events. Dubbed "the Baron" by NCLC Security, von Rothkirch gave the Security Staff a stack of blank IMS press cards with the permission to forge his signature on them whenever Security needed access to some event open to the press that it wished to infiltrate.95 In late 1978, this clique was angry that Tabbutt and his fellow Shickshinny Knight Frank Capell – yet another quasi-private right-wing spook who ran his own journal called Herald of Freedom – had broken with the group's long-time leader Charles Pichel and instead pledged allegiance to another spin-off from the Knights headed by the exiled King Peter of Yugoslavia.96 Capell attacked the Labor Committee (also known at the time as "the U.S. Labor Party") in the pages of Herald of Freedom as a wacky Marxist organization that the right should avoid at all cost. Capell was just one of many on the far right (including Minuteman leader Robert DePugh) who allied themselves with the views of Georgia Congressman Larry McDonald, a John Birch Society leader and head of the right-wing Western Goals Foundation. On 26 January 1977, McDonald inserted into the Congressional Record a research report that tried to link the NCLC with Communist subversion. Yet another well-known John Birch Society author named Gary Allen wrote a December 1977 article in the John Birch Society journal American Opinion in which he argued that the NCLC was a subversive Marxist organization intent on infiltrating the right, possibly at the behest of the Rockefeller family.97 In the 10 October 1978 New Solidarity, an article appeared that was written to promote a series of reports in the NCLC's Executive Intelligence Review (EIR) issue for 10-16 October 1978.98 One of the stories was billed as a special report on the Minutemen by Scott Thompson. The New Solidarity article stated that the White Citizens Council leader Medford Evens had written a piece in the September 1978 issue of American Opinion that favored support of "Zionism." Even worse: Evans and Bircher leader Larry McDonald, a Democratic Congressman from Georgia, are collaborating directly with the head of the defunct Minutemen paramilitary grouping, Robert DePugh, to form a conservative "Committee of Ten Million" that will act as a cover and "fund laundry" for vote fraud, dirty tricks and terror, according to an accompanying report by Scott Thompson. Citing sources close to Evans, Thompson reveals that the "Committee" operation is helping reactivate the networks of professional assassins and terrorists that made up the core of DePugh's original organization. . . . According to Thompson's report, Evans' White Citizens Councils, the bulwark of the Klan in the violence-ridden civil rights era of the 1960s, included several Zionist Lobby agents in key leadership positions. Thompson – not surprisingly – cited "former Klan leader Roy Frankhouser" (whose name for once was spelled correctly) as a key source. Thompson reported that Frankhouser had "already revealed aspects of the collaboration" between "certain Klan leaders, Zionist lobby forces" and Kennedy's "chief civil rights troubleshooter, John Doar" to "unleash a series of assassinations" against both sides "of the black-white struggle" with the intent of pitching the U.S. "into bloody chaos." The New Solidarity article continues: Typical of the character of the Zionist-British links to the ultra right, says Thompson, is the case of Eugene Tabbhut [sic], who used his post as head of the United Klans of America's "Klan Bureau of Investigation" in the 1960s to determine who was – and was not – an "agent." But Tabbhut was simultaneously in the employ of the British-controlled pretender to the Yugoslav throne, King Peter II, who in turn covertly received Zionist lobby financial support. LAROUCHE'S "MARXIST" ANTISEMITISM With Scott Thompson's 1978 reference to Roy Frankhouser and Eugene Tabbutt, we have now come full circle. As I have shown, Frankhouser's claims about the Kennedy assassination as reported in New Solidarity can easily be shown to be false. Yet New Solidarity's 1975 faux ''expose" can still help us better understand the complex dynamics of the American radical right, although in a way one imagines that neither the Labor Committee nor Frankhouser would appreciate. The role played by the LaRouche and the Labor Committee's Security Staff from 1973 on eerily echoes the role played by the far right in the early 1960s. The NCLC aggressively spied on and collected "intelligence" about various leftist groupings, some of which it offered to law enforcement circles. The group launched physical attacks on other leftists, above all on members of the American Communist Party. The NCLC's attack on Eugene Tabbutt as being too friendly with the "Zionist lobby" and its FBI collaborators reflects earlier ultra-right polemics against George Lincoln Rockwell for being too cozy with the FBI. Roy Frankhouser's position as a paid "Security consultant" to LaRouche literally embodied this broader political axis. The NCLC's initial covert alliance with the far right apparently began sometime in either 1973 or early 1974.99 What the new Frankhouser files suggest, however, is the possibility that LaRouche's bizarre decision to steer the NCLC into a coalition with the likes of Willis Carto, Robert Miles, and Roy Frankhouser may have had its origin in a far earlier period. In the late 1950s after LaRouche returned to the active ranks of the SWP – after having effectively dropped out of the organization for a few years – he reports that he conducted research on ancient Babylonian society and that this research led him to a deeper understanding of Judaism as a "caste" pseudo-religion.100 LaRouche says that he discovered that Judaism was not a "real religion" but the production of a "caste" of merchant usurers initially based in Babylon. These merchant usurers then imported their pseudo-religion back to the Holy Land. Jewish "usury," in short, long predated the Christian period and was in fact fundamental to Judaism's very construction as a religion. LaRouche clearly glossed some of his arguments from Karl Kautsky and other "assimilationist" Marxists from both the 19th and 20th centuries. These theorists claimed that Judaism was so linked to European medieval society that the disappearance of medieval feudal society with the growth of capitalism heralded the end of Judaism. As Kautsky put it in Rasse und Judentum – a work that strongly argued against "racial" pseudo-science theory – "We will not have completely emerged from the Middle Ages as long as Judaism still remains among us. The more quickly it disappears, the better it will be for society and for the Jews themselves." 101 Or to quote the Austrian Socialist leader Victor Adler, the elimination of both private property and the power of money "would finally lead the Wandering Jew to his tomb." Neither Kautsky nor Adler were "political anti-Semites" and as leading Social Democrats they strongly opposed the anti-Semitic political parties of their time. Yet their crude economic reductionist interpretation of Judaism led both of them to dismiss demands for cultural and political autonomy that emerged from the Yiddish Renaissance movement in places like Austrian Galicia and Bukovina even as the Austrian Social Democrats supported the creation of Czech language schools in Vienna. Because Jews were a "caste" and not a "historical nation," theoreticians like Kautsky and Adler said they had no right to demand any kind of political or cultural autonomy unlike the Catholic Czechs of "Bohemia." The Western Left's view of actual anti-Semitic parties was surprisingly cavalier, particularly when one recalls that this also was the time of renewed violent pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe. The expression of anti-Semitic views often was written off as just a "first naive form of anti-capitalism" in the words of Austrian Socialist Otto Bauer.102 Nor, of course, was the reduction of Jews and Judaism to narrow economic categories unique to the Socialists. Max Weber, for example, defined "the Jews as a 'caste' or a 'pariah people' (Pariavolk) rooted in a form of "capitalism oriented toward speculation, a capitalism of pariahs' (Pariakapitalismus)."103 Neither Kautsky nor Weber could ever imagine the coming of the Holocaust since they viewed both Judaism and anti-Semitism as relics of a medieval past rooted in pre-capitalist agrarian society. The fact that the worst pogroms took place in the most backward parts of Europe only seemed to prove the point. LaRouche, however, developed his own views on "the Jewish question" in the late 1950s, a little more than a decade after both Auschwitz and the creation of the new state of Israel.104 Yet LaRouche's views were far worse precisely because he didn't see the role of Jewish "usury" as a product of the Jews position as a minority grouping in the Christian world. Instead he claimed that Judaism itself was a pseudo-belief constructed by a caste of usurers from ancient Babylon. Using allegedly "Marxist categories," LaRouche not only defined Judaism itself a by-product of an ancient backward usurer caste; he turned the Nazis into mere hapless instruments of big capital. By so doing he made the centuries' long history of European anti-Semitism disappear. Yet LaRouche clearly rejected biological reductionist "race theory" and actively recruited Jewish members to his organization?105 (His first wife as well as Carol were also Jewish.) All we can say for sure is that in the late 1950s LaRouche reports that he had come to see Judaism itself as a "caste" or fake synthetic religion first developed in Babylon by merchant usurers. To cite LaRouche: Although A.D. Judaism is an outgrowth of the development of Christianity (e.g., the first such rabbi, Philo of Alexandria), there was a preceding Hebrew faith of sorts, elements of which were syncretically assimilated in the successive phases of manufacture of post-Philo Judaism. The earlier Hebrew doctrine is itself a synthetic hodgepodge of chiefly Mesopotamian legends. Rabbi Ezra, the author of the fictional personality of Moses, is exemplary of the circumstances and contents of Hebrew doctrine – a creation of Achaemenid [Persian] protection and edict. Ezra's Persian version of Hebrewism was, in turn, significantly influenced by an earlier, pre-Pentateuch version, created in conformity with Babylonian edicts. . . . From Ezra onwards, and even before, Hebrewism was an assimilationist doctrine developed to provide special juridical status (and ideological self-image) for a caste of merchant-usurers within a pre-capitalist society. Ancient Judaism (or "Hebrewism") was not a "real" religion but an ideological concoction designed for a special caste of "merchant-usurers" in oligarchic pre-capitalist Babylon.[Emphasis added.]106 As for "A.D. Judaism," LaRouche continues in a similar vein, Judaism is not a true religion, but only a half-religion, a curious appendage and sub-species of Christianity . . . Judaism is the ideological abstraction of the secular life of Christianity's Jew, the Roman merchant-usurer who had not yet evolved to the state of Papal enlightenment, a half-Christian, who had not developed a Christian conscience, etc. Judaism is the religion of a caste of subjects of Christianity, entirely modeled by ingenious rabbis to fit into the ideological and secular life of Christianity. In short, a self-subsisting Judaism never existed and never could exist. As for "Jewish culture," otherwise, it is merely the residue left to the Jewish home after everything saleable had been marketed to the Goyim. In other words, Judaism at best is just "a half-religion" since it is merely the "ideological abstraction of the secular life of Christianity's Jew, the Roman merchant-usurer." Under Christianity, Judaism was "entirely modeled by ingenious rabbis" to adapt to Christian society following the blueprint first developed by Rabbi Ezra. Judaism therefore is the "half religion" of a special caste of merchant-usurers.[Emphasis added.] Did LaRouche and Frankhouser's world overlap at the same time that LaRouche was developing his own "insights" into Judaism? Although Frankhouser said he met LaRouche during this time, LaRouche denies it. What can't be denied is that they both moved in surprisingly narrow circles. LaRouche reports that the late 1950s he pushed for the formation of a new SWP-backed radical youth movement based on his "long term perspective" of a coming economic collapse whose first signs he saw heralded in the severe 1957 recession. (LaRouche used a similar "Long Term Perspectives" argument in the mid-1960s when he created his own "youth movement," the NCLC.) LaRouche knew Tim Wohlforth from Wohlforth's days as a leader of the "youth realignment" in the late 1950s. LaRouche also knew Murry Weiss, the SWP's coordinator of both the "youth turn" as well as a key player in the SWP-backed Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPFC) largely because LaRouche's first wife, Janice, was a close personal friend of Murry and Myra Tanner Weiss. That said, there remains considerable fog but no "smoking gun" revelations that would definitively tie LaRouche to Frankhouser during this period. That said, looking back at Roy Frankhouser's early strange sojourn into the tiny world of postwar organized American Trotskyism, we have to ask some basic questions. Was the fact that Frankhouser became a key adviser to LaRouche and his Security Staff the end result of a series of events that only began in the 1970s? Was Frankhouser's earlier involvement with the SWP more or less just a weird coincidence? Or was there some earlier subterranean association that only publicly resurfaced well over a decade later? The best we can say for now is that the new FBI revelation of Frankhouser's role in the YSA/SWP – while still not solving the mystery – make the latter possibility a far more viable proposition than could have previously been imagined. CONCLUSION: PALIMPSEST WORLD? Finally, although New Solidarity's tale of Roy Frankhouser has served as a palimpsest of sort for my attempted reconstruction of the historical "text" behind the surface scribble, is there anything more to be learned from Frankhouser's strange odyssey? Could his story prove to be yet another palimpsest of a sort, an even more distorted echo of something far more sinister? At the core of Frankhouser's cryptic tale is the claim that he knew about a mysterious paramilitary leftist organization that planned to kill its opponents from Birmingham's Sheriff "Bull" Connor to President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Clearly no such group existed. Yet what if Frankhouser's real game was the creation of just such a "notional" leftist cell? Students of the Kennedy assassination know only too well the famous (infamous) pictures of Lee Harvey Oswald holding a rifle in one hand and in the other the Communist Party paper the Worker and the SWP paper the Militant. Oswald created his own one-man Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPFC) front group in New Orleans at a time when the SWP played a vital role in that organization's creation. If Frankhouser spent his time posing as a radical veteran, might he not have been trying to entrap genuine leftists with military backgrounds and contempt for nonviolence as the be-all-and-end-all tactic of the civil rights movement into some kind of "false flag"-type operation? The subsequent "expose" of a terrorist-oriented armed "communist" cell inside the civil rights movement would have been devastating. But was it really even necessary to create such a cell? Might not the recruitment of one or two unstable and/or politically naive or gullible individuals (i.e., "patsies") into a "notional" cell prove all that was really needed for the ploy to work? Now imagine it is 1963 instead of 1960. Suppose some naive individual, a classic marginal man with undeniable ties to Soviet Russia and a delusional image of himself as a world-historical actor, was approached by a fellow Army or Marine veteran and told about an elite radical underground movement (a kind of home-grown FLN) committed to truly fighting the rise of domestic fascism at home and American imperialism abroad not with mere talk but with weapons. A group committed to combat American's version of the French OAS, the armed Minutemen, and far right Nazis who openly worked with equally violent armed Cuban exiles. Perhaps he even heard whispers that this secret vanguard enjoyed the covet support of the still-endangered Cuban revolution. And then imagine that as a first initiation test of his fidelity, that individual was ordered to strike a blow against a leading member of the fascist far right. Only this time the target was not Sheriff Bull Connor but General Edwin Walker. Of course in a palimpsest world there are other possibilities as well. What if you are an agent working for a far-right anti-communist detective agency? Only this one operates out of New Orleans instead of Philadelphia. Your orders are to infiltrate pro-Castro leftist circles and to do so you need to establish a "paper trail" to bolster your credentials. Instead of laboriously infiltrating a targeted group as Frankhouser did, wouldn't it just be easier, cheaper, and a whole lot quicker to create, let's say, a "notional" Fair Play for Cuba chapter out of thin air and make sure the press hears about it in order to generate the press clips necessary to prove your political bona fides? And after you have created your notional organization, why not simply anoint yourself as its leader? Note I: Who was Eugene Tabbutt? A summary of Tabbutt's FBI files contain this information: Tabbutt, Eugene Harry 1. (Portland Maine and Philadelphia PA) B: 04-30-03 (Lubec, ME) 1958 — Chief Security Officer of Col. T. Pichel's ultra-right wing Shickshinny, Pennsylvania, based Knights of Malta and in 1965 its Security General 1924-1929 — Special Investigator to 4 former Directors of Public Safety, Philadelphia PD 1925 — Becomes KKK member 1929-1933 — Investigator for law firm in Connaughton & Updike in WDC 1933-1937 — Investigator in Charge of American Detective Agency, Philadelphia PA 1937-1939 — Investigator, PA Dept of Justice 1940-1941 — Investigator in Charge of US Army Signal Corps Intelligence: HQ 157-4292, #7 re: 1942 investigation report by Signal Corps: Evidence disclosed by this investigation indicates that subject's integrity and discretion, as well as his general character, are highly questionable. He is reported to have done investigative work for the KKK, to have attended an America First meeting, and to be on the mailing list of the German Library of Information, although there is no other evidence to question his loyalty, except reports that he will do anything for money. Termination was recommended and Tabbutt resigned. 1941-1945 — Investigator, Aetna Casualty & Insurance Co. 1945-1948 — Owned/operated National Detective Bureau, Philadelphia 1950-1956 — Captain of Security Force, Philadelphia Piers, Inc. 1958-1963 — Owned/operated National Detective Bureau, 5835 Willows Ave., Philadelphia PA May 1963 — Name appeared on list of ANP (American Nazi Party) Associate members 09/65 — KKK leader Shelton appointed Tabbutt Imperial Director, Klan Bureau of Investigation (KBI) 01/20/66 — FBI notified Secret Service about Tabbutt due to report received that Tabbutt had discussed plan for assassinating LBJ With respect to Tabbutt and Frankhouser, there is a document in Tabbutt's file which contains a "name-deleted" and the number of spaces could easily be Frankhouser's name, especially since it also refers to this person as having "friends and supporters on the Reading PA Police Dept." There is also a barely readable handwritten notation near this person's name describing him as being associated with UKA. 1. "Tabbutt advised...he moved when still young to Portland Maine where he was employed by the Bell Telephone Company. He came to Philadelphia in 1922 and joined the police force at the time the Philly police force was being reorganized under the former Marine Corps (name deleted). He became a detective with the Philly PD and was used by the various heads of the Philly PD to investigate police corruption. Because of enemies made during one Grand Jury investigation, he decided that he had no future in the Philly PD and resigned. He has been a private detective ever since with the exception of a period in 1940-1941 when he was employed by the Federal Government in a security capacity at the Philly Signal Depot. . . . In Sept 1965, he was appointed chief of the Klan Bureau of Investigation by Robert Shelton, head of the United Klans of America, Inc., Knights of the KKK." 2. Note: The Bureau's review of Federal personnel records indicated that in July 1942, during his service at the Philly Signal Depot he was "suspended without pay for administrative reasons" pending an investigation concerning his suitability and then subsequently terminated 5/11/43 as a "resignation" – but the resignation was due to his KKK membership and a report from PA Motor Police which stated that Tabbutt "has a bad reputation, poor character, and is dishonest." FBI INTERVIEW OF TABBUTT 9/23/65 FOR INFO RE: MINUTEMEN, KKK, ETC.: Tabbutt acknowledged membership in both groups but "At this time Tabbutt claimed that he had an ulterior motive in participating in both the above-named groups. This motive was to gather inside information concerning both groups for a book he is writing. He also stated that he had an obligation to furnish any information developed to a local leader of B'nai B'rith." "During this interview, Tabbutt advised he was born in 1903 in Lubec, Maine, and remained in Lubec located on the Canadian border across from Campobello. He advised that in his childhood he was a playmate of the late President FDR, whose estate, Campobello, was directly across a bay from the Tabbutt residence." . . . " Tabbutt advised that he intends to raise the question of the death of Daniel Burros, deceased Grand Dragon of New York who committed suicide in Reading, PA. Tabbutt stated that to the best of his recollection, Burros was left-handed, but he was shot in the right temple and chest with the gun found in his right hand. . . . He advised that he had received a call from a girlfriend of Burros and a NY Klansman named (name deleted) who wished to talk to him in NYC about the 'murder of Burros'. Tabbutt alleged that . . . Burros was killed by (name deleted), Grand Dragon of New Jersey UKA when they ascertained from a newspaper article that Burros was of Jewish background." [Note: The head of the New Jersey KKK was Frank Rotella, Jr.] THE FBI AGAINST TABBUTT Another source on Tabbutt comes from an essay entitled "'A negative and unwise approach': Private Detectives, Vigilantes and the FBI Counterintelligence, 1910-72" by Professor John Drabble and published in the book Police Detectives in History edited by Clive Emsley and Haia Shpayer-Markov (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006). Drabble reports on page 246 of his essay that in late 1965 Tabbutt convinced Robert Shelton to appoint him head of the KBI, a post that would allow him to interrogate prospective Klan members as well as carry out electronic surveillance operations for the KKK. At the same time, Tabbutt reportedly approached both the ADL and the American Jewish Committee with an offer to sell them tapes of KKK meetings. He also said he could show a network of far right groups like the Minutemen and the John Birch Society and the nature of their relations with the KKK. He further stated that the Minutemen were developing deadly weapons such as one that looked like an ordinary pipe but that could fire a cyanide bullet. Drabble then writes: "From the perspective of the FBI, Tabbutt had a questionable past." Either Tabbutt claimed (or the FBI reported) that he had infiltrated the KKK in the late 1930s to discover any connections between the KKK and the German American Bund. He was also reported to have burglarized the KKK's offices in Pennsylvania and sold KKK records from 1928 to 1940 to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Jewish newspapers and the ADL. According to Drabble, Washington notified the Philadelphia office in 1965 that Tabbutt has "an unsavory background and has been described as a con man, an opportunist and a person who would sell information to anyone." The Bureau then "immediately launched an operation to neutralize Tabbutt and cause the UKA to expel him." Exactly why the FBI would not only decline Tabbutt's offer but actively launch COINTELPRO measures to have him expelled from the UKA remains a mystery that Drabble does not explore. Surely the fact that Tabbutt had "an unsavory background" would not be sufficient grounds for the FBI not to hire him as an informant. After all, as head of the KBI, Tabbutt was the UKA's "James Angleton." He was the man literally in charge of finding out FBI penetration agents and informers for the UKA leadership. If I had to guess, the FBI may have been afraid that Tabbutt would actually be in a perfect position to use the FBI to weed out certain individuals that he didn't want in the UKA and to plant others that he did. It is even possible that Tabbutt had an informant relationship with another federal agency. Or perhaps they just didn't trust him and feared that Tabbutt would entrap the Bureau if it made any deal with him. Finally, Tabbutt's prominent role in the Shickshinny Knights of Malta may have influenced the FBI's decision. Again, without further investigation it is impossible to know for sure just why FBI headquarters turned so strongly against an individual who – at least on paper – would seem like the perfect informant for the Bureau. Note 2: Who was Vincent DePalma? Although Vincent DePalma's background remains mysterious, his name crops up in a fascinating way in the 1979 Final Report of the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations in its section on Martin Luther King, who had been assassinated on 4 April 1968.107 From the HSCA Report (pgs. 375-77): 1. RIGHTWING EXTREMIST ORGANIZATIONS The committee investigated rightwing, segregationist, extremist groups and individuals to find out if their outspoken opposition to Dr. King and their demonstrated propensity for violence might have resulted in their involvement in the assassination. FBI files on the Minutemen, Ku Klux Klan, and other extremist organizations were examined and while the committee found no evidence that these organizations had anything to do with the assassination, the committee did discover conspiracy allegations that warranted additional field investigation beyond that performed in the original investigation. (a) The Minutemen A review of F131 files on the Minutemen revealed a possible plot against Dr. King's life that had received some attention by law enforcement officials shortly before Dr. King's death. On January 15, 1968, Vincent DePalma, a close associate of Robert B. DePugh, the founder of the Minutemen, told a Denver agent of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) that he had defected from the Minutemen and wished to supply information. DePalma revealed that there were 19 Minutemen strike teams across the United States assigned to assassinate several prominent persons, including Dr. King, in the event DePugh was ever imprisoned. According to DePalma, the Minutemen also planned to incite race riots in the summer of 1968. After it received this information from the ATF, the FBI attempted unsuccessfully to locate DePalma, who had said he was moving to Oregon. As for DePugh, he disappeared in February 1968 following his indictment by a Federal grand jury in Seattle, Wash., for conspiracy to commit bank robbery. The FBI made no further attempts to investigate the threat until shortly after Dr. King's assassination, when one of DePalma's Minutemen associates, Edward Baumgardner, told a reporter that the artist's drawing of the suspected assassin resembled DePalma. Baumgardner was interviewed several times by the FBI. He said that he and DePalma were members of a Minutemen strike team that had been formed at a training camp in Colorado during the summer of 1967. Baumgardner repeated the information that DePalma had provided ATF and said DePalma had been assigned the code name Willard. (James Earl Ray used the alias "John Willard" when renting a room in a rooming house in Memphis on April 4, 1968.) DePalma was located by the FBI several days after Dr. King was killed. He again detailed information on the Minutemen strike teams that had targeted Dr. King and on Minutemen plans to precipitate race riots in the summer of 1968 as a means of facilitating a takeover of the Government. Work records showed that DePalma was in Newport, R.I., on April 4, 1968. Information he furnished during 3 days of interviews was verified by several FBI offices. DePugh and his chief associate in the Minutemen, Walter Peyson, remained fugitives until their capture in July 1969. There was nothing in the FBI files to reflect they were ever interviewed regarding possible involvement of the Minutemen in the assassination of Dr. King. The committee found that the DePalma lead had not been fully investigated by the FBI, so it examined it anew. It found that DePalma had been murdered in an unsolved gangland slaying in January 1978 in Los Angeles. The committee did locate and interview four persons who had attended the Colorado training camp in the summer of 1967. Both Jerry Brooks, an associate of DePugh's for at least 12 years, and Mary Tollerton, DePugh's secretary until late 1967, denied knowing of any plot to kill Dr. King. Although Brooks told of other assassination plots by the Minutemen and of intelligence files on Dr. King and other "subversives," Tollerton claimed that these activities were not serious. Tollerton added that DePugh had trouble keeping the organization together in 1968 while avoiding capture, so he could not have been involved in Dr. King's assassination. Walter Peyson and Robert DePugh, brought to Washington under subpoena, testified under oath that they were not involved in any plot to kill Dr. King. They insisted that all discussions of assassination plots and strike teams were mere paper propaganda. Both Peyson and DePugh also explained that because DePalma and Baumgardner were believed to be infiltrators, they were often fed false information. As a final investigative step, the committee compiled a list of all individuals associated with the Minutemen in the cities visited by James Earl Ray following his escape in April 1967 from the Missouri State Penitentiary. This list was cross-checked against a list of known or possible Ray associates. The results were negative. Based on the testimony it heard, interviews with the assistant U.S. Attorney who prosecuted DePugh and Peyson in 1966 and ATF agents who had encountered DePugh, extensive file reviews and the Ray associates name check, the committee concluded there was insufficient evidence to indicate that the Minutemen were involved in Dr. King's death. Unfortunately the HSCA found it impossible to determine if there was a real plot led by the Minutemen (as DePalma claimed) or if DePalma himself was acting as an agent or infiltrator of some sort who tried to implicate the Minutemen leadership in just such a plot either to cast law enforcement suspicion on the Minuteman after Doctor King was shot in Memphis or if he wanted to try to intimidate the government not to prosecute DePugh or for some other opaque reason. Still it is curious that DePalma went to agents from the ATF, the federal agency that had an earlier close relationship with Frankhouser to offer them his information. Had DePalma worked as an ATF informant as well? If DePalma went to the ATF in an attempt to cast suspicion on the Minutemen before the assassination of Dr. King, it raises the possibility that he may have been trying to build a "paper trail" to lead federal investigators from others on the far right who may actually have wanted to kill King and induce race riots in an attempt to drive America to the right in a key election year. Note 3: The Strange Past of Steve Landesberg In his book Fug You (NY: Da Capo Press, 2011), poet and Fugs band member Ed Sanders mentions Steve Landesberg (a/k/a “Steve L’Eandes”). One of Sanders close friends was a poet named Al Fowler. Fowler became involved in anti-war circles in the early 1960s and in 1962 he took part in a “World Wide General Strike for Peace” sponsored by the anarchist Lower East Side-based Living Theater. In the early 1960s, Fowler also joined a small sect called the “Free Catholic Church.” Fowler “now and then sported a clerical collar, a big silver cross on this chest, and a round red anarchist button on the lapel of his frock coat.” After L'Eandes/Rizzuto/Landesberg went on the radio claiming to have known Oswald, Sanders heard from Fowler that he had known L’Eandes and he had “witnessed L’Eandes create a disturbance at a meeting of the Socialist Labor Party at the Militant Labor Forum on University Place, and he’d seen L’Eandes hanging out around the headquarters of the General Strike for Peace in early ’62, located at the Living Theater.” (Sanders, 63) Sanders made a mistake in his memoir because the group L’Eandes actually disrupted was the Socialist Workers Party – the Socialist Labor Party – which held Militant Labor Forums on University Place. The SWP was heavily involved as well in Fair Play for Cuba. Sanders also quotes Fowler as saying about Landesberg/L’Eandes: The last conversation I had with L’Eandes prior to the big snuff [Kennedy’s death – HH] took place in a diner on Sheridan Square. He talked then about Fair Play for Cuba. His whole shuck was that he was a Cajun, and that his whole family, in the main, was around New Orleans. He even gave me a dissertation on the French Quarter. (63-64) Given the real Lee Harvey Oswald's connection with New Orleans, Landesberg's story becomes that much more strange. 1 The late Roy Frankhouser's last name is so commonly misspelled "Frankhauser" that I have left the variation stand instead of correcting the original texts. Anyone looking at his career, however, should search under both spellings. The most important source on Frankhouser that I used for this chapter is a series of FBI files of approximately 500 pages covering his early history. The first batch of files (some 178 pages) is now posted on LaRouche Planet. For access to the files and for information on Eugene Tabbutt, I very much want to thank a freelance researcher who specializes in FBI file declassification. The other FBI files that I cite from the middle 1960s can be found on the website of the Mary Ferrell Foundation. See http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/JFK Assassination. FBI files on the Stephen Landesberg case also can be found via the Mary Farrell Foundation. For Frankhouser's appearance before HUAC as well as mention of Eugene Tabbutt, see "Activities of the Ku Klux Klan Organizations in the United States, Part 4" in Hearings before the Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, 89th Congress, Second Session (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1966), 3342-3363. The hearings are on line at http://www.archive.ora/stream/activitiesofkukl04unit/activitiesofkukl04unit divu.txt. 2 On Frankhouser and "Black September," see http://laroucheplanet.info/pmwiki/pmwiki.php. 3 While I have no idea what the article means by Frankhouser "babysitting" Mario Garcia Kohly, it should be noted that Garcia Kohly was an important Cuban businessman who played a major role in anti-Castro organizations. At one point he headed the anti-Castro council of Cuban exiles. On 28 August 1963, the New York Times ran an article entitled "Cuban Underground Warns President." The Times reported that a telegram had been sent to JFK in the name of eight Cuban underground organizations that declared "they would not accept any government 'imposed' by the United States when Fidel Castro is overthrown." The Times said that Mario Garcia Kohly had been chosen as "provisional president of the Cuban government in arms in exile." Garcia Kohly was cited by the Times as saying that some 300,000 Cubans would rise up against Castro in the next few months. The Times report was followed by another one just a month later on the role of far-right governments in Latin America and their promotion of the most hard-line elements in the exile community. From a 25 September 1963 New York Times article entitled "Latin Split Seen on Cuban Exiles": Fears have been expressed by high officials from Costa Rica and Honduras that the Cubans exiles, instead of concentrating their efforts against the Castro regime, will align themselves with ultra-conservative forces in Central America intent on overthrowing constitutional governments. This preoccupation has been expressed to Secretary of State Dean Rusk and other United States officials here and in Washington. . . . According to reliable information, Nicaragua and Guatemala have become centers of considerable activity by Cubans formerly associated with the ousted President Fulgencio Batista, and with other right-wing groups. . . . In Nicaragua, former President Luis Anastasio Somoza Debayle has come out in favor of building a new Cuban liberation movement under the leadership of Manuel Artime Buesa, a top commander of the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion. Mr. Artime's men are said to be receiving generous military assistance and training from Gen. Anastasio Somoza, Jr., chief of staff of the Nicaraguan National Guard. . . . The former President of Nicaragua, now a Senator of the governing Liberal Party, recently traveled to Miami to rally Cuban exiles on behalf of Mr. Artime. The Cuban rebel leader went to Nicaragua after denouncing the Kennedy Administration's decision to end its financial assistance to the Cuban Revolutionary Council headed by Dr. Jose Miro Cardona. The Kennedy administration's attempt to shift its support to more moderate Cuban exile leaders was linked to the government's crackdown on a right-wing paramilitary training camp. On 31 July 1963, the FBI raided the Lake Pontchartrain property of William McLaney, the brother of Havana casino operator Mike McLaney, and seized an arms cache. "The FBI also arrested Sam Benton who was Mike McLaney's intermediary with the Cuban exiles [and] along with Richard Lauchli, a co-founder of the Minutemen" reports Peter Dale Scott. This arms cache "was for a nearby Somoza-backed Cuban exile training camp." See Peter Dale Scott, Deep Politics and the Death of JFK (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996), 88-89. (The Lake Pontchartrain camp is also referred to in New Solidarity in its articles on Frankhouser.) The arms cache and camp could well lead back to Guy Banister's Anti-Communist League of the Caribbean (ACL) which had a large Somoza presence. In the early 1960s, former FBI agent William Guy Banister – whose detective agency in New Orleans has been linked by some to Oswald – became the Louisiana coordinator for the Minutemen. Banister also had close ties to the Anti-Communist League of the Caribbean (ACL) which was created in 1954. The ACL's U.S. general counsel, Maurice Brooks Gatlin, was a close Banister associate. In October 1957, the Anti-Communist League of the Americas (ACLA) operated out of Suite 1605-07 of the Claiborne Towers in New Orleans. Gatlin signed one letter for The Anti-Communista Committee of the Americas (Caribbean Division) which suggests that the New Orleans office might have been the headquarters of an organization that had divisions in other parts of Central America since the stationary from the ACLA lists Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Cuba, Dominican Republic, and Haiti. Frankhouser certainly encountered far right Cubans in the extreme right underground. One FBI file reports that John Sullivan, the New York chairman of the U.S. Nationalist Party, spoke at a meeting in the early 1960s with "Mr. Gonzalez Santiago, a member of the Cuban Nationalist Association (CNA) who spoke in place of Mr. Felipe Rivera, Director of the CNA, who was unable to attend the meeting. Santiago stated that if the United States would supply enough weapons to the Cubans who are living in exile, the overthrow of Fidel Castro in Cuba would be imminent without any blood being shed by American soldiers." In 1959 Filipe Rivera, head of the CAN, fled Cuba for New York. According to a report by the Cuban government, Rivera first founded the Cuban Nationalist Movement (MNC). Caught at the Bay of Pigs, he spent 19 months in a Cuban prison. When he returned to the United States he reportedly helped organize attacks including the firing of a bazooka at the UN when Che Guevara was scheduled to speak there. In 1992 he invited David Duke to speak to his organization. See [[http://webcache.aooaleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:pQPHi37d3hcJ:305hiphop.co m/content/felipe- rivero+"Cuban+nationalist+association"+"felipe+rivero"&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&so urce=www.goo]]. As for John Sullivan, he and Douglas Kaye led the tiny U.S. Nationalist Party. The U.S. Nationalist Party (also known as the Nationalist Party) was made up of the remnants of John Patler and Dan Burros' splinter group from George Lincoln Rockwell's American Nazi Party known as the American National Party. (During their ANP adventure, Burros and Patler also published a tiny magazine called Kill!) After Patler and Burros had a falling out and Patler rejoined Rockwell, the remaining members of the tiny sect created the Nationalist Party. (See George Thayer: The Farther Shore of American Politics (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967), 31.) As for Frankhouser, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, he continued to train far right Cuban exiles at a Minuteman camp in Pennsylvania. 4 Now available on the web at Dennis King's website, http://lvndonlarouchewatch.org/larouche-cia3.pdf. 5 See the chapter http://laroucheplanet.info/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Library.UnityNow1 for more. 6 Frankhouser was arrested by Philadelphia police on 23 December 1962. See Hearings, 3346. 7 When the NCLC Security Staff met Frankhouser, they could have easily had a Russian speaker there to confirm if he in fact spoke Russian. 8 For references to Duggan, see http://laroucheplanet.info/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Library.UnityNow1 and http://laroucheplanet.info/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Library.KENDUGGANLAROUCHESFAVORITESATANIST?. 9 The Scott Thompson story has never been picked up in print by any other author that I am aware of with the sole exception of Michael Collins Piper in his book Final Judgment: The Missing Link in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy (Washington, DC: The Center for Historical Review, 1998), 319-21. Piper is a long-time associate of Willis Carto. Not surprisingly, his book attempts to prove that JKF was killed by a Jewish conspiracy. In a brief "Appendix 2" (entitled "The Man from the Klan"), Piper reprints the 20 November 1975 New Solidarity article in full. However he also writes that the "Inclusion of this material is in no way intended by the author of Final Judgment to serve as an endorsement of the information related therein, but is simply provided so that there may be as complete a record as possible of the little-known areas of the JFK assassination conspiracy research can be examined by independent-minded individuals who are truly interested in finding out the truth." (319.) Piper later remarks: "How much of what Frankhauser claims is true is beyond the scope of this volume." (321.) 10 The FBI documents I discuss here from the mid-1960s were found on the website of the Mary Ferrell Foundation. 11 See Rose's article "Der Fuhrer Blows in the Stormtroopers" in The Fourth Decade, 3/6 (September 1996). On Frankhouser and the SWP, see Rose's note 8, page 26. Also see Jerry Rose, "Oswald and the Nazis," The Fourth Decade, 3/2 (January 1996). In the latter article, Rose wondered whether or not Oswald could have gotten the location for the American National Party – which ex-American Nazi Party members Dan Burros and John Patler created and whose address Oswald included in his notebook – from reading something in the left press. Although Rose thought it unlikely, it now seems certain that Oswald came across the information in the CP paper The Worker. See Kevin Coogan, Dreamer of the Day: Francis Parker Yockey and the Postwar Fascist International (New York: Autonomedia: 1999), 616-17. Coogan reports that the article in question was from the 20 March 1961 issue of The Worker written by Mike Newberry and entitled "American Nazis Establish Their National Headquarters in Queens." 12 Robert A. Surrey, for example, served as General Edwin A. Walker's personal assistant and was the critical witness to the reported shooting of Walker by Oswald in Dallas on 10 April 1963. At the time of the shooting, Surrey doubled as the head of George Lincoln Rockwell's American Nazi Party (ANP) branch in Texas as well as a key funder of Rockwell and the printer of ANP literature. (Surrey took as his ANP party name "Max Amann" in honor of the Nazi Party's main printer in Germany.) However there is no evidence to suggest that General Walker embraced Surrey's Nazi views personally. Minuteman leader Robert De Pugh also claimed that Rockwell's Nazis in Texas were being funded by the oil man Clint Murchison. See William Turner, Power on the Right (Berkeley: CA: Ramparts Press, 1971), 94. On Surrey and the ANP, see Frederick Simonelli, American Fuehrer: George Lincoln Rockwell and the American Nazi Party (Urbana: IL: University of Illinois Press, 1999) and Jeffrey A. Kaplan (ed.), Encyclopedia of White Power: A Sourcebook on the Radical Racist Right (Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2000). Yet another odd connection to the ANP appears in New Orleans where a mysterious English fascist named Michael Slatter had created a branch of the ANP in the Big Easy. Slatter first visited Rockwell's headquarters in Virginia in March 1961. He then arranged for Rockwell and a band of his Virginia Nazis to visit New Orleans in May 1961. Jerry Rose reports in "Oswald and the Nazis" that Dan Campbell, a private investigator for Banister, said that Colonel Bluford Balter, "owner of the Balter Building in which Banister's office was located, had sent a check to Rockwell to cover the cost of ANP members coming to New Orleans to picket the movie Exodus." Jack Martin, yet another strange figure in New Orleans with ties to Banister, stated that "Rockwell was represented by Banister [and Banister's lawyer friend Gatlin] when he was arrested for disturbances in New Orleans, presumably the same incident associated with the Exodus picketing." (Rose, 25) The connection between Bannister and Gatlin was also reported in a June 1970 Ramparts story by William Turner. Slatter's visit to Rockwell's Virginia headquarters is also mentioned in A. M. Rosenthal and Arthur Gelb, One More Victim (New York: New American Library, 1967), a biography of Daniel Burros. According to One More Victim, when Rockwell went to New Orleans, he was dismayed that the Nazis there were largely members of the NSRP, a group Rockwell despised. (Rosenthal and Gelb, 140-41.) The NSRP, in turn, accused Rockwell of being far too cozy with the FBI. In "Oswald and the Nazis," Jerry Rose writes (p, 24): That the NSRP might have been behind the formation of the American National Party is quite intriguing. Whether or not this was the case, it is certainly a fact that the NSRP leaders were familiar with Patler, Burros and their New York City operation by March, 1962. In the NSRP's magazine, The Thunderbolt, for that date (issue no. 40, p. 8), the editors present laudatory sketches of Patler and Burros, even holding up as a model for other patriots the conditions of their headquarters in Queens (which other commentators refer to as a "shanty"), which shows "what can be done with a little paint and a fixing up." Thunderbolt issue no. 48, January 1963, reports on an NSRP meeting in New York at which legal funds were collected for Patler after his arrest on a picket line. For more on Michael Slatter, see page 5 of an article in the Canadian Jewish Review from 12 April 1963 which reads: The commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising takes place at a time of intensified neo-Nazi and neo-Fascist activity in many countries of the world. They are also working toward their combination into international units, with the purpose of establishing world-wide bodies. All this could probably be epitomized in the example of Michael Slatter, son of the late British Air Marshal, Sir Leonard Slatter, who proclaimed that he had taken over the leadership of the British National Socialist movement after their leader, Colin Jordan, was jailed for his Nazi activities. "I am proud to be a member of the National Socialist movement and I admire Hitter as a great man," said Michael Slatter. In early 2015, a study of Slatter and New Orleans produced more documentation: In 1992, Bill Russell, a legendary figure in understanding the history of jazz, died in New Orleans at age 87. Besides writing extensively on the history of jazz, Russell ran a famous music story in the city. He also recorded some famous jazz musicians. At his side for part of that time in the early 1960s was none other than the English fascist Michael Slatter! For example, in 1959, Russell and Slatter recorded a performance by Kid Thomas Valentine’s Creole Jazz Band’s “Stingaree Blues” at WDSO Radio Studio in New Orleans. Kid Thomas was a leading jazz trumpeter and bandleader who died in 1987. In a 2007 memoir of his time in New Orleans entitled Walking with Legends, an Englishman named Barry Martyn recalled his first visit to the city in 1961 as a 19-year-old jazz fanatic and his initial meeting with Bill Russell at his record store, then opposite Preservation Hall. Seeing that Martyn was English, Russell told him, “There’s another crazy Englishman in town – his name’s Mike Slatter. Do you know him? When Martyn said “no,” Russell told him he would meet Slatter “sooner or later.” Martyn continues, I was visiting Bill Russell at his store every day, and one day he told me that the other crazy Englishman, Mike Slatter, would be there the following day. I knew who Mike Slatter was; he’d recorded that great session with the Kid Thomas band – the one with “Coconut Island” and “Mama Inez.” Anyway, he arrived at Bill’s store in a black suit and a white shirt. He must have been at least six feet six inches tall, and he ducked his head as he came through the store. He spoke with an upper-class British accent. He had a fabulous enthusiasm for New Orleans music . . . . Mike was something of a fascist. In later years, I visited him in Chelsea, London, and he had pictures of Adolf Hitler on all the walls. In fact, he even answered the door dressed as a storm trooper – black riding pants, boots, and all that. It was weird: you’d be talking about Kid Thomas, and he’d suddenly switch the conversation to solving the Jewish problem. It seemed impossible that you could like a man who held views like that, but he was really a very nice guy. Strangely, in music, he was absolutely not a racist, and all the New Orleans musicians really liked him. . . . Eventually, Mike Slatter had to leave England because of his fascist connections, and I think he moved to Spain. I’d love to see him again. 13 Dennis King, Lyndon LaRouche and the New American Fascism (New York:Doubleday, 1989), 199. 14 For a reference to "Carol Larrabee," see Tim Wohlforth, The Prophet's Children: Travels on the American Left (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1994), 130. Wohlforth knew LaRouche as well. See http://laroucheplanet.info/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Library.ManvTheoriesofLMarcus. 15 For more on Chris and Carol White, see the discussion of "the Chris White Affair" in Smiling Man from a Dead Planet. 16 Rosenthal and Gelb, 183. For a study of the Pennsylvania KKK, see Philip Jenkins, Hoods and Shirts: The Extreme Right in Pennsylvania: 1925-1950 (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1997). Jenkins reports that in the 1930s the German-American Bund had a huge presence in Reading. Jenkins believes there were far more Bundists in Reading than in Philadelphia. The local Bund was sponsored in part by German-American industrialists in the region who wanted to use far-right groups like the Bund to fight the labor movement. For another Bund-linked organization with a presence throughout the region, see Peter Amann, "Vigilante Fascism: The Black Legion as an American Hybrid," Comparative Studies in Society and History, 25/3 (July 1983). 17 Rosenthal and Gelb, 183. 18 Thayer, 42. 19 John George and Laird Wilcox, Nazis, Communists, Klansmen, and Others on the Fringe (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1992), especially pages 284-91 and 318-321. 20 Ibid., 288. 21 Ibid., 286. 22 Frankhouser was born in 1939. (King, 197.) A Philadelphia police department record gives his birth date as 4 November 1939. (Hearings, 3346.) However the FBI files give the date as 11 April 1939. (The confusion may be because the FBI gives the format for the date as "4-11-39" with "4" being the month. It seems the police read "4" as meaning the day and not the month.) Frankhouser also told the police he also served in the Army as a paratrooper "in 1959 and 1960" but Army documents clearly show that Frankhouser was discharged from the Army on 18 November 1957. (George and Wilcox, 288.) Frankhouser was, however, active in the CAP in 1959-60. 23 It is possible that Frankhouser got a "general discharge under honorable conditions" which ranks below a regular honorable discharge and usually indicates good service but some kind of aberrant behavior or character trait. Dan Burros also received a "general discharge under honorable conditions." 25 "IPS" stands for the "International Press Service." It was later renamed the "NSIPS" as in "New Solidarity International Press Service." 26 On Duggan and the PNG, see http://laroucheplanet.info/pmwiki/pmwiki. php?n=Library.UnityNow1. 27 The Illuminator at one time served as part of the Minutemen network and its Patriotic Party front. For a brief mention of The Illuminator, see Seymour Martin Lipset and Earl Rabb, The Politics of Unreason (Chicago: the University of Chicago Press, 1978), xx, 337. 28 Students of the Kennedy assassination know that Michael Paine (not "John Paine") was married to Ruth Hyde Paine. As for Governor Patterson, he was actually the governor of Alabama. (James Coleman was the governor of Mississippi from 1956 to 1960.) Yet part of this confusion may be related to the fact that the Mississippi WCC did help create the State Sovereignty Commission whose agents would "tape sermons and lectures of ministers and professors who were suspected of being soft on segregation; it had a pack of informers to weed out the unfaithful in colleges and schools. . . ." (Thayer, 121.) Investigative organizations like the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, the Alabama Legislative Commission to Preserve the Peace, and the security division of the Alabama State Police would no doubt welcome information from groups like the WCC, NSRP and KKK-allied networks in the North with the capacity to spy on the very leftist and civil rights groups who were sending activists into the South. Frankhouser could well have been working for both the Mississippi and Alabama governments via the WCC network. Frankhouser, however, told the New York Times that he was working for the Virginia WCC – and not the Mississippi WCC – when he infiltrated the SWP. It would seem reasonable to assume that he was part of some broader coordinated grouping that funneled information into the segregationist network in the South. 29 The SWP had its own camp in rural New Jersey named "Mountain Spring Camp." Nor was the camp or its location a secret. It was regularly featured in the pages of the SWP party paper the Militant. The Militant also ran pictures of the camp showing just what a bucolic site it really was. For more background on the camp, see Barry Sheppard, The Party: Volume 1; The Sixties: A Political Memoir (Chicago: Resistance Books, 2005), 30. As for the CP's Camp Midvale, in 1966 the Minutemen planned a major attack on Camp Midvale. Minuteman leader Robert DePugh claimed that the CPUSA was selecting youth from American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) programs and sending them to sites like Camp Midvale for advanced training. In a report released on 22 September 1966, J. Edgar Hoover also claimed that Camp Midvale was "a camp for Communist youth." On 31 October 1966, the New York police department (using information from its Bureau of Special Services and Investigation (BOSSI)) arrested a group of 19 heavily armed Minutemen who were preparing to firebomb Camp Midvale. Similar raids across New York State led to the confiscation of a massive stash of weapons as well as close to two million rounds of ammunition. For more on Camp Midvale's history and its links to the Communist Party, see http://www.nvu.edu/librarv/bobst/research/tam/summercamps.html. 30 It should be noted that these charge came from the testimony of Jerry Brooks, a former Minutemen who testified for the government. During a 1966 trial of Minutemen leader Robert DePugh in Kansas City on charges of violation of the National Firearms Act, Brooks admitted under cross-examination that he had concocted the cyanide plot himself and mentioned it at a Minutemen training camp. He denied, however, that he came up with the idea to kill Fulbright. However Brooks said he gave a lecture on assassinations at the training camp. See the 10 November 1966 New York Times article, "U.N. Plot Traced by Ex-Minuteman." 31 If Frankhouser had any direct encounter with the FBI in connection with the JFK assassination, it may be because in April 1964 the Bureau received a report that a local Philadelphia-area Nazi named Theodore Thesing said he was glad Kennedy was killed. Thesing showed two local FBI Special Agents his membership card #55 in the American Nazi Party. Thesing's name was also sent to the FBI by George Lincoln Rockwell shortly after Kennedy's death as one of a number of former American Nazi Party types whom he felt might be potentially dangerous. Another name on that list was Frank Rotella, who later became the head of the KKK in New Jersey and a good friend of Roy Frankhouser. (On Rockwell's letter, see Rose, "Der Fuhrer" which reprints Rockwell's 27 November 1963 letter to Hoover. Frank Rotella is also mentioned in Rose, "Oswald and the Nazis," p. 23.) The FBI then seems to have questioned various local extremist rightists and so they may well have spoken with Frankhouser. 32 Thayer, 111-12. 33 During the 1958 campaign, George Wallace ran to the left of Patterson and he aggressively attacked Patterson for his backing from the Klan until his advisers convinced him it was a losing issue. After Wallace took power, he courted the NSRP and used the head of the Alabama Department of Public Safety, Al Lingo – who also ran the state police – to work with NSRP leader Ed Fields. See Dan Carter, The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1996), 139, 164-169. 34 Patsy Sims, The Klan (New York: Stein and Day, 1978), 112. 35 Ibid., 113. The Klan Bureau of Investigation (KBI) was the KKK's internal security organization. 36 It should also be noted that the FBI had numerous informers inside the SWP's ranks. The FBI also repeatedly carried out "black bag" break-ins to the SWP's national headquarters to copy documents. The SWP was the first organization targeted for COINTELPRO as well. On the extent of the FBI operations against the SWP, see http://laroucheplanet.info/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Librarv.TheSWPYears. At no time did the FBI discover anything remotely like a secret paramilitary camp, much less one dedicated to assassinating President Eisenhower. 37 To make matters even more confusing, there was a real "George Paine" in New York. This was George Lyman Paine, Michael Paine's father. George Lyman Paine had been a long time member of the SWP. In the early 1950s, however, George Lyman Paine broke with the SWP although he still remained an independent leftist. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyman Paine. (He was also called "Lyman Paine" by his friends.) It should be noted that the real Ruth and Michael Paine lived in the Philadelphia area until late 1959. Ruth Hyde moved to Philadelphia in the summer of 1954 after she went on a 1954 summer tour with a group associated with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) called the Friends World Committee. As part of that tour, she spent some time at Pendle Hill, a Quaker training camp outside Philadelphia. A leading figure in Pendle Hill was a long-time "anti anti-communist" named James Bristol who believed the U.S. should engage in complete nuclear disarmament. Trained as a Lutheran minister, Bristol spent part of World War II in a CO Camp. He then joined the AFSC staff in 1947 and became the director of the Quaker's Youth Division. In 1954 James Bristol wrote a "Pendle Hill Pamphlet" attacking McCarthyism. In 1961 he put out Stand Fast in Liberty (Pendle Hill Pamphlet #19) where he attacked HUAC, the John Birch Society, and the anti-Communist climate in America. He also seems to have been part of a Quaker group that befriended a group of 31 Communist Party members who lost their positions as schoolteachers in the Philadelphia education system by refusing to appear before a Congressional Committee. From August 1954 to May 1955, Ruth Hyde was associated with the Young Men's Hebrew Association and the Young Women's Hebrew Association where she worked with the elderly. She then taught at the Germantown Friends Academy. Ruth Hyde also took a Russian language course at the University of Pennsylvania in the summer of 1957 and a Berlitz course in Russian in 1958. She also worked with the East-West Contact Section of the Friends World Committee. Ruth and Michael met at a folk dance sometime in either 1956 or 1957 and they were married on 28 December 1957. Michael Paine had attended Swarthmore College but dropped out in 1953 to work for his stepfather Arthur Young in designing helicopters. In the late 1950s, the Paines lived with the Youngs in Paoli, a suburb of Philadelphia. For Ruth Hyde Paine's testimony before the Warren Commission about her life in Philadelphia, see http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimonv/paine r3.htm. Given the fact that Ruth and Michael Paine (for whatever reason) did move in left-liberal circles like the AFSC which had a strong presence in Philadelphia, it is not utterly impossible that Frankhouser or one of his far-right friends may have met them at some event in Philadelphia. However the real Ruth and Michael Paines left Philadelphia in late 1959 to move to Texas. The "Paynes" Frankhouser knew entered his life around the time that the Paines were no longer living in Philadelphia. 38 The letter appeared on page four of the 19 December 1960 issue of the Militant and is entitled "On the SLP." The letter reads as follows: On the SLP Editor: I am glad to see the question of the Socialist Labor Party being taken up at last. This has been long overdue. There is no doubt in my mind that the SWP will win the debate with the SLP since the contemporary SLP is far more rigid and sectarian than De Leon ever was. It should be remembered that De Leon more than once tried to bring together his party and the Socialist Party of Debs, and participated in the working-class "united front" that was the founding of the Industrial Workers of the World, along side of Debs. The main difference between the SWP and the SLP is summed up in a letter in the Nov. 21 Militant from a couple in Indiana: "Yours is the only radical party that knows how to fight for as well as talk about socialist solutions." This speaks volumes. The SLP's dogma against participating in reform movements because they are "concealed measures of reaction" is in reality an aid to the reformist upholders of capitalism. It simply gives the Dubinskys and Adlai Stevensons a free hand. A reform is a concealed measure of reaction when it is used as a substitute for socialism. By isolating itself from the class battles of the workers, the SLP only guarantees that these battles will degenerate in substitutes for socialism. George Payne New York 39 The Mary Ferrell Foundation archive includes on the printouts "FBI JFK Assassination File (62-109060)" on some of the documents. 40 In early 1964 FBI agents interviewed various far right extremists in the Philadelphia region about any possible involvement in or knowledge of any extremist plot to kill Kennedy. See note 31 above. 41 One FBI informant may have been a friend of Frankhouser named John Canaris. He had some of Frankhouser's files which Frankhouser had given him for safe keeping according to an 18 May 1967 FBI report. Another Frankhouser contact who might have had the documents was named Ed Lotz. Exactly where Frankhouser eventually found the two documents is not clear from the FBI documents. 42 The field office number was 105-4158 while the Bureau File # was 97-4262. 43 The FBI file number on the document dated 12 June 1967 from the Philadelphia FBI Office is 157-916. 44 I believe "liberoly" ("free the oppressed") is the motto describing the mission of the 82nd Airborne. 45 Presumably this is where Frankhouser was supposed to supply information about his time in the military. The fact that Frankhouser never filled in his information and that he kept the letter suggests that Larrabee wrote the letter and sent it to Frankhouser to fill in the details of his military service and then expected Frankhouser to send the letter on to Barrett. However it is also possible that Larrabee both wrote and signed the letter on behalf of both of them and as a courtesy sent Frankhouser a copy. 46 The FBI checked its sources about the Young Socialist League or YLS. Here is a summary of what the FBI obtained on the group: The 3/1/59 issue of the Young Socialist Challenge published on page 3 of Labor Action, an official publication of the Independent Socialist League (ISL), contained an article concerning the creation of the YSL, which pointed out that at a unity conference occurring 2/12-14/54, at Labor Action Hall, New York, N.Y., a merger conference between the Young People's Socialist League (YPSL) and the Socialist Youth League (SYL). The new organization was named the YSL. T-1 on 6/15/54 made available the minutes of the YSL's National Action Committee meeting on 4/13/54, which reflected that one S. SITEMAN, Chairman of the SP (Socialist Party) Youth Committee, had objected to a statement appearing in Commerce, a New York University journal, which indicated that the YPSL merged with the SYL to form the YSL. He explained that YPSL did not merge with anyone; that it continued to exist as the youth action of the SP. He explained that a small group of the YPSL was dropped, expelled or suspended from that organization and joined the SYL, which he characterized as the youth group of the Trotskyite ISL He explained that after these few former members of the YPSL joined the SYL, the SYL then proceeded to change its name for its own purposes. On 4/9/56 T-2 advised as follows: The YSL has frequently worked in close sympathetic cooperation with the ISL toward similar objectives, although each major issue given mutual consideration is decided upon by these organizations individually. The YSL serves as an apprenticeship for the ISL, but ISL selection of members from YSL ranks is made on an individual and personal basis. In many instances YSL members are also members of the ISL. The YSL and the ISL utilize the same printing house at New York City and the YSL publication is printed as an insert in Labor Action. Frequently lecturers before the YSL are ISL members. The 9/22/58 issue of Young Socialist Challenge, which appeared as page 5 of Labor Action, contained an undated statement from the National Action Committee of the YSL which indicated that the YSL had been dissolved. The statement appeared under the caption "Join the Young Peoples Socialist League." The YPSL is probably known as the youth affiliate of the Socialist Party-Social Democratic Federation. 47 Peter Drucker, Max Shachtman and His Left: A Socialist's Odyssey Through the "American Century" (New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1994), 263. 48 On the creation of the American Forum for Socialist Education, see 13 May 1957 New York Times article "New Leftist Unit Set Up; Reds in It" by Harry Schwartz. 49 Sheppard, 21-22. 50 See the 2 May 1957 New York Times. 51 See the 25 April 1960 issue of the Militant for a front page story written by David Stevens about the launching of the YSA as a national organization at the Philadelphia convention. 52 Put another way, Frankhouser more or less became a "National Socialist" in that he took seriously radical critiques of "plutocracy" but he combined these views with a strong "racial" outlook that he claimed was rooted in scientific theory. For the FBI and its informants, however, Frankhouser's fascination with both the far right and far left seemed further proof that he was psychotic. The NSRP also had a "left" side. George Thayer quotes NSRP leader Ed Fields as saying, "'We differ from conservatives . . . in that we do not oppose TVA, Social Security and Medicare. We call ourselves the 'Farmers and Workers Party.' We have a Social Security program that is much more generous than the present program." Thayer, 42. 53 The following analysis of the world of Polzin, Fred Weiss, and the NRP draws heavily on Kevin Coogan's biography of Francis Parker Yockey, Dreamer of the Day. For specific references to Polzin in that text, see Coogan, 478, 486, fn. 5. 54 The text is available at http://www.marxists.org/historv/etol/newspape/isr/vol18/no04/after.htm. It is in a section entitled "After Investigating" on pgs. 106-07. 55 On Williams and the SWP, see Timothy Tyson, "Robert F. Williams, 'Black Power,' and the Roots of the African American Freedom Struggle," The Journal of American History, 85/2 (September 1998), 553-54, 560. 56 Williams was later smuggled out of Monroe – where he was almost certainly going to be either arrested by the FBI on bogus "kidnapping" charges or killed by white racists – by an underground network that brought him first to New York City, and then to Canada and finally to Cuba. Besides Tyson, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Williams. 57 See http://www.revilo-oliver.com/rpo/Marxmanship1.html. Oliver was expelled from the John Birch Society for his extreme anti-Semitism. 58 However Frankhouser could not have met LaRouche at the one Militant Labor Forum presentation that LaRouche gave in the SWP since it took place some two years later. On 2 March 1962, LaRouche (a/k/a "Lynn Marcus") gave a talk entitled "Freud and Marx. Their Theories of Knowledge" at a Friday night Militant Labor Forum. The notice for LaRouche's talk appears in the 26 February 1962 issue of the Militant on page 2 of the paper in the "Weekly Calendar" section. Lyndon LaRouche had been recruited to the SWP in 1949 in Lynn, Massachusetts, so for his party name he chose "Lynn Marcus." (After he left the SWP in 1966, LaRouche dropped the last "n." He now spelled his pseudonym either "L. Marcus" or "Lyn Marcus." For more, see http://laroucheplanet.info/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Library.HIABChapter1Appendix2PLHistoryGURU) In examining issues of the Militant from 1959 to March 1962, the only other mention of LaRouche I could find was a brief letter to the editor that "Lynn Marcus" wrote in the 5 January 1959 about the New York union leader Mike Quill. I believe George Larrabee also wrote at least two other letters to the Militant under the name "George L." from New York. The letters complained about the design of the paper which he felt made it hard to read. As a commercial artist, it is not surprising that Larrabee would be interested in this issue. A "Carol L" wrote a letter to the editor of the Militant asking that the SWP examine the way the New York subway system was financed. The writer was quite likely Carol Larrabee, whose SWP party name was "Carol Lawrence." If so, it shows a very early proto-Labor Committee interest in the politics of mass transit. For more, see http://laroucheplanet.info/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Library.HIABChapter1FUNYCIPA. 59 An FBI document dated 2 May 1960 whose subject is "Young Socialist Club of Philadelphia IS-C," lists Frankhouser as a member of the YS Club as of 15 April 1960. 60 For more, see Greg Rose, "The Smarmy Life and Times of the NCLC" first published in the 30 March 1979 National Review and now available at http://lvndonlarouche.org/larouche-national-review.PDF. On the NCLC, the NRP and Iraq, see Rose, 411. Rose had been a member of the NCLC's Security Staff. 61 By 1962-1963 Frankhouser also become a leading figure in the East Coast branch of the Minutemen and in particular its "intelligence" and "counter-intelligence" branch. 62 On the history of the Northern League and its leader Roger Pearson, see Coogan, 468-489. 63 An FBI report on Frankhouser's friend said he spent $500 of funds he had in a savings account which had been given to him by his grandmother to go to Europe. "While in England ___ attended a meeting, international in scope, of various rightist groups. The source heard ___ make the statement that he engaged in some picketing in England and had some of his lower teeth knocked out in an altercation. ___ stated a youth group was formed in England while he was there, and similar international meetings of rightist groups are to be held once a year." Nor is it entirely clear if Frankhouser's friend spent all his time in England. Before leaving, he told his Local Draft Board that it was "his intention to leave April 29th for travel in England, France, and Germany, returning 6/1/61." Frankhouser's friend had been a student at Reading High School. 64 Dan Burros and John Patler's tiny American Nationalist Party also endorsed the OAS. The 13 April 1962 New York Times reported that the OAS in Oran, Algeria, was distributing a pamphlet from America giving support to the OAS. The pamphlet was published by "the National Committee of American Friends of the French Secret Army Organization, in cooperation with and under the sponsorship of The American National Party, Post Office Box 191, Gracie Station, New York, 28, N.Y." The Times then said the ANP "is reported to consist often young men here and eleven in Louisiana. Its headquarters is reported to be in a shanty at 97-15 190th Street, Hollis, Queens." Just who were the "eleven" members in Louisiana remains a mystery but presumably they were associated with the NSRP group around Michael Slatter that Rockwell despised. 65 The name was later changed to the World Union of National Socialists (WUNS). 66 See "Neo-Nazi Party Demotes Aide Who Hid Jewish Background," 5 November 1965 New York Times. 67 For more on the ACFI specifically, see http://laroucheplanet.info/pmwi ki/pmwiki.php?n=Librarv.ManvTheoriesofLMarcus. 68 The 80-something Charles Smith, head of Truth Seeker, was arrested at the Newburgh protest and charged with disorderly conduct. 69 The Middletown Times Herald Record story may have been inspired by a short earlier report in the 2 November 1965 edition of the Evening News of Newburgh which in a piece entitled "Background of Burros Reported" first broke the news using records from the Newburgh Free Academy (where Robert Burros had gone to school) that Burros "was religiously affiliated with Temple Beth Jacob, Newburgh." 70 Deliberately making contact with the FBI and then offering the FBI information seems to have been a calculated ploy. For example, when one of Frankhouser's fellow Civil Air Patrol members in Pennsylvania asked him about his going to radical events, Frankhouser said that there was nothing to worry about and that the FBI knew all about it and that he personally was in contact with the FBI. People like Frankhouser may have used the FBI to feed the Bureau and other police and government sources incriminating information on their rivals. Daniel Burros even cultivated a relationship with the New York City police "Red Squad" intelligence service BOSSI (the Bureau of Special Services and Investigation). According to One More Victim, "Burros, like most of the other Nazis and pseudo-Nazis, relished his role as informer. . . . Burros never took any money for informing but frequently would take the initiative by calling his police contacts." Rosenthal and Gelb, 159. 71 On Robert Burros' features see the 5 November 1965 New York Times. On Dan Burros being blond and blue-eyed, see One More Victim, 185. 72 Rosenthal and Gelb, 171-72. 73 More information on the Stephen Landesberg case can be found on the Mary Ferrell Foundation's website. When I cite an FBI report on Landesberg, it comes from files found at the Mary Ferrell Foundation's website. Also see Stan Weeber, "Stephen H. Landesberg and the Greenwich Village Hoax," The Fourth Decade, 2/3 (January 1995); Weeber's letter to the editor about the Landesberg case in The Fourth Decade, 3/4 (May 1996); and Carleton W. Sterling, "Stephen Landesberg: Another Media Cover-Up," The Fourth Decade, 3/6 (September 1995). 74 During this period, members of the radical right frequently disrupted leftist meetings. Dan Burros and John Patler's New York-based American National Party (ANP) regularly tracked and disrupted leftist gatherings. "Burros and Patler followed Rockwell's technique of keeping an eye out for any left or liberal meeting they could picket. . . Burros would pore over the newspapers for word of a meeting . . . and when he could round up a few people would appear, after having notified the newspapers. . . . Most of the time, the newspapers ignored the picketers except for a word or two. The only assured way to break into print was to start enough rumors to attract the police and perhaps get arrested." Rosenthal and Gelb, 151-52. 75 See Edith Ashbury, "F.B.I. Checks Reported Oswald-Rightist Link" in the 30 November 1963 New York Times; "Was Oswald in the Village," The Village Voice, 28 November 1963; and "FBI Searches the Village for Pal of Oswald," New York Newsday, 30 November 1963. 76 Landesberg's first name also is spelled both as "Stephen" and "Steven" although I believe 'Stephen" is the correct spelling. 77 After Kennedy's death, Landesberg called Barry Gray whose show he had been on two years earlier, to tell him about Oswald being in New York under the name "James Rizzuto." An FBI report then states that "Arrangements were made with BARRY GRAY for Bureau agents of the New York Office to interview RIZZUTO." Another FBI file states that after Barry Gray contacted the FBI about the call, Gray said that "that the FBI might be interested in interviewing this individual named James Rizutto, in Mr.Gray's office." The interview then took place on 23 November 1963. The report continues: The FBI accordingly dispatched Agents to Barry Gray's offices where they questioned an individual who gave his name as James F. Rizzuto who claimed he had served in the United States Marines with Stephen Yves L'Eandes and Lee Harvey Oswald. . . . Rizzuto told the FBI Agents that L'Eandes was an individual who went around trying to break up integration meetings by heckling tactics and that Oswald had accompanied L'Eandes to a number of such meetings. At the meeting in Gray's office with FBI Special Agents Wayne Morse and Leonard H. Me Coy, "RIZZUTO was very nervous and advised he did not want to be contacted again if possible and also reiterated that he had no known address." Since the Agents met "Rizutto" in Barry Gray's office, wouldn't Gray recognize the fact that "Rizutto" was the same "Stephen L'Eandes" that he had on his radio show to discuss CORE some two years earlier? It is possible that when Gray said he had "L'Eandes" on his show, "L'Eandes" simply was a caller who phoned in to the show on CORE but the impression one gets from reading the FBI documents is that "L'Eandes" was actually an invited guest. Barry Gray also had a newspaper column and in the mid-1950s he wrote repeated diatribes against groups like the National Renaissance Party and so he had some knowledge of and interest in the New York far right. 78 The FBI could not locate an "Earl Perry" who fit the L'Eandes story. Of course since almost everyone in the far right used false names and elaborate cover stories to begin with, finding "Earl Perry" would not be easy, even assuming he existed outside of Landesberg's imagination. Again, if there was one government agency that might have known about him, it would have been BOSSI. 79 This may have been a reference to the Mississippi WCC. One of the founders of the Mississippi WCC, Judge Brady, proposed calling the group the "Sons of the White Magnolias." See: Neil Mc Millen: The Citizens' Council: Organized Resistance to the Second Reconstruction (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1971), p. 18. 80 The FBI records, however, indicate that Landesberg was actually interviewed in Barry Gray's office. 81 Rosenthal and Gelb, 158. 82 Tony Ulasewicz, The President's Private Eye (Westport, Conn.: MACSAM Publishing, 1990), 129-44. 83 Joesten was wrong about Columbia. In September 1963 "Stephen H. Landes" registered as a special student at Columbia where he took a philosophy class in "Aesthetics and Religion" dealing with the "literature of introspection in Western religion." See the 9 December 1963 issue of the Columbia Daily Spectator which is reprinted in Sterling. 84 See fn. 3 for a discussion of the Lake Pontchartrain camp. 85 See http://laroucheplanet.info/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Library.UnityNow1. Also see my separate appendix on Duggan and the Church of Satan at http://laroucheplanet.info/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Library.KENDUGGANLAROUCHESFAVORITESATANIST 86 Hearings, 3359. Burros then added, "We will also have as a guest the Grand Dragon of Penn. This man is a real hero of ours, who had his eye torn out by gangsters in the pay of communists." This was Roy Frankhouser who also first recruited Burros into the KKK in the summer of 1965. 87 Rosenthal and Gelb, 228. 88 The local Alabama police spent a vast amount of time spying on civil rights activists. Dan Carter reports: "Police departments in the dozen largest Alabama cities, particularly Birmingham and Montgomery, devoted hundreds of hours to monitoring 'subversives.' In 1963 alone, the Birmingham anti-subversion squad infiltrated and – sometimes openly, sometimes secretly – tape recorded more than fifty 'civil rights' meetings as well as a smaller number of Ku Klux Klan and National States Rights Party gatherings. At the same time, carefully cultivated informants supplied state and local police with detailed inside accounts of meetings and decisions." Carter, 229. As Carter also points out, at the same time that certain local police units tried to track the NSRP because of the group's key role in bombings, other sections of the Alabama government used the NSRP to fight integration. The NSRP headquarters also relocated to Birmingham in the early 1960s where the party published The Thunderbolt. 89 Hearings, 3352. 90 Nor was Roy Frankhouser completely in the dark when it came to PI work. In Lyndon LaRouche and the New American Fascism, Dennis King writes about Frankhouser: "His late stepfather was a private detective for whom Roy worked in the early 1960s." King, 197. The early FBI files, however, don't discuss Frankhouser's stepfather (or for that matter Eugene Tabbutt).They only mention Frankhouser's biological father Roy, Sr. However I have only examined some 500 pages of an FBI file that runs to an astonishing 15,000 pages. 91 Hearings, 3394-95. 92 For background on the Knights, see especially Coogan, 598-615. Also see another essay by Coogan on the far right Defenders of the Constitution (DAC) whose leaders also had ties to the Knight entitled "The Defenders of the American Constitution and the League of Empire Loyalists: The First Postwar Anglo-American Revolts against the "One World Order" available at http://laroucheplanet.info/pmwiki/downloads/coogan.pdf . Also see Dick Russell, The Man Who Knew Too Much (NY: Carroll and Graf Publishers, 1992). There are internet sites devoted to the various groups claiming to be the true Knights of Malta. 93 Coogan, Dreamer, 605. Yet another Pichel Knight was a former CIA official named Herman Kimsey. In 1970 Kimsey was listed as the Pichel group's "Associate Director of International Intelligence." 94 Rosenthal and Gelb, 190. 95 On Rothkirch and IMS, see King, 226. As for Rothkirch's ties to the Pichel Knights, see Russ Bellant, Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party: Domestic Fascist Networks and Their Effect on U.S. Cold War Politics (Cambridge, MA: Political Research Associates, 1988), 99, fn. 139. According to Bellant, Rothkirch also helped set up Truth-in-Press, a Liberty Lobby 501 (c) 3 tax-exempt group. Rothkirch's history is utterly bizarre. Apparently born Edward T'Kach in St. Paul, Minnesota, 1919, he fought to change his birth certificate to "Eduard von Rothkirch" because he claimed his real father was a German World War I spy named von Rothkirch who fathered him while he was in St. Paul and then left him to be raised with the T'Kach family (also spelled in some reports Tkach). (In another variation of the story, the German spy changed his name to T'Kach to fool Russian agents.) Rothkirch was convicted on fraud charges in the early 1950s and he spent time in the Wisconsin State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. (See a summary of his case in the archives of the Minnesota Health Department records now at the Minnesota Historical Society at Vital Statistics Division An Inventory of Its Subject Files ) One of the strangest mentions of von Rothkirch appears in the 9 May 1948 article in the New York Times by C. Brook Peters entitled "Future Uncertain for General Cernius." The story reported that the last former prime minister of an independent Lithuania, General Jonas Cernius, was now living in New Jersey. Cernius was accompanied to his interview with the Times by Rothkirch who said he had signed an affidavit to help Cernius come to America from England. According to Rothkirch, General Cernius was going to teach history at a new college called Midwestern College which was to be based in the tiny Minnesota town of Hillman. Rothkirch told the paper that he was really the son of a former German WWI espionage agent and that he had three cousins who were generals in the German Army. (A Lieutenant General Count Edwin von Rothkirch led the German force that encircled Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge.) As for our Rothkirch, he said he was a police magistrate in Morrison County, Minnesota. However he claimed he was independently wealthy and would inherit a trust fund worth some $4 million at age 35. He said he owned a 2,900 estate in Hillman as well as a ranch in Minnesota and one in California. He also boasted that he had extensive oil and copper interests. According to the Times, Rothkirch did own a 1,450 acre ranch in Hillman, a town of some 40 people in the bush country of Minnesota. Rothkirch next told the Times that he also was a leader in an "underground railroad" that got refuges out of East Europe and that he has spent some $80,000 of his own money on the cause. He also helped dissident Russian military men to escape. He said he did so "in collaboration with the War Department" and that the Russian press dubbed him "the American Scarlet Pimpernel." When asked about his own military service, he said he was a captain in the U.S. Army Air Force in World War II but he was put on an inactive status and later reactivated as a bombardier-observer and discharged as a warrant officer. He further claimed that he had taken part in guerrilla warfare fights in East Europe. Rothkirch also admitted that while Midwestern College didn't yet exist, there was an extensive building program underway and that it would be ready by September. Dr. Frederick Michael of Hillman, whom Rothkirch claimed also owned a large plantation in Brazil, would be its president with a Dr. Leonard Martin as Treasurer and Dean. Rothkirch stated that the college would bring together many "of the key figures of Europe and South America. The course on international relations will be without equal in any American college." The Times checked Rothkirch's story and found that on 7 August 1947 incorporation papers had been filed for Midwestern College. The papers were signed by a M.J. von Rothkirch of 1863 Marshall Avenue in St. Paul as well as H.V. Tkach, F.F. Carlson and F.W. Michael "all of 411 Times Annex, Minneapolis." The paper also checked Rothkirch's claim that he was working in association with the War Department. On 10 May 1948, the Times ran a follow up story. Now Rothkirch backtracked and said he really wasn't working "in collaboration with the War Department" in Eastern Europe but that he supplied information to "certain individuals" in the War Department. He said one such individual was Maj. Gen. John H. Hilldring, a former Assistant Secretary of State for Occupied Areas. (On Hilldring, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John H. Hilldrinq.) For another discussion of Rothkirch's Midwestern College adventure, see the July 2007 Minnesota Monthly available at The 10 Most Unwanted. This article states that in the 1950s Rothkirch wound up serving time in Wisconsin for forged checks. It also states that Rothkirch lost his land in Hillman when he failed to pay rent to the farmer who owned the land. As for General Cernius, he never went on to teach at Midwestern College and seems to have been told he was dealing with questionable individuals. Instead he lectured on Lithuanian issues in the U.S. government-backed Captive Nations movement. Finally, Rothkirch appears in a book by Robert Morrow entitled First Hand Knowledge: How I Participated in the CIA-Mafia Murder of President Kennedy (New York: Spi Book, 1992), 280-82. Morrow says that Rothkirch used to work for a Washington lawyer/fixer named Marshall Diggs. Diggs represented the Cuban exile leader Mario Garcia Kohly whose career is discussed in fn. 3 above. Morrow states that Diggs had close ties to both the CIA and the Mafia, both of whom were reportedly backing Kohly against more liberal elements inside the U.S. State Department. Kohly also had close ties to Richard Nixon. Morrow uses Rothkirch as his key source for the claim that Nixon encouraged Kohly to jump bail and "go underground" after he was convicted in 1964 on charges of forging Cuban currency. Morrow believes Nixon wanted Kohly out of the picture so he couldn't testify before the Warren Commission or any other body about the various CIA-Mafia plots against Castro. 96 On King Peter, see http://www.orderstiohn.orq/kposi/kphist.htm. As for Frank A. Capell, he was a right-wing Catholic who had spent decades in the anti-communist demimonde. Capell briefly became known for his book The Strange Death of Marilyn Monroe (Staten Island: NY: The Herald of Freedom, 1964) that tried to link the Kennedy family to her demise. He also published Henry Kissinger, Soviet Agent (Zarephath, NJ: The Herald of Freedom, 1974). The notion that Kissinger was a Soviet agent came from a high defector from Polish intelligence named Michael Goleniewski who went on to become the "Imperial Grand Master" of Pichel's Knights after Goleniewski claimed that he was the hemophiliac son of the last living Tsar, Nicholas II, and should be called Romanov. On Goleniewski, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael Goleniewski. Although Capell accepted Goleniewski's claims that Kissinger was a Soviet agent, he broke with the Pichel Knights and followed a rival knightly order led by Paul II of Yugoslavia, the same order Tabbutt backed when he broke with Pichel if New Solidarity is to be believed. 97 In November and December 1977, American Opinion – the flagship magazine of the John Birch Society – published a two part series by Allen entitled "They're Catching On." Allen was a leading proponent that America was run by an invisible government controlled by an Eastern Establishment left-wing cabal around the Rockefellers and the CFR. The cabal worked closely with Russia for profit and also dreamt of imposing a Fabian Socialist regime on America. Allen called this group "the Insiders." Allen's two part series was largely a "I told you so" commentary on articles in various left liberal publications that discussed the Trilateral Commission, the CFR, and even Skull and Bones. He said that finally we are seeing discussions in the larger liberal-left media about the real power elite that controls the nation. But Allen singled out the Labor Committee for criticism despite the fact that it attacked the Rockefellers: This is not true of the National Caucus of Labor Committees (NCLC), also known as the U.S. Labor Party (USLP). What makes this group dangerous is that while it is an avowedly Communist organization, it has carefully patterned its conspiracy theory after that of The John Birch Society. What the US Labor Party does, however, is to so twist, distort, and exaggerate the situation that it has the effect of making the whole thing look bizarre and absurd. Allen also commented on the cult nature of the NCLC and remarked that LaRouche's "psychological hold" over its members "has been compared with that exercised by the leaders of the Moonie and Hare Krishna cults." Also "participation in any activity which does not serve the party's interests generally results in the matter being turned over to its version of the GPU, known as the Security Staff. The NCLC is not a social club for dilettantes." Allen's main critique of the LC is that LaRouche is either putting forward "a comic parody of the Americanist view of Conspiracy" or one is "being subjected to the ravings of a maniac." Yet, incredibly, the LC has "hoodwinked a few ill-informed Conservatives" after the 1976 elections where the LC claimed vote fraud and said Carter stole the election from Ford. The LC also used this period to do some fund-raising scams. Allen cites an article from the Washington Post by William Chapman which states that there are allegations that some LC fundraisers had been "telling contributors the Labor Party had official Republican support" even though it wasn't true. How does the LC do it especially since their members don't deny that the LC is Marxist? "But they respond that 'pure Marxism' has never existed anywhere and that at this point in history capitalism is still a viable system. They claim to be Constitutionalists, and go so far as to assert that theoretical Marxism is really very close to the ideals of America's Founding Fathers." Allen continues: "The Labor Party people have made a study of the words, phrases and cliches to which Conservatives respond and they make their approach sound like 'Yankee Doodle Dandy' – even referring to their proposed united front as the 'Whig Coalition.'" Yet it is easy to show what a huge hoax this all is. "One dead giveaway to the purpose of the NCLC is its attitude toward the Soviet Union and other Communist countries. The Labor Party has never denounced the tyrants who rule the Soviet Union, Red China, Cuba, or any other Communist country. When your author interviewed a Labor Party official in Washington, D.C., he was assured: The Soviet Union is the ultimate enemy of the Rockefeller.'" The reply astonished Allen: "This, of course, flies in the face of 50 years of history, and most especially the past decade in which the Rockefellers and the Soviets have been such open pals that Chase Manhattan actually has bank offices in Moscow at Number One Karl Marx Square." All this raises the question of who is really funding the NCLC since its operation budget is some $50,000 a week and it runs expensive WATS lines and has teletype links to Europe, etc. "The source of money for this multi-million-dollar venture is unknown. Each branch of the party is given a weekly quota of funds to raise. For example, an intelligence source reports that the Baltimore office is responsible for raising five thousand dollars a week. For the week in which the intelligence source saw the books, the take was exactly four dollars and fifty cents. Who puts up the rest of the money?" Is it the Rockefellers? "Oh, it gets curiouser and curiouser. The NCLC has borrowed eight-six thousand dollars from the Rockefellers' Chase Manhattan Bank – a sum which, surprise, it has not repaid. Chase Manhattan says it is all a big mistake, that it meant to loan the NCLC eight thousand dollars on a secured loan but by 'mistake' the computer spat out a check for eighty-six thousand dollars instead. Did a bank ever make a mistake like that when YOU borrowed money? Not me either." Hence this gives rise to suspicion that perhaps "that the Rockefellers are as usual financing agent provocateurs among their enemies with the idea of making legitimate criticism of their activities look ridiculous." Allen cites Caroll Quigley as saying that the Morgan interests tried to buy into the Left as well decades earlier. According to Quigley, "More than fifty years ago the Morgan firm decided to infiltrate the Left-wing political movements in the United States. This was relatively easy to do since these groups were starved for funds and eager for a voice to reach the people. Wall Street supplied both." In so doing, the Morgans managed to contain the anti-banking Populist movement. Now, today, "the Rockefellers are fully capable of repeating the Morgan game. The evidence that this is happening is mostly circumstantial" but if one looks at what the LC is actually doing it makes some sense. The LC anti-Rockefeller hysteria is "largely a parody of carefully researched Americanist materials. It is an obvious attempt to make legitimate Americanist scholarship involving the Rockefellers seem absurd to keep the public from investigating far more serious charges." And this whole effort, perhaps not so accidentally, is taking place just as the mainstream media is picking up on Americanist ideas attacking the Wall Street/CFR-Trilateral Commission power elite. This trend is "something the INSIDERS of the Conspiracy cannot afford." Therefore, Allen concludes, "no radical who is a member of an avowedly Communist party is a legitimate prospect. Such persons not only lack the character our movement requires but are either dangerously confused or enemy agents." NOTE ON GARY ALLEN'S SOURCES: Gary Allen's book Kissinger The Secret Side of the Secretary of State published in 1976 by 76 Press based in Seal Beach, California portrays Kissinger as "a paid agent of the House of Rockefeller . . . since his days at Harvard." Allen suggests that Kissinger and the CIA especially played a role in watergating Nixon. Allen also used the claims of a former Polish defector named Michael Goleniewski who argued that when he was in Poland in the 1950s he came across files showing that Kissinger had been recruited into a Russian intelligence network in Germany under the code name BOR in the late 1940s. Allen most likely got this information from either Frank Capell's book on Kissinger and/or a Capell article in American Opinion. Allen's idea that the NCLC received mysterious outside funds from anonymous donors was true in that the organization received mysterious depots at least twice. The organization claimed they were legitimate donations when the banks in question tried to recover the funds claiming clerical errors. The deposits are discussed in New Solidarity as well as an anti-Labor Committee pamphlet entitled Brownshirts of the 70s on page 16. See http://www.researchforprogress.us/cults/larouche/documentation/background_on_the_larouchites/assorted_published_research_reports/brownshirts_booklet.pdf. LARRY MCDONALD — IS THE LABOR COMMITTEE A COMMUNIST SPY OPERATION? As for the late Congressman Larry McDonald, his comments on the LC appeared in the "Extension of Remarks" section of the Congressional Record for 26 January 1977 (pp. 2428-2430). Unlike Allen, who tries to suggest LaRouche may have been covertly aided by the Rockefellers, McDonald implies that the sinister forces behind the LC are East Germany and/or the Soviet Union. McDonald's insert on the LC most likely came from John Rees, a professional anti-communist/ant-subversive who was close to McDonald and Western Goals. From McDonald's concluding remarks: NCLC/USLP has demonstrated by its own record that it is extreme, violent, and controlled only by the whims and fantasies of its leader, Lyndon LaRouche. Its covert operations are tied to several foreign Communist or totalitarian governments; and it is noted that it has never denounced either the Soviet Union, Cuba, or any other Communist nation. NCLC members have been charged with offenses ranging from assault through firearms violations to kidnapping. The NCLC has been the subject of needed and necessary FBI investigation; yet the FBI is being forced to turn over its files to this dangerous gang. I ask my colleagues to join with me in reconstitution of a House Internal Security Committee to commence open and public investigations into this organization's operations which clearly pose a threat to public order. McDonald began his remarks noting that the NCLC had even begun sending its members into the corridors of Congress where they harassed legislative aides with their propaganda. Meanwhile the group's leadership whose members held past membership in Moscow-dominated and other Marxist groups had been directing a large "political and economic intelligence gathering" operation "which could be of use to foreign communist governments, such as the East Germans" with whom the LC leadership has developed some kind of relations. McDonald then launches into a long a detailed history of the LC. He states that "NCLC organizers have repeatedly and publicly stated that the organization believes an armed revolution is necessary to overthrow completely America's political, economic, and social system. The time for the onset of the revolution has been variously stated as 2 to 20 years." Yet for all its ideological claims to being "Communist" and "Socialist revolutionary," in reality the organization in ideological terms "varies from the bizarre to the ludicrous and in practice reflects the violent and unstable eccentricities of its founder and leader Lyndon Hermyle LaRouche." To show LaRouche's role, McDonald even quotes from "Centrism as a Social Phenomenon" – surely the only time that 1968 tract has ever been cited in the Congressional Record. EARLY NCLC HISTORY McDonald provides a brief bio of LaRouche which erroneously states that LaRouche left the SWP in 1957 when he actually left in 1965. Another error comes when a New York Times report is cited which has LaRouche married to "a psychiatrist" in the 1950s. He then mentions LaRouche's relationship to Carol Schnitzer (later Carol White) who was a member of the YSA/SWP. The statement then offers a long list of members of the Free University of New York/Alternate U where LaRouche/"Lyn Marcus" gave his first course. The FUNY catalog described him as a "professional economist and Marxist" who in 1967 was a "co-founder of Village CIPA-Committee for Independent Political Action and author of 'Third Stage of Imperialism.'" The Congressional Record insert then describes LaRouche giving his class on "Elementary Marxist Economics" at the SDS Summer Liberation School – SLS – at Columbia. The course was described in the SLS catalog as "the development of Marx's method from the German Ideology to the 'tendency for the rate of profit to fall.' Pre-Marxian, Marxian, and recent theories of value; elementary models of economic growth." Another course was offered by Carol who identified herself as "C. LaRouche." This SLS course was on "U.S. Economic Growth and Political History." The Congressional Record insert also states that in the early 1970s LaRouche "increasingly insisted on one man rule while depending on a curious cabal of Greek and German NCLC members, several of whom are not U.S. citizens and who had backgrounds as Communist Party activists." The insert next summarized both Operation Mop Up and the Chris White Affair. It then continues: "Such internal turmoil and paranoia have kept the NCLC at a membership of from 650 to 700 persons. . . . The result has been the creation of a tightly disciplined organization blindly obedient to the whims of Lyndon H. LaRouche and his emissaries." SINISTER FORCES AND STRANGE ALLIES According to McDonald: In confidential reports to members, the NCLC/USLP has boasted of having close associations with the East German Communist leadership, Colonel Quaddafi, the Libyan dictator and sponsor of international terrorist operations, and the Iraqi Government which is the sponsor of the Palestine Liberation Organization's 'rejectionist front' terrorists. NCLC/USLP has been conducting industrial intelligence information particularly in West Germany of a variety which would be useful to the East Germans, but which has no conceivable use to the NCLC. The NCLC/USLP leaders responsible for information collection include Uwe Parpart, a German; and Gus [sic] Syvriotis. . . ." Although the LC is also making overtures to the right, "respectable conservatives have rejected the overtures of this violent, vicious totalitarian party. However, NCLC has apparently made inroads among irresponsible conservatives and pseudo-conservatives of the type who have been supporting Colonel Quaddafi of Libya, who now finds his best friends and arms suppliers are the Soviet Communists who give him all he needs for his terrorists. McDonald next expresses amazement that the LC had even managed to gain inroads with the leadership of the GOP, in particular RNC Executive Director Eddie Mahe over LC claims of pro-Democratic vote fraud in the November 1976 elections. The McDonald insert cites an article in the 19 November 1976 issue of the Right Report edited by Morton Blackwell as well as an article in the 25 November 1976 Washington Star on the same topic. The NCLC even set up the National Fund for a Fair Election "which has its account – No. 0314-1343 at Citibank, Seventh Avenue and 34th Street, New York City." [In other words just a few blocks from the NCLC National Office, then located at 231 West 29th Street.] The report continues: "According to the NCLC, the Committee for a Fair Election is headed by a Jim Lloyd, a 27-year-old stockbroker associated with Reynolds Securities in Denver. The NCLC promoters of the CFE assert that Lloyd has been able to use his father's political connections in advancing their cause." The CR entry notes that the NCLC's "far left rivals have denounced the group as agents provocateur" and they have since claimed that the NCLC "is some secret Government-financed 'COINTELPRO' plot against revolutionaries. The actions of conservatives in associating with this violent and bizarre radical group can only lend pseudo-credence to those allegations." McDonald then takes up the alliance between the Labor Committee and his far right rivals at the Liberty Lobby and its newspaper Spotlight: NCLC has operated for nearly four years on a monthly budget of from $30,000 to $40,000. This sum has been raised by loans to NCLC's Campaigner Publications; by heavy dues extracted from members; by wealthy NCLC members contributing their trust funds and savings; and from sales of NCLC/USLP publications" which include "the strange combination of fact and impure fantasy called 'Carter and the Party of International Terrorism' sold by the NCLC for $2 and by the Liberty Lobby for $5.50." 98 For the full Thompson EIR text, see http://www.larouchepub.com/eiw/public/1978/eirv05n39-19781010/eirv05n39-19781010 055-how klan Zionist terror operates.pdf. 99 See http://laroucheplanet.info/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Library.UnityNow1 on this issue. 100 On LaRouche's "Marxist" views of Jews and its roots in the late 1950s, see http://laroucheplanet.info/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Library.MysteryBabylon, http://laroucheplanet.info/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Library.CONCLUSIONRealKarlMarx, and http://laroucheplanet.info/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Library.WhatKautskyReallySaid. 101 Kautsky quoted in Enzo Traverse, The Marxists and the Jewish Question: The History of a Debate (1843-1943) (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1994) Also see Robert S. Wistrich, "German Social Democracy and the Problem of Jewish Nationalism 1897-1917," in the Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook XXI (1976). 102 Traverse, 66. 103 Ibid, 213. 104 LaRouche's "explanation" of the Holocaust also reflected the crudest level of economic determinism which Tim Wohlforth pointed out in a polemic against LaRouche ("Lyn Marcus"). In a 16 December 1968 attack on LaRouche, Wohlforth pointed to LaRouche's complete dismissal of anti-Semitic ideology. From Smiling Man from a Dead Planet: Wohlforth next turns to what he labels Marcus's "most preposterous theory to date." This was the notion that the Nazis killed six million Jews out of a "rational economic policy of primitive accumulation" and that Nazi race theory was merely an excuse for a logical capitalist policy. In contrast, Wohlforth pointed out that the Nazis used millions of non-Jewish foreign workers as forced labor while they sent the Jews to death camps. In reality, the persecution of the Jews actually wasted German resources that could have been rationally used for the war effort. See http://laroucheplanet.info/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Librarv.ManvTheoriesofLMarcus. LaRouche repeats his same "explanation" of the Holocaust. See Lyn Marcus, Dialectical Economics (Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1975), 408-11. Here LaRouche writes: The Nazi military machine and its operations represented the armed force that sustained German capital as capital. The Second World War was absolutely not an adventure undertaken by Hitler to appease the inclinations of the Wehrmacht High Command. Germany's military undertakings were launched over the strong objections of the High Command, which was systematically purged to "overcome" such objections. The Second World War was imposed on German "militarism" by hysterical demands for immediate loot of the "smoke-stack barons" and financiers. (410) As for the concentration camps, they were merely the logical extension of the turn of German capitalists to an "auto-cannibalistic economy." According to LaRouche: As a further measure of capitalist economy, the welfare rolls within the concentration camps were successfully reduced by the mass extermination practices applied to the weak, the aged, women, children, depleted slave labor, and other unemployables. (409) LaRouche can not bring himself to admit the fundamental ideological role of Nazi anti-Semitism in the creation of the extermination camps. Instead he wants to pretend that all this is simply an example of capitalism at work. In his ostensible discussion of the causes of the Holocaust, he can't even bear to utter the word "Jew." By the late 1970s, LaRouche would declare that Hitler was more or less a pawn of the Rothschilds. Possibly the closest parallel to LaRouche's view can be found in the ultra-leftist writings of Amadeo Bordiga, the Italian Marxist sectarian widely believed to be the author of the 1960 "Auschwitz, or the Great Alibi" first published in a French Bordigist journal called Programme Communiste. Some leading French Bordigists (most prominently Pierre Guillaume) later became active in the Holocaust Denial movement in France. For the article, see http://webcache.aoogleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:hF AS4MttVsJ:www.marxists. org/archive/bordiga/works/1960/auschwitz.htm+bordigist+holocaust&cd=8. 105 Using the same logic, LaRouche also tried to reduce Catholicism to the worse expression of the most backward elements of feudalism in his Campaigner essay on Ludwig Feuerbach which also included his notorious attack on Judaism as a pseudo-religion. A similar argument against Catholicism also came from Howard Scott's Technocracy, Inc. See http://laroucheplanet.info/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Librarv.MONADMAN. Because LaRouche has always rejected biological determinism, he is neither a Nazi nor a neo-Nazi. Nor was anti-Semitism invented by Adolf Hitler. (On this issue, see both the Introduction and Conclusion to Smiling Man from a Dead Planet.) Yet it is also clear that LaRouche's hateful views of Judaism paved the way for his alliance with some of the most extreme pro-Nazi elements of the extreme right. It is also important to understand for an organizational history of the NCLC that LaRouche's peculiar views on Judaism only first appeared in his very long footnote on Judaism in the December 1973/January 1974 Campaigner article "The Case of Ludwig Feuerbach" (part one.) This article – actually a long diatribe against Roman Catholicism – appeared at a time when the NCLC was in chaos in the wake of the failure of "Operation Mop-Up" and when the organization was in the middle of the "Chris White Affair." This was the same time the NCLC was being transformed into a cult. LaRouche used a blend of Marxism and beliefs from his Quaker fundamentalist background to denounce both Judaism and Catholicism as quasi-Satanic belief systems in his "Feuerbach" essay. 106 LaRouche cited from http://laroucheplanet.info/pmwi ki/pmwiki.php?n=Librarv.MvstervBabylon. 107 The report can also be found at the website "History Matters" at http://www.history-matters.com/ifkmurder.htm.

by John Fife, NCR The situation on the southwestern U.S. border in the 1980s led to a movement of faith communities we called Sanctuary. In 1980 we began to learn that refugees from the death squads, torture and massacres of villages in El Salvador and Guatemala were arriving at the border. The U.S. government refused to recognize them as refugees; thousands were being arrested, imprisoned and deported in handcuffs back to the death squads, torture, massacres and wars. The church on both sides of the border began to respond in ministry to the needs of the refugees in the ways you would expect — food, shelter, medical care and legal aid. Church volunteers enabled refugees to apply for political asylum, represented at hearings by lawyers funded by the Tucson Ecumenical Council in Arizona. But by 1981 we were dismayed to learn that no one from El Salvador or Guatemala was being granted asylum. Our government was in political, military and economic support of the regimes that were ordering the repression. Our allies could not be creating refugees; we were bringing democracy and development to Central America. My colleague Jim Corbett, a brilliant Quaker rancher, defined the ethical challenge to the church clearly, pointing to two examples in history — the abolition movement, when churches and people of faith formed an underground railroad to help escaped slaves cross borders and move north to safety, and the failure of the European church to protect Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust. A few of us began to hide refugees in homes in Tucson. It didn’t take long to run out of room in homes, and the church that I served as pastor began to take in refugees. The Border Patrol soon discovered our smuggling organization and sent a message: “We know what you’re doing. Stop or we will indict you on felony charges.” Before we were indicted, we decided to go public by declaring Southside Presbyterian Church a sanctuary for refugees from Central America. Four other churches joined us in 1982, and a movement began…

Frankie Walker, a horrible backup shortstop for the Class A Visalia Oaks, was praised today by his manager and teammates for being good at all the little, inconsequential things that, taken together, are a poor barometer of whether or not someone is actually a good baseball player. “Oh, Frankie’s a real gamer, “ said Oaks manager Dan Felton of his putrid protégée.“He hustles to first base on every ground ball, which he hits a lot of.He studies tape.He keeps notes on every pitcher.He’ll slide in at an angle to break up the double play.His does all the little things perfectly.It’s just the big things – like hitting, running, and throwing – where he blows.And I mean really blows, like a Dutch whore.” “You talk about a guy who works hard,” said Oaks right fielder JaJuan Hodge.“Frankie’s always the first one here, talking with the coaches about working pitch counts, honing his swing.His level of detail incredible.If only he weren’t so small, and weak, and useless.” Walker, whose inability to hit the ball borders on the comedic, has become a fan favorite among the Visalia faithful for his take-no-prisoners approach to the game. “You can just see how much the game means to him, “ said season ticket holder Henry Caron.“One time, I saw him barrel right into the catcher at home.He was out by mile, because he’s slower than death.But still, what scrappiness!” “He does a lot of things that don’t show up on the stat sheet,” said Felton of Walker, who is currently batting .098 and hasn’t driven in a run since June 19th.“If there was a stat for courage to take inside pitches, you can bet Frankie would lead the league in it.It’s just a shame that what does show up on the stat sheet – home runs, RBI’s, runs – are really all that matters.I almost wish we could get rid of crucial game elements like hitting and catching, so that a guy like Frankie could truly flourish in our league.” Many also went out of their way to praise Walker, who is terrible at his job and should be fired, for being a good person. “We’re lucky to have him," wrote Oaks beat writer Tom Maxon.“You spend five minutes with him, and you learn so much about the game.But you also learn about yourself as a person.He’s someone who believes in family, and personal accountability.He’s a great husband and Christian.I think Frankie will be a great manager one day, so long as he is not a player-manager.” “Frankie plays the game the right way,” said Felton, “he just doesn’t play it very well.If I weren’t so blinded by his terrific work ethic, I’d cut his ass on the spot.” Former Cuban national team pitcher Romario Marte, a recent high-profile detection to the United States, was ordered by U.S. officials today to go back to his homeland, where he will face immediate execution. "We can't just take in anyone to this country anymore," said a U.S. immigration official who was willingly to speak on Marte's case, albeit anonymously. "Romario's fastball clocked only in the low 80s and it had little to no movement. He's going to be killed when he gets to Cuba, but he would have been killed worse by major league hitters." Marte's status was also hurt by the fact that he reportedly lied on his application for asylum, stating that his fastball clocked in the low 90s, and that he also had a slider, curveball and some sort of Cuban version of a gyroball called a "pitch de los pendejo." "We could have maybe overlooked the difference in fastball mph everyone who immigrates here from Latin countries fudges their fastball speed and their native league OPS," said the immigration official. "But in the throwing session I oversaw, there was no evidence for this pendejo pitch. And I don't like being taken for some ahole." While losing the backing of immigration officials ultimately sealed Marte's fate, it was lost interest among top major league teams that set the wheels in motion towards what will be his eventual execution. "His representatives have been reaching out to us for several years now, talking him up," said Yankees general manager Brian Cashman, who was set to engage in a bidding war for Marte's services with the Red Sox and Mets. "We had the structure of a $95 million deal in place." But when Cashman saw Marte's radar gun printouts, the deal was off. "I can't give out $95 million in this economy for a pitcher who can only throw 83 mph," he said. "Those days are over. I could see $65 million, but not much more." It's unlikely Marte will see that money, though, as he's in a U.S. immigration detention center in Miami, awaiting a flight back to Cuba where he will be turned over to government officials and then shot, hung and electrocuted in front of his wife and children and Fidel Castro. "I don't want to die," Marte said through an interpreter. "I started off my throwing session by throwing my change-up, to show them I understand the intricacies of pitching. But then they take me off the mound and send me here. If only they would give me another chance, I would throw my fastball and my pitch de los pendejo." Washington Nationals veterans conducted their annual hazing of the team's rookies today, forcing their humiliated teammates to dress up in Washington Nationals uniforms. "I know it's all in good fun and every team hazes their rookies every year," said rookie pitcher Ross Detwiler. "But I was hoping for something less embarrassing and degrading. Like maybe having to dress up in lingerie. Or drink bull semen. Anything but this." Nationals third baseman Ryan Zimmerman said he was forced to put on a Nationals jersey when he was drafted by the franchise in 2005 and he's going to make sure every young player who comes after him has to go through the same thing. "This puts them in their place and it teaches them a lesson about life," said Zimmerman. "It teaches them that life sucks. Do you think I wanted to wear this uniform? Of course not. It torments me every day. But watching other people suffer through the same emotional pain brings me some relief." And while Zimmerman says the annual rookie hazing will continue, he did think this year's ritual went a bit too far, as several Nationals rookies began weeping and begging for mercy. Rookie shortstop Ian Desmond, not understanding that he didn't have to keep the uniform on forever, picked up a cinder block and jumped into the team's whirlpool to try to drown himself. "We didn't want anyone to die," said Zimmerman. "Only die inside." Detwiler said the veterans succeeded. "It wasn't just that we had to put Nationals uniforms on," he said. "We have to do that for every game. It's that they made us go out in public with them on and wear them home. I've been telling my friends and family that I work as an accountant. But then today I show up in a Nationals jersey. I'll never be able to shake the look of shame that was in my parents' eyes." Something called Scott Feldman is 17-5 with a 3.62 ERA for the Texas Rangers. He is receiving serious Cy Young consideration. Who is this guy? Here are some facts about Scott Feldman. Scott Feldman was born February 7, 1983, in Kailua, Hawaii. Many consider Feldman to be the greatest Kenyan-born pitcher of all-time. Feldman is 6-foot-5 and was big from his youth. In fact, his father told the San Francisco Chronicle "His second-grade teacher made a comment to my wife that it was like 'Alice in Wonderland' becauseScott was always too big for his seat." We can't be sure, but Feldman probably nailed his second-grade teacher. Well done, Scott. Feldman was also overweight as a youth, hitting 265 pounds, and lost 40 pounds before walking on to the baseball team as a freshman at the College of San Mateo. Despite the physical transformation, Feldman was not able to get any interest in his proposed reality show with Scott Haim. Feldman went 25-2 at San Mateo with a 1.30 ERA and was drafted in the 30th round of the 2003 draft by the Rangers, but he underwent Tommy John surgery later that year. The Rangers said that had they known Feldman was injured, they would not have drafted him until at least the 31st round. After working his way up through the Rangers system as a reliever, Feldman was converted to a starter in 2008 and went 6-8 with a 5.29 ERA. With a sub-6.00 ERA in their starting rotation, the conversion was considered a complete success by the Rangers. Feldman is featured in the MLB-licensed Jewish Major Leaguers Baseball Cards set, commemorating Jewish major leaguers from 1871-2008. Collect all six! Picture Baseball To The Face Just released, this soundtrack of hell is called Tim McCarver Sings Selections from the Great American Songbook. As though McCarver hasn't done enough damage by ruining America's pastime for the past 20 years, now he has to reach back deeper into the last century and crap all over that, too. This album includes old standards like "On A Clear Day" and "Gee Baby Ain't I Good To You." Mercifully, there are no McCarver originals although I would have liked to hear the McCarver classic "A Leadoff Walk Produces More Runs Than a Home Run" set to music. Assuming nails on a chalkboard can be considered an instrument. But everything on the album is old. So don't expect anything contemporary like "Joe Buck's Second-Favorite Website is SuckingC**k.com (with Artie Lange)." The thing is, this album will probably be more successful than anything you or I do in our entire lives. You know it. I know it. Because life is a slow, dark, meaningless trek to death. Also, this album's sales will be boosted by a highly-produced ad campaign, in which McCarver tells the nation that he sings "one hit after another." I wish I was deaf. Salvatore DiGuilio, a Yankees season ticket holder who sits two rows behind you, expressed shock and dismay today that your son has never heard the word c—t before. “Really?Seriously?” asked a bewildered DiGuilio.“What is that kid, six?How could he not know what a c—t is?It’s the first thing you learn after you find out what a d—k is.Hey Vinny, can you believe this pr—k’s kid doesn’t know what a c—t is?” The self-proclaimed “die-hard” Yankee fan scoffed at your notion that c—t is a vulgar word not to be used in front of a child after Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira makes a simple groundout to second to end the fourth inning. “Please, I use that f—king word around my little s—t kid all the time,” he explained.“That’s the f—king language of the real world.What, are you trying to make your son a p-y?A p-y little ft?Because that’s what’s he gonna grow up to be.” But Dr. Harry Edwards, professor of sports psychology at the University of Southern California, disagrees with DiGuilio’s claims. “Contrary to what many inebriated Yankee fans believe, learning crude terms for female genitalia at an early age does not prevent homosexuality, nor does it result in any long-term passive behavior.In fact, studies show learning terms such as c—t before the age of six can lead to problems with anger AND future substance abuse issues.Of course, this means you’ll fit in perfectly with Yankee fans.They’re all complete a—holes.” DiGuilio refuted Edwards’ notion, saying, “Maybe he’s a c—t, too.” Yankees officials said they have received several complaints from you in the past few months with regards to DiGuilio’s behavior.So far, the team has had no official response, though a Yankees Stadium security guard did tell you to, “keep your little c—t kid in his seat for ‘God Bless America,’ or I will throw your c—t a—out of this facility.” DiGuilio has a long history of uttering disgusting, inappropriate words around you and your children.Three months ago, he drunkenly challenged you to fight after spilling beer on your son and calling him a little c—ksucker.DiGuilio claims to have no recollection of the incident. “Bottom line, I think you’re full of s—t,” says DiGuilio.“That kid has totally heard that word before.Probably at school.I’ve said it around him.Vinny’s said it around him.This whole section says the word c—t every five minutes.And if you don’t like it, you can get the f—k out of this town. “C—t,” he added.

I sometimes take a quick look at the Wall Street Journal so that you don't have to. I mean, seriously, "Markets in Retreat: Fear Swine Flu" sounds like the Weekly World News, not economic journalism. Still, three interesting, but otherwise unrelated tidbits. First, on April 17, 2009 the Journal SCOOPED (!) the universe by running essentially the same story that the New York Times ran (the Times ran is an op-ed) about artists and others moving into neighborhoods in depressed cities and revitalizing them. The wrinkle? The Journal's story ran April 17, while the Times op-ed was on March 7, and the Journal wrote about Cleveland, not Detroit. Good show, Wall Street Journal! Way to get trounced by six weeks on essentially an identical story! Sadly for the second and third pieces I must leave (most of) the snark aside, sigh. The Journal ran this story about the German and Austrian Jewish scholars who taught at historically black colleges and universities in the South during and after the Hitler era (1933-1945). Having been the subject of mindless persecution, many of these Jewish scholars would join the civil rights movement, and would mentor young blacks at the schools. Very interesting. Of course, the Journal quotes a letter published in the Arkansas Gazette in 1950 written by one of these scholars. In the letter "he complained that public libraries for African-Americans were inadequate, writing that the only 'practical and democratic solution is that of opening the doors of the main library to all, irregardless of race.'" Irregardless? Really? He was a non-native speaker of English. Nobody could help a Bruder out and edit that? Finally, the Journal ran this piece about how high speed trains have changed Spain. Spain is, in some ways, just a collection of countries and regions gathered together by various monarchs. The Spanish seem to have a long and strong historical memory for their region. However, the ability to get from Barcelona to Madrid in two-and-a-half hours has served to increase the social mobility in Spain, which ultimately is likely to help build a genuine sense of "Spanishness" even in regions that maintain a strong identity. Kind of interesting. Still, there is room for some snark: "'We Spaniards didn't used to move around much,' says José María Menéndez, who heads the civil engineering department at the University of Castilla-La Mancha." Sure. Other than Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Philippines where have you ever seen evidence of the Spanish outside of Spain?

Suvainiškis (Suveinishok in Yiddish) is situated along the shore of the Nereta River, which marks the northern border of Lithuania with Latvia. It lies about 15 km. north of the county administrative center of Panemunis and about 30 km. northwest of the district administrative center of Rokiskis. The village and the estate that bore the same name are mentioned in historic sources from the eighteenth century. After the third division of the Polish Lithuanian Kingdom in 1795, Suveinishok, like almost all of Lithuania, became part of the Russian Empire. Suveinishok was first included in the Vilna province, and from 1843 in the Novo-Alexandrovsk (Zarasai) district of the Kovno province Gubernia). In 1856 there were 14 houses and 53 residents, but during the second half of the nineteenth century the town’s population multiplied. According to the Russian census of 1897 there were then 855 residents, of whom 684 were Jews (80%). A new road connected Suveinishok with Riga, Latvia's capital, the main market town for its products. The merchants and peddlers of Suveinishok also made their living from the market in the Latvian town of Nereta, attended by many peasants from the region. Suveinishok's market square was in the center of the town and four streets branched out from it. During the German occupation (1915-1918) the town was connected to nearby Skopishok by a narrow gauge railway. |The Beth Midrash| After the establishment of independent Lithuania in 1918, and the subsequent delineation of the border with Latvia, travel across the border to Riga and Nereta became more difficult. The first Jews probably settled in Suveinishok at the end of the eighteenth century. Public life was concentrated around the Beth Midrash. The children studied in a Heder and there were several of this kind in town. Most of the Jews made their living by trading in grains, timber, cattle and furs. During World War I Suveinishok Jews were exiled deep into Russia by the Russian army. |The Jewish cemetery| After the war, when independent Lithuania was established, exiles returned to find most of their houses had been ruined and their property stolen. With help from the Joint, economic life was partly rehabilitated. Following the Law of Autonomies for Minorities issued by the new Lithuanian government, the Minister for Jewish Affairs, Dr. Menachem (Max) Soloveitshik, ordered elections for community committees (Va'adei Kehilah) to be held in the summer of 1919. In Suveinishok a five-member community committee was elected, which was active during 1922-1925 in all fields of Jewish life. At this time a Hebrew elementary school of the Tarbuth chain was established, with about forty pupils, and another fifteen boys studied in a Heder. Some youths continued their studies in the Lithuanian gymnasium in Rakishok (Rokiskis) or in the Yeshivah there. In 1921 the town had a population of 250 Jews (60 families). Because of traffic limitations to Riga and Nereta, the activities of Jewish merchants were restricted. Some subsisted on small trade with agricultural products and horses, others smuggled goods over the border. More prosperous Jews were the owners of the flourmill, the sawmill and cloth workshops. |Celebration of the volunteer fire brigade of Suvainishok| According to the government survey of 1931 in Suveinishok, there were two horse traders, one butcher's shop, one restaurant and three mixed goods shops owned by Jews. In 1937 there were eleven Jewish artisans: six butchers, three tailors, a glazier and a watchmaker. In 1939 only one Jew, a member of the Ginzburg family which owned the flourmill, possessed a telephone, out of a total of eight telephone subscribers in the town. As a result of the decline in the opportunities to make a living, many Surveinishok Jews emigrated to America and South Africa or to Eretz-Yisrael. The following table shows the involvement of Surveinishok's Jews in politics and how they voted for four Zionist congresses: |Total Votes||Labor Party In addition to the few educational and cultural institutions there was a Bikur Holim society and also a Gemiluth Hesed fund. Rabbis who officiated in Suveinishok included Hayim-Yonah Itkin (1882-?) from 1905 in Suveinishok; Yehoshua haCohen Kaplan (1873-1941) in Suveinishok 1920-1926, murdered in Vidukle together with his community in 1941; Avraham-Mihal Viner, the last rabbi of Suveinishok, murdered by the Lithuanians in the summer of 1941. After Lithuania was annexed to the USSR in 1940 and became a Soviet Republic, several Jewish owned shops and factories were nationalized and their owners dispossessed. Some of them integrated into the administrative and economic institutions of the new regime. The Hebrew school was closed and all Zionist activities were forbidden. At this time there were about fifty Jewish families. The Germans entered Suveinishok in the first week of the war between Germany and the USSR which began on June 22, 1941. On August 15-16, 1941 all Suveinishok Jews were brought to the Velniaduobe Forest, 5 km. from Rokiskis, where they were murdered together with Jews from the surrounding towns. |The mass grave and monument in the Velniaduobe Forest| |The inscription on the tablet of this monument, in Lithuanian and Yiddish, reads as follows: On this site the Hitlerists and their local helpers murdered 3207 Jews, men, women and children, on 15-16.8.1941. Let their memory endure forever.| Central Zionist Archives: 55/1788; 55/1701; 13/15/131; Z-4/2548. Yahaduth Lita (Hebrew), Tel Aviv YIVO, New York, Collection of Lithuanian Communities, files 1300-1309 Gotlib, Ohalei Shem, page 97 Yizkor Buch Rakishok (Yiddish), pages 362-365 Levin, Dov: Suveinishok, Pinkas haKehilot Lita, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, 1996 The above article is an excerpt from Protecting Our Litvak Heritage by Josef Rosin. The book contains this article along with many others, plus an extensive description of the Litvak Jewish community in Lithuania that provides an excellent context to understand the above article. Click here to see where to obtain the book. JewishGen, Inc. makes no representations regarding the accuracy of the translation.The reader may wish to refer to the original material for verification. JewishGen is not responsible for inaccuracies or omissions in the original work and cannot rewrite or edit the text to correct inaccuracies and/or omissions. Our mission is to produce a translation of the original work and we cannot verify the accuracy of statements or alter facts cited. Protecting Our Litvak Heritage Yizkor Book Project JewishGen Home Page Copyright © 1999-2016 by JewishGen, Inc. Updated 28 Aug 2011 by JH

|THE DIVINE LIFE SOCIETY||HOME||TEACHINGS||MESSAGES||RELIGIONS||DISCOURSE||SAINTS||SWAMI SIVANANDA| This article is a chapter from the book "Bliss Divine". SRI SWAMI SIVANANDA Old and New Testament The Ten Commandments Tenets of Judaism Judaism constitutes the religious doctrines and rites of the Jews as enjoined in the laws of Moses. Judaism is based on Zoroastrianism. It has given rise to two great religions of the world, i.e., Christianity and Islam. The Muslims admit that their religion is founded on Judaism. The Koran also is very clear on this point. Zoroastrian conception of Ahura Mazda as the Supreme Being is perfectly identical with the idea of Elohim (God) Jehovah which we find in the books of Old Testament. Abraham, the Prophet, was the first man who has revealed God to all humanity. He is the Founder of the Hebrew race. Hebrew is one of the descendants of Jacob, an Isralite, a Jew. Isaac had two sons, viz., Essan and Jacob and their descendants are the Christians and Jews respectively. Abraham had two sons (one from Sarah and one from Hagar, the Egyptian woman), viz., Isaac and Ismael who are the fathers of Jews and Muslims respectively. OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT The Old Testament contains the sacred writings of the ambient Jewish race. The newer portion is known as the New Testament which was begun after the coming of Jesus Christ, more than nineteen hundred years ago. Long before Jesus came to this world, the Jews wrote and studied their sacred books. These were written in their Hebrew tongue. The old Hebrew books were translated into Greek about two hundred years before the Christian era. The books of the Jews were arranged into three main divisions. The first was called "The Law". It dealt with the laws of the world. These books are now the first part of the Bible, viz., Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The second class was that of the Prophets. It included Joshua, Isaiah, and Jeremiah. Psalms and Proverbs constituted third class. The Old Testament contains 39 books. The New Testament contains 27 books. The first four books are Gospels which describe the life of Christ on this earth. The next book tells us of the Acts of the Apostles, particularly of the important Apostle Paul. The twenty-one shorter books give out the ideas underlying the Christian faith of the early Christians. The last book is the book of Revelations. It gives a description of the series of visions, viz., the lamb of God and the heavenly city. The author is John, the favourite Apostle of Jesus. All these books were written in Greek, which was the language of educated men at the beginning of the Christian era. The Law was set forth as a complete system by which men should live. By the Law was understood in a special sense the Pentateuch. Every word of Pentateuch was considered as inspired and an immediate revelation of Moses. (a) There was a need for explanation of the Law. The Scribes were the interpreters of the Law. They explained and applied the rules of the Torah to special cases. The Scribes were recognised as the legislators and the judges of Israel. Their decisions had the force of Law. The first Scribes were priests. (b) The fraternity of the Pharisees were the popular or nationalist party. They believed in the doctrine of immortality, resurrection of the body, the existence of angels and spirits. As religious teachers, they upheld the authority of oral tradition as of equal validity with the written Law. They were inclined to fatalism in the question of the freedom of the will. The Zealots represented one extreme side of the Pharisaic movement. (c) Sadducus were aristocratic priests. They held to the letter of the Mosaic revelation. They denied the authority of the oral tradition as interpreted by the Pharisees. They taught complete freedom of the will in moral action. They had no belief in angels or spirits. They did not accept the doctrine of immortality as a deduction from the Pentateuch. (d) The Essenes followed celibacy, isolation, silence, ceremonial ablutions, and abstinence from animal food. They practised asceticism. They did worship of the sun and the angels. They believed in the dualistic theory of good and evil and the symbolism of light. They abstained from sacrifices and temple worship. The Prophets of Israel were the great religious leaders who brought great progress in Behraic thought. Rabbis also were authoritative teachers. They worked very hard in the field of Torah. They produced the massive Talmudic literature. They were the representatives of Pharisiasm. Talmud is indispensable, for a knowledge of Hebraic thought. The Torah was given in ten words. Each word became a voice. Every voice was divided into 70 voices all of which shone and glittered before the eyes of all Israel. Torah denotes the divine revelation to Israel on Mount Senai as embodied in the five Books of Moses. The Torah (Law) as given to Moses consists of 613 commandments which are the essence of the divine and terrestrial mysteries. Torah indicates a way of life rather than a form of belief. Moses received the Torah (Law, direction, instruction) on Senai and handed it down to Joshua, Joshua to the elders, the elders to the prophets and the prophets handed it down to the men of the Great Synagogue, a synod of zealous men created by Ezra, the Scribe in the fifth century B.C. The function of the synagogue was to study and teach Torah. The Synagogue was a church, a school, and a court of justice. It was a house of instruction. The unity of God, the Incorporeality of God, and the Holiness of God are the main features of Judaism. God gave His ten commandments to Moses on the Mount Senai. The Lord called unto him out of the mountain and said: "Thus shall thou say to the house of Jacob and tell the children of Israel". THE TEN COMMANDMENTS - I am the Lord Thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. - Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them; for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments. - Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. - Remember the sabbath-day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath-day and hallowed it. - Honour thy father and thy mother; that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. - Thou shalt not kill. - Thou shalt not commit adultery. - Thou shalt not steal. - Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. - Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbour's. This is the Mosaic account of Cosmogony. On the first day heaven and earth were created; on the second, firmament and waters; on the third, dry land, grass, the birds, and fruit trees; on the fourth, lights, the sun, the moon, the stars; on the fifth, moving creatures, winged fowls, great whales; on the sixth living creatures, cattle, creepers, beasts, man. In Genesis, the Creation ends with the creation of man. God created Adam on the sixth day and gave him the charge of the animals. Adam had three children viz., Cain, Abel and Sheth. Cain killed Abel. The descendants of Cain were drowned in the flood. The descendants of the Sheth are all the humanity of the world. The Lord took Adam and put him into the garden of Eden to till it and to keep it. TENETS OF JUDAISM The Jews believe in resurrection, in angels, and in the existence of two powers, viz., God and the Devil or Satan. The Jews believe that every man's actions will be weighed on the day of Judgment in a balance. Men will have to pass after their resurrection along the bridge of Hell. The unity of God is the cardinal principle of the religion of the Hebrews. God is bodiless. This is also a doctrine of great importance. God is ever pure and holy. This is third important attribute of God. He is the Creator of the entire world. He is the Father of all His creatures. He is just and merciful. He is without iniquity. The Jewish saints have spoken much about the efficacy and power of repentance. Happy is the man who repents. The gates of repentance never close. Repentance prolongs a man's life. The tears of true repentance are not shed in vain. Even the most righteous shall not attain to so high a place in heaven as the truly repentant. Repent one day sincerely with a contrite heart before you die. After repentance you should not repeat the same wicked act. Even an hour spent in repentance with a contrite heart in this world is preferable to a whole life in the world to come. The end and aim of all wisdom is repentance. The unity of God, the Incorporeality of God and the Holiness of God are the main features of Judaism. Last Updated: Sunday, 17-Oct-2004 09:45:56 EDT Mail Questions, Comments & Suggestions to :

Run this through an Ancestry.com family tree. A single prophet is considered the “father” of several religions that have more than 3.5 billion adherents just a few thousand years later. It is one of the more impressive trees ever created. Abraham is credited with being the patriarch of several religions in the world, which are practiced by more than half of the world’s population. While three of them are considered the three major worldwide religions and are considered as having the same starting point, they have become very different from each other in specific ways. However, their general monotheistic tenets are a unifying force among them. We’ll take a quick look at the major Abrahamic religions in the world and discuss basic tenets of each one, in chronological order of their establishment. Started in the seventh century B.C. (it was tribal in nature among the Israelites before this), Judaism may be the religion most directly tied to Abraham, as his descendants Isaac and Jacob are considered the “fathers” of the organized orthodox Jewish faith. Abraham was considered one of the early monotheists of the day, as the idea of only one God was a quaint but foreign theology at the time, with many societies taking on many gods or no god at all. Adherents of the Jewish faith not only believe in a single God, but they also believe that God is the originator of moral law by which adherents are expected to live (based on the Ten Commandments in the Bible and the Torah, the Jewish holy book). Jews generally agree with Muslims that Jesus Christ was a prophet and not the son of God, and that he was resurrected. Judaism agrees with Christianity that God’s word came to human scribes and prophets to create the various books of the Torah and Bible. Started in the first century A.D. by disciples and apostles of Jesus Christ, Christianity was actually a branch of Judaism, as Jesus was born to Jewish parents who were descended from Abraham through his sons Isaac and Jacob (later named Israel). Jesus was a prophet, but is also seen by Christians as the Son of God, with divine powers to heal and execute many miracles that other mortals could not. Jesus’ teachings did stray somewhat from orthodox Jewish teachings, and much of Christianity is based on the Bible, and more specifically the New Testament which covers Jesus’ ministry and the work of the apostles and disciples in the years following Jesus’ ascension. In the Abrahamic tradition, Christianity is a direct descendant of Judaism and thus is based on a monotheistic God, though many sects think of God is being expressed through Jesus as a Holy Trinity. This is one way that Christianity differs from both Judaism and Islam. Christianity agrees with Islam in the beliefs that Jesus was a messianic figure and that they both look forward to his second coming as promised in their accounts of the apocalypse. Christianity agrees with Judaism that Jesus was crucified and died. Established in the seventh century A.D., Islam claims its direct roots from Abraham through his illegitimate child, Ishmael, born to Hagar the servant. Ishmael is considered by many to be the father of the Arab people, and Muslims claim that as their heritage and call Abraham “the first Muslim.” The religion was started by Mohammed, who received revelations about the Word of God from the angel Gabriel, and said that the Qu’ran (the hold book which contains these revelations) was necessary because Judaism and Christianity had “corrupted” the true word of God. While Christianity and Judaism spread through peaceful means, including preaching, teaching and healing, Islam grew at first mostly out of conquest in militaristic fashion throughout the Middle East and north Africa. While Christianity and Judaism started in the same general area (Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Syria), Islam began on the Arabian Peninsula. Also monotheistic, Islam takes a different approach and context to some of the Torah’s and Bible’s historical events, but claims to hold to the true moral law that God sent down to prophets such as Abraham, Moses and Noah. Islam agrees with Christianity that Jesus was born to a virgin mother and executed miracles on earth, but Islam agrees with Judaism that Jesus did not resurrect from the dead after crucifixion. While there seems to be great disagreements between adherents of the three Abrahamic religions, many of the differences are finer points on the broader terms. When it comes to monotheism, the afterlife, worship rites, belief in bodily death and eternal life of the soul, and other similar matters, these three religions have several areas of common ground from which to co-exist peacefully, which they do in some parts of the Western and Arab worlds.

Letters to President Clinton: Biblical Lessons on Faith and Leadership, by Menachem Genack (REVIEW) Letters to President Clinton: Biblical Lessons on Faith and Leadership, edited by Rabbi Menachem Genack (OU Press, 2013). In the Book of Numbers, Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp and Joshua is concerned for Moses and wants to get rid of them. Moses replies that he shouldn’t, and in the words of the Talmud ( Sanhedrin 17a) says “Just give them communal responsibility and that will finish them off.” I know how hard and demanding it is to serve the Jewish community, wherever one is. As a general rule, one is insufficiently compensated or appreciated. So I have immense respect, and admiration for people who do take care of Jewish communal needs. Few people deserve our thanks more than Rabbi Menchem Genack for the years of ceaseless toil he has put in as the Chief Executive Officer of OU Kosher, which provides essential and worldwide support for Jews and Jewish practice. But his work has not just been in the sphere of providing services for the community. Rabbi Genack has performed the other essential task of establishing contacts and relationships with non-Jews, as well as other Jews in the corridors of power, including President Clinton, whom he used to send “words of wisdom” from himself and other religious personalities, regularly.”Ž I was looking forward to reading his new book in the hope that it would tell us something about that relationship, about the struggles both moral and political that Clinton had during his presidency and the helpful personal advice that Rabbi Genack might have given him. I hoped it would reveal something about both men. I was sorely disappointed. There is a generous and trite Foreward from the President that tells us no more than the annoying, brief notes of acknowledgment that are scattered like trophies throughout the volume. Other than their generosity, they contain little more than the usual assurances of his commitment to supporting the Jewish community and Israel. The “words of wisdom” in the book come from an eclectic collection of contributors. They intersperse the messages from Rabbis Genack, which make up the bulk of this book. They too are disappointing. They offer no more innovative or creative thinking than the random mix of weekly Divrei Torah to be found in any one of the Communal newspapers across the Jewish world. I don’t know who this book is aimed at. It is not an academic discourse on the challenges of power. It is not an innovative take on established and well discussed themes of authority, and it is not a systematic compilation of weekly wisdom based on the Torah readings. It is a light compendium of brief observations from a cross section, lay and rabbinic, that will make for light reading on a Shabbat afternoon. This is not to be sneered at, of course. Rabbi Genack is a great ambassador and deserves congratulations. But hopefully one day he will write a book we really want to read.

Welcoming the Familiar Face A little “Who’s Who”: His aspirations were to become a professional soccer player, but a series of ankle injuries while playing at Pedro Pablo Sanchez High School dashed his hopes. After graduating from high school at age 16, he worked six-day weeks on a commercial boat captained by his father, catching shrimp and sardines The job was “way too tough” for this individual, who was more interested in becoming a mechanic As a 19-year-old, he had to abandon a capsizing 120-short-ton commercial boat, all but convincing him to give up fishing as a career. If the tide had turned, he may have remained in his native Panama, catching shrimp instead of throwing baseballs. Six years later, he’d make his major league debut with the New York Yankees as a starting pitcher. Today, we know him as the greatest closer of all time, Mariano Rivera. As Rivera is set to retire at the end of the season, opposing teams have honored him in their respective ballparks during his farewell tour. The Boston Red Sox, my Red Sox, the sworn enemy of the NY Yankees, honored Mariano Rivera Sunday night on the occasion of his final regular-season game at Fenway Park. A few of the highlights from the evening (as depicted by the Boston Globe): - When Rivera was introduced, he jogged to the mound, where the entire Red Sox team awaited him. He received hugs from players David Ortiz and Dustin Pedroia and some gifts from the club. - First, the Red Sox presented Rivera a painting of the unscripted and delightful moment in April 2005 when he was greeted with a standing ovation from the fans during pregame introductions on the day the 2004 World Series flag was raised at Fenway. - Rivera, who realized that the fans were thanking him for his two blown saves in the 2004 ALCS — along with his two blown saves in the Yankees-Red Sox series that opened the ’05 season — broke into a big smile and raised his arms in bemused thanks. It was that moment that was captured in the painting. - The Red Sox also presented Rivera the panel from the manually operated Green Monster scoreboard that had his number “42” on it. It was signed by every current Boston player. - Rivera also received a Fenway Park seat from 1934, a pitching rubber from the visiting bullpen and an undisclosed donation for his charitable foundation from the Red Sox owners. - Rivera then shook hands with the Red Sox players as Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” (Rivera’s theme song) played over the loudspeakers and highlights of Rivera succeeding against the Red Sox came up on the centerfield scoreboard. Earlier, the Boston Cello Quartet played “Enter Sandman” to open the ceremony after finishing the national anthem. What a beautiful night for both Rivera and Boston. There is something special about appreciating a player who made your team sweat, who made your players lift themselves to a higher level and outperform, brought an entire Red Sox Nation from years of frustration into years of plenty, years of championships. A nation that ascended because one player brought the best out of them. There is something sacred about treating your guests in the highest regard and the greatest respect. Although I am surely biased, the classy Red Sox exhibit the value of hakhnasat orchim, welcoming guests, a mitzvah highlighted on this festival of sukkot. It is the value of ushpizin, welcoming guests into Fenway Park, what is for many of the players and staff a home away from home, a temporary dwelling, a holy place, a sukkah. With a formula established by the kabbalists in the 16th century, based on the earlier Zohar, on each night of Sukkot we invite these Ushpizin, one of seven exalted individuals to take up residence in the sukkah with us. The Zohar states, “When a man sits in the shadow of faith (sukkah) the Shekhinah (Divine Presence) spreads Her wings on him from above and Abraham and five other righteous ones of God (and David with them) make their abode with him? A person should rejoice each day of the festival with these guests. Upon entering the succah, Rav Hamnuna Sava would rejoice and, standing inside the doorway, say “Let us invite the guests and prepare the table.” Then he would remain on his feet and bless them, saying, ‘IN sukkot you should dwell. Be seated exalted guests, be seated; be seated guests of faithfulness, be seated.’ He would then raise his hands in joy and say, ‘Worthy is our portion, worthy is the portion of Israel, as it is written: For God’s portion is his people.’ Then he would sit down.” (Zohar Emor 103b) Each day we welcome not only an individual, but the ideals that they embodied. The seven sefirot, or divine energies, we are fed by the ushpizin are: First day: Chesed—the attribute of “Benevolence” or “ Love”—personified by Abraham. Second day: Gevurah—“Restraint” and “Discipline”—embodied by Isaac. Third day: Tif’eret—“Beauty,” “Harmony” and “Truth”—embodied Jacob. Fourth day: Netzach—“Victory” and “Endurance”—Moses. Fifth day: Hod—“Splendor” and “Humility”—Aaron. Sixth day: Yesod—“Foundation” and “Connection”—Joseph. Seventh day: Malchut—“Sovereignty,” “Receptiveness” and “Leadership”—David In modern times, we welcome seven female figures in Jewish history who embody similar positive attributes. While the selection of these 7 individuals often differs, here is one assortment of female leaders that we recognize as Ushpizot. 1) Eve, for her passions and connection to the Earth 2) Sarah, for nation building and destiny 3) Leah, for motherhood, giving and selflessness 4) Miriam- for vision, initiative and expressiveness 5) Deborah – for leadership, strength and power 6) Beruriah- for intellect and wisdom 7) Ruth- for unconditional love It is in stark contrast with our High Holiday liturgy in which we often speak of our transgressions rather than the values that SHOULD define our lives. Values of vision, strength and initiative empower us to go forth into a year of “Yes I can” rather than “No I’m sorry.” No more beating our chests for the sins in our lives, but rather the positive attributes we should all embody. All this from harkening the call of our ancestors, the heroes of yesterday. From Moses to Miriam to Mariano. One might be confused why I can devote a speech to the evil empire with the knowledge of my Red Sox affiliation. In our evening prayers we recite the Hashkiveinu prayer asking for a “sukkat shalom”, a shelter of piece from our enemies. Isn’t Mariano Rivera my enemy? At the end of the day, Mariano Rivera is not my enemy. In a few weeks time, he will be something other than a baseball player. But to any Red Sox fan, “Mo” is what I’d call a “familiar face.” He hasn’t shared our clubhouse, our traditions, the inner workings of our organization, but we invite him into our sukkah, into Fenway, because maybe he has something to teach us about ourselves; reveal to us what we are made of. He is a frequent guest, a respected guest, a familiar face. The Ushpizin are not unfamiliar characters- they are some of the more prominent individuals from our Tanakh. They are meant to be familiar faces. For familiar faces have the opportunity to drive us to improve ourselves, to teach us, to remind us of some important values that can drive our lives. In its temporary nature, the sukkah acts as an open book, a glass house where everyone, close friends and even the casual acquaintance see right through. We are exposed. We can treat the sukkah like a shark proof cage- giving us a glimpse of the outside world while protecting ourselves from the harsh realities? We can glance at the gloomy cloud above dampening our chances to invite our acquaintances in to our lives. We can worry about spreading ourselves too thin. Or, our sukkah, in theory, can act like its counterpart, the chuppah, open on all four sides, ever expanding our social network in tangible, authentic way. Of all the ushpizin and ushpizot, of all the values that we are reminded of, be it wisdom, strength humility and so forth, two values ushpizin stick out. Our first male guest, Abraham, and our final female guest, Ruth, share the same value, unconditional love. We are taught “Vsmachta B’chagecha”- that you should rejoice in the holiday; our joy based on inviting friends and family but also giving to the needy in our community. We are often reminded of these two polar relationships in Judaism- those closest to us, and those on the fringes. Rarely, however, do we focus on those in the middle- the familiar face, the friendly acquaintance. Maybe it is time to bring them close to us as we gather in for our harvest season. May this holiday’s harvest be plentiful, may we share that plenty with all who we come in contact. May we seek out those familiar faces in our lives and deepen our relationships with them, for we never know what values they may teach us, what lessons we can learn. May we offer up unconditional love to all who enter the temporariness of our lives. If we are reminded of the values of Abraham and Ruth, of unconditional love, then next year, we can look at our Sukkah, acknowledge those Ushpizin who shared their love with us and joyfully proclaim, “This is the house that (Abraham and) Ruth built.” As a side note, here are the 7 “Rivera”ism that we can welcome on Sukkot: First day- The value of The Cutter; the out pitch. The cutter’s movement is created by Rivera’s long fingers and loose wrist, which allow him to impart more spin on the ball. Over 80% of his pitches are cut fastballs. To know that you have a way out when you are in a tough spot Second day: The value of Relief. He is the majors’ all-time regular season leader in saves (651) Third Day: The value of consistency. Rivera saved at least 25 games in 15 consecutive seasons Fourth Day: The value of Longevity. 19 seasons Fifth day: The value of clutch moments. 16 Postseason records Sixth day: The value of yesod, foundation. The Mariano Rivera Foundation, which helps provide underprivileged children with an education, distributes more than $500,000 in the US and Panama through church-based institutions Seventh day: The value of composure. Rivera, the closer, comes into the game at tense moments. 3 outs to go. Game on the line.

The Passion Conspiracy: Did the Jews Kill Christ or Was Jesus the Victim of Identity Theft? by Randy Weiss, Ph.D. This book is destined to change the way people view the events surrounding the death of Jesus and the Passion of the Christ! Jesus was arrested, tried, convicted and executed by 9:00 in the morning! Who knew? - Was it the Jews who killed Christ? - Are Evangelical supporters of Mel Gibson’s film justified in their overwhelming support? - What is the horrible secret of “The Great Passion Play” in Eureka Springs, Arkansas? - Are Jewish critics of The Passion of the Christ correct that the film is anti-Semitic? - Did medieval passion plays create havoc and death for Jews? - How does the history of Holocaust denial relate to the controversy surrounding the Passion? - What Jewish biblical realities were overlooked in Oberammergau, Ben-Hur, Jesus Christ Superstar, and by Mr. Gibson? The Passion of the Christ and most typical passion dramas imply that the Jews turned against their Messiah. Is this what the New Testament writers expressed? Dr. Weiss convincingly portrays an alternative view that a very small group of people were involved in the conspiracy to kill Jesus. Do you want to learn the identity of the true guilty individuals? THE PASSION CONSPIRACY: Did the Jews Kill Christ . . . or Was Jesus the Victim of Identity Theft? Book Price: $12.00 U.S. ISBN Number: 1-57376-004-8 Paperback 214 pp.

Events for all Levels and InterestsStay Jump Start Your Career GrowthStay Get on the Higher Ed IT MapStay Uncommon Thinking for the Common Good™Stay Chapter 9. Trends in Learning Space Design Chapter 9. Trends in Learning Space Design This chapter examines significant trends in learning space design, both in new construction and in renovation, and relates them to learning theory and technological advances. Three major trends inform current learning space design: - Design based on learning principles, resulting in intentional support for social and active learning strategies. - An emphasis on human-centered design. - Increasing ownership of diverse devices that enrich learning. These trends have been catalyzed by constructivism, digital technology, and a holistic view of learning. The emergence of the constructivist learning paradigm has led to a focus on learning rather than teaching. It allows us to reevaluate classrooms and to consider informal learning spaces as loci for learning. If learning is not confined to scheduled classroom spaces and times, the whole campus—anywhere and at any time—is potentially an effective learning space. That holistic view of learning presents challenges, however. First, the demands on student time and attention continue to grow; even residential institutions have over-scheduled students. Second, learning doesn't just happen in classrooms; learning also occurs outside the lecture hall. New strategies for enabling learning and accommodating the multiple demands on student time have led to rethinking the use, design, and location of learning spaces. The emphasis on learning means that we must also think about the learner. Learning spaces are not mere containers for a few, approved activities; instead, they provide environments for people. Factors such as the availability of food and drink, comfortable chairs, and furniture that supports a variety of learning activities are emerging as critical in the design of learning spaces—evidence of the second trend, giving consideration to human factors as integral to learning space design. The rapidly increasing accessibility of digital technology also has changed learning space design. Digital technology continues to advance at a frenetic pace, offering greater capability while simultaneously becoming more mobile and more affordable. Five years ago, most students purchased desktop computers; two years later, most purchased laptops. The implications are significant: more affordable and mobile technology facilitates greater access to content and resources. This enhanced access, in turn, has made it possible to implement a learning paradigm that emphasizes active learning, formative assessment, social engagement, mobility, and multiple paths through content. Although specific technologies may come and go, the enduring trend is technology becoming more capable, affordable, and mobile. Trend 1: Active and Social Learning Strategies Today, facilities that encourage learner participation are increasingly important in learning space design. Active learning, interaction, and social engagement will be significant in the future. Review of Learning Principles Over the past two decades, a great deal of research has focused on how people learn. Previously, teaching was most often a kind of "broadcast" of course content at regularly scheduled intervals, from an expert to student "receivers." The learning literature agrees that learning can be enhanced, deepened, and made more meaningful if the curriculum makes the learners active participants through interactivity, multiple roles (such as listener, critic, mentor, presenter), and social engagement (such as group work, discussion boards, wikis). Hence, it is no surprise that learning spaces—classrooms as well as informal spaces—have an increasingly important role in catalyzing this type of learning. Learning Space Design Genealogy The unrelenting pace of technology change can make IT decisions rapidly obsolete. While platforms and applications come and go, the psychology of how people learn does not. Constructivist learning principles, specifically activities identified as encouraging learning, can be translated into design principles that guide tactical decisions, ensuring that the designs we build and the technology we deploy serve a clear educational purpose. This suggests a design methodology with a clear "genealogy" having constructivist principles as the "parent" of design principles leading to specific tactics that support and enhance learning. Social interactions such as debate, discussion, and teamwork, for example, encourage learning, prompting a design requirement for rooms that can be reconfigured quickly for small discussion groups. If accepted, this principle leads to decisions such as selecting lightweight, wheeled chairs that permit easy reconfiguration of the room's seating. Or, consider metacognition—the learner's active assessment of his or her own learning. Such a learning principle might lead to the creation of explicit points or locations that will encourage and enable this self-assessment with the instructor's assistance. Locating faculty offices in the learning commons might facilitate this, giving students ready access to mentors for guidance and assessment. Active and Social Engagement The traditional layout of auditoria and lecture halls has rarely provided for social engagement among students. No doubt we all have many classrooms whose floor plans look essentially the same. This arrangement is not conducive to discussion among students; the design optimizes instructor transmission. In the traditional classroom floor plan, students receive content, packaged and presented with a "one size fits all" approach, regardless of the learners' unique needs or styles. There is an increased emphasis on alternatives to a simple transmission model of pedagogy. Personal response systems, videoconferencing capabilities, floor plans that foster face-to-face contact among students, technology that supports the sharing of computer screens, and virtual whiteboards indicate a shift in learning spaces to support how people learn. Many signs herald a move toward active and social learning spaces. Interest in informal learning spaces stems from the realization that informal spaces are particularly conducive to working spontaneously and deliberately in small or medium-sized groups. "Rethinking" informal space is characterized by coordinating architecture and technology to create powerful learning environments based on floor plans, furniture, and technology. This rethinking embraces services and products such as wireless networks and plasma screens supported by partnerships among units, such as the library and IT. Trend 2: Human-Centered Design The trend toward human-centered design is embodied in the shift from the information commons to the learning commons. The term "commons" means "land or resources belonging to or affecting the whole of a community," according to the Oxford American Dictionary, which seems particularly pertinent to the trend of human-centered approaches in learning space design. The notion of the commons is evolving, with an increasing emphasis on users and the range of services learners require; the learning commons illustrates human-centered design. A quick glance at past practice helps us appreciate the significance of current directions. Through the 1990s, accessing digital resources was a challenge, requiring the use of a computer beyond the financial reach of many students; a minority of students owned laptops. The challenge for most institutions was simply giving students access to computers to do their work. The cost of computers and scarcity of space meant providing clusters of computers in specified areas for student access, echoing the design of transmission-style classrooms. This approach implicitly assumed that access, by itself, was sufficient. With access established and basic operational questions resolved, the students and faculty presumably were empowered to accomplish their academic tasks. Students in particular were assumed—then as now—to know everything about computers. Moreover, the assistance provided was scattered across multiple offices and delivery points, which might have served the support units but not the students and faculty. Today, given the increasing proliferation of information technology, the need for basic access is not as acute as a decade ago, allowing the focus to shift from the provision of basic access to that of integrated services to aid learning. This shift has given us the leeway to evolve our notion of what the commons is and does. Increasingly, the commons is a locus of integrated support services, including assistance for research, computing, writing, media preparation and production, academic skills, and English-as-a-second-language training. Now explicitly designed into the commons are spaces for both individual and group work. In some cases colocated offices for faculty encourage more direct work with student teams. Food and drink have made a significant comeback—an important factor in humanizing the space. The learning commons is human-centered. The term learning signals a significant change: the focus is not just finding information but applying that information in productive ways to deepen and strengthen learning as well as to construct knowledge. Learning, not information, is increasingly the focus. The move away from transmission to constructivist learning and developments in technology has enabled this redefinition of the commons. If the constructivist model reflects how people learn, a more human-centered design of learning space is a positive change. (See Table 1.) |Table 1. Repositioning the Commons| |Information downloaded||Information created, integrated| |Individual workstations||Social work setting| |Isolated support delivery||Integrated support| |Students only||Faculty too| |7 x 12 access||7 x 20 access| |"No talking!"||Whiteboards abound| The increasing integration of computing technology into the mainstream of daily activity enables this transition. One size may be adequate for all, but it's not particularly good for any given learning activity. Learning spaces in the 21st century need to foster discovery, innovation, and scholarship, not simply contain them. Building spaces for learning has always involved collaboration among a variety of campus groups, including students and departmental faculty. As the emphasis on supporting learning activities rises, more ownership shifts to faculty and students. They are assisted, rather than led, by architects, builders, and facilities professionals. Learning environments should be developed by those who will use them.1 Faculty and students are the product experts, while the architect is the space development expert. Shifting the focus to users of the space links the process to the human-centered design outcome. It also emphasizes learning activities rather than resources as the driving factor: people and learning, not managing capital goods, must take precedence. The critical difference in the design processes lies in: - Creation of a systems design requirements document with input from a wide variety of faculty, students, teaching and learning professional staff, facilities staff, and security and maintenance professionals. - Formation of an integrated product team whose job it is to respond in real time during construction to issues, questions, or problems that inevitably arise so that the resulting learning space carries through with the intention of the requirements document. Systems Design Requirements An initial prerequisite to building a space that increases learning effectiveness is understanding what kinds of teaching and learning activities the space should enable. This entails identifying the demands for curriculum, learning, laboratory, and workshop activities that the space must meet. With a clear definition of the learning goals, space design becomes grounded. Critically important is identification of the clients who will use the space, a process made easier when the space is designed for a specific department's needs. When the college or university claims the space, an analysis of the pattern of use of becomes essential. In many cases a small number of departments habitually use the same classrooms simply because of common seating requirements for their courses, without regard to the amenities or technology available in the rooms. Building classroom spaces without a defined client base results in a design that meets no one's needs optimally. Learning Activity Analysis Determining what activities the space must support is perhaps key to distinguishing a well-designed learning space from a room in which activity happens. Learning mode analysis (LMA) characterizes learning activities in terms that affect space design. For example, prior to engaging in the renovation of MIT's Guggenheim Laboratory, home of the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, university representatives articulated learning activities considered critical for students to master.2 Knowing what students should learn permits defining the learning activities necessary to achieve mastery of critical subjects; this generates an LMA description. Once the activities and their consequences for space design are known and prioritized, architects can design spaces for these activities. Integrated Product Team Inevitably in any construction project, discrepancies emerge between the ideal and the reality. A process for responding to this gap is a normal part of the construction process. Learning-centered design differs in that the group responsible for addressing these gaps includes the original clients—faculty and students. The trend toward a more human-centered design requires that the people who teach and learn in the built space remain engaged throughout the process, ensuring that effective teaching and learning remains the focus. Trend 3: Devices That Enrich Learning The pace of technology change makes it increasingly difficult for colleges and universities to provide a robust, contemporary technology infrastructure. Students are entering college with a variety of personal technologies, from MP3 players to computers. With the burden to provide access to technology shifted, technology to support learning moves into focus. Colleges and universities have the opportunity to redirect resources previously dedicated to computer labs to leverage the technology students bring to campus. This requires a focus on software implementation and interoperability rather than buying and deploying standard technology. The shift represents a significant change, but the resources that students carry with them are potentially powerful academic tools whose capabilities go well beyond their value for recreation and entertainment. With the explosion of MP3 players, a tool for distributing audio content already is in student backpacks. Duke University's iPod experiment3 provides an example of how a consumer music player can provide portable digital audio and other types of content (iPods function as a portable hard disk as well). Duke identified five major use categories: - Course content dissemination: dissemination of prepared audio content such as lectures, songs, historical speeches, and foreign language content - Classroom recording: personal lecture/discussion capture - Field recording: field notes, interviews, and so on - Study support: replaying audio content, whatever the source, for studying - File storage and transfer: simple file transfer and backup, especially for media files. Institutions participating in these types of experiments have found a close connection between the distribution infrastructure for audio content and the user experience. iTunes and the iTunes Music Store (iTMS) make distribution of music or any other type of content simple. iTMS is, after all, just another digital repository "tuned" for music, podcasts, and now video. As students arrive on campus with laptops or other computing devices, they will need applications to support their coursework. Resources once spent buying hardware are being redirected to applications. Software deployment options range from an application server environment that works with many different client computers to building installer packages to load institutionally licensed applications on student-owned machines. Tools such as Citrix Presentation Server virtualize the delivery of Windows and Linux applications.4 Only the student's PC needs to run the virtualization client that connects to the presentation server on which the application runs. Most institutions have already deployed software for students to install on their personal machines. Unfortunately, the technology for installation is not matched by the business models of software vendors who presume a one-to-one relationship between a software purchase and the student's machine. Custom delivery of software requires more flexible and effective licensing models. Thumb Drive Virtual Environments As the capacity of USB flash memory drives (UFDs) increases (up to 8 gigabytes at the time of this writing),5 these raw data storage devices can also serve as self-contained portable application environments. While campuses would still provide keyboards and screens, UFDs could be connected to a basic PC. Students would carry their digital computing environments on their UFDs, equipped with bootable operating systems, a suite of applications, security tools, and even a biometric identification feature so that a lost UFD could not be accessed easily by someone other than its owner. Companies like U3 or NCD Systems assemble applications on UFDs and also provide build-your-own developer kits. Moving from an enterprise-central infrastructure to personal silicon may cause us to reconsider the economics, scalability, and functions that support student learning. Device convergence rouses speculation about the future of cell phones, PDAs, MP3 players, and computers. Using cell phones to better support teaching and learning has largely focused on extending the short message service (SMS) communications function to support interactive personal response services (PRS). Students in Japan use cell-phone messaging to take quizzes in class. Student book purchases, now enabled by Internet textbook stores, are automated in redesigned self-service bookstores through the e-wallet cell phone (Sony's FeliCa Contactless IC technology combined with NTT DoCoMo's Internet services iMode; see http://www.nttdocomo.com/services). Controlling Lab Experiments from a Browser The Internet promises to extend student access to resources that are in short supply, expensive, dangerous, or otherwise inaccessible to them. Browsers have made astronomy observatories, scanning probe microscopes, and scanning electron microscopes available to researchers around the world.6 These applications are moving individual, unique implementations to a services-based architecture, grounded in Web standards that will allow access by large numbers of students. Both technical and economic challenges affect access to scientific devices. The technical issues revolve around establishing a common infrastructure for a range of experiment types using Web services. The economic challenge entails developing a mechanism that allows faculty to share experimental devices without taking on the extra work associated with additional users. A priority scheduling system ensures that researchers' needs are served while sharing extra capacity with students. A scalable software architecture for offering real experiments to students opens otherwise inaccessible opportunities to distance learners. On residential campuses, experiments brought into the classroom can give students more control over their "lab work." With the right approach, the entire campus can become a learning space.7 The three trends highlighted in this chapter underlie this emerging reality: design based on learning principles, human-centered design, and personal devices that enrich learning. Our growing understanding of how people learn affects the configuration of learning spaces and the technologies supporting them. The constructivist paradigm supplants knowledge transmission as the guide for learning spaces, encouraging more thoughtful space planning. It also necessitates a proactive process to ensure that these learning spaces deliver value. Human-centered design helps us keep people—not the latest technology—in the forefront of design decisions. With access no longer driving technology deployments, a focus on the "why" rather than the "how" of learning space design becomes possible. You can't build effective spaces for learning without clearly understanding the learning activities intended for them. Our focus on enabling learning spaces has also shifted to a much more personal view. The technologies that students bring to campus are eclipsing the technologies colleges and universities can supply, broadening our concept of learning spaces to anywhere, anytime learning on residential, commuter, or virtual campuses. The shift from teaching to learning pervades the future design of learning spaces, with learning theory guiding technology implementation. John D. Bransford, Ann L. Brown, and Rodney R. Cocking, eds., How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition (Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 2000); online edition available at <http://www.nap.edu/books/0309070368/html/>. Arthur W. Chickering and Zelda F. Gamson, "Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education," AAHE Bulletin, vol. 39, no. 7 (March 1987), pp. 3–7, available at <http://learningcommons.evergreen.edu/pdf/fall1987.pdf>. M. Suzanne Donovan, John D. Bransford, and James W. Pellegrino, eds., How People Learn: Bridging Research and Practice (Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 1999); online edition available at <http://www.nap.edu/openbook/0309065364/html/>. - Edward F. Crawley and Steve Imrich, "Process for Designing Learning Spaces, Case Study: The MIT Learning Lab for Complex Systems," PowerPoint presentation at the 2004 NLII Fall Focus Session, September 10, 2004, Cambridge, Mass., <http://www.educause.edu/LibraryDetailPage/666?ID=NLI0442>. - Edward F. Crawley, "Creating the CDIO Syllabus, A Universal Template for Engineering Education," presented at the 32nd ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, Boston, Mass., November 6–9, 2002, <http://www.cdio.org/papers/creating_syll_fie.doc>. - Yvonne Belanger, "Duke University iPod First Year Experience Final Evaluation Report," June 2005, <http://cit.duke.edu/pdf/ipod_initiative_04_05.pdf>. - Other software providing application virtualization includes Softricity, <http://www.softricity.com/products/index.asp>; Trigence, <http://www.trigence.com/>; and Meiosys, acquired by IBM as announced by an IBM press release, <http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/7755.wss>. - Described in an M-Systems press release, "M-Systems Celebrates Five Years of DiskOnKey USB Flash Drives with the Introduction of a New Whopping 8 Gigabyte Density," <http://www.m-sys.com/site/en-US/Corporate/PressRoom/PressReleases/2006/NR060104-3.htm>; and Edward Mendelson, "The Ultimate USB Key," PC Magazine (August 17, 2005), <http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1849710,00.asp>. - See the Internet2 Web site, Remote Instrumentation, <http://science.internet2.edu/remote.html>; Electron Microprobe Laboratory, University of Minnesota–Twin Cities, Department of Geology and Geophysics, Remote Access, <http://probelab.geo.umn.edu/remote.html>; and the Web site for California State University Channel Islands (CSUCI), Academic Programs, Virtual Instrumentation Access at CSUCI (VIA-CI), <http://viaci.csuci.edu/>. - William J. Mitchell, "Rethinking Campus and Classroom Design," PowerPoint presentation at the 2004 NLII Fall Focus Session, September 9, 2004, Cambridge, Mass., <http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/powerpoint/NLI0438A.pps>. About the Authors Malcolm Brown is the director of academic computing at Dartmouth College. In this capacity he oversees IT support for teaching, learning, research computing, classroom technology, and media production. An area of particular interest is learning theory and its application in the classroom. He has presented on these topics at the EDUCAUSE conferences and seminars and has participated in EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) focus sessions on learning spaces, as well as in Project Kaleidoscope's learning space design workshops for liberal arts colleges. A practitioner as well, he has taught courses on topics in intellectual history in the Jewish Studies program at Dartmouth. Phillip D. Long is a senior strategist for the academic computing enterprise at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the director of learning outreach for MIT iCampus. He provides direction in applying MIT Information Services and Technology resources to support the integration of technology into the curriculum. He leads the MIT iCampus dissemination effort, freely sharing MIT-developed educational technology tools to support active learning and scalable Web services for undergraduate instruction. He publishes regularly in educational technology magazines.

Normally on a Sunday when we celebrate the Lord's birth, I redirect myself away from whatever series we're doing and give a special Christmas message, but there were many who prevailed upon me to continue our unfolding story of the parable of Luke 15. And so that's what we're going to do this morning. Turn in your Bible to the fifteenth chapter (baby crying)...there's one complaint already. I regret that. I hope there aren't very many more. But for those of you who are guests with us today, you'll accept my apologies. We go verse-by-verse through the Word of God and we are in the middle of such a compelling and dramatic story that we would find it very difficult to put it off for a couple of weeks, we'd lose so much ground. And so Luke 15 is our text and back to the story that Jesus told, the parable starting in verse 11 and running to the end of the chapter. And with our message, this morning and next Sunday morning, we will bring this story to a conclusion. It is a simple story. Jesus told it on one occasion but for us it's taken about five or six to get it down. And that's because we have to fill in so many cultural gaps and we have to learn how people at the time thought and responded in order to capture the meaning of it, it's been so very, very rich. It is known as the story of the prodigal son, but it is really a story about three people who are identified at the beginning in verse 11. Jesus said, "A certain man had two sons." It is the tale of two sons and a loving father and in a sense it is the story of salvation. It is the story of why God came into the world, why He was born in Bethlehem, why He entered humanity. He came to bring us salvation. He came to bring us forgiveness. He came to bring us reconciliation. In the end, He came to bring us joy and to bring Himself joy. So many of the songs that are sung at Christmas celebrate joy...the joy of salvation. Not only our joy in salvation, but the joy of God. Not only the joy of being reconciled but the joy of being the reconciler. As much joy as we experience on earth because of our salvation in Christ, there is far greater joy around the throne of God in heaven as God Himself rejoices over the salvation of sinners. That is the theme of this whole chapter. And in fact there are three stories in the chapter. You probably know the first one is about a shepherd who lost a sheep and found it and had a celebration. The celebration is indicated in verse 7, "Joy in heaven over one sinner who repents." The second story is about a woman who lost a very valuable coin and found it. Called her friends to rejoice and in the same way, says verse 10, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. When the angel said on that Christmas morning to the shepherds, "Behold, I bring you good new of a great joy," it was exactly so. Joy not only for sinners saved, but joy for saving God. All of heaven celebrates the salvation of one sinner. And I ended our message last week by saying God is not waiting for the end of sin and suffering in the world to start the party in heaven. God is not waiting for some great event in which a million people are saved or a hundred thousand or ten thousand or a thousand, or even a hundred. Heaven celebrates one sinner who is recovered, one sinner who is saved. And as sinners are saved day after day after day, as the redemptive purposes of God go on in the world, the joy never ends, the joy of heaven never ceases. Heaven's joy, as this whole series tells us, is found in recovering the lost. We rejoice in our salvation through Christ and He rejoices and God rejoices and the Holy Spirit rejoices and the angels rejoice and all the glorified saints around the throne rejoice. And so we sing at Christmas, "Joy to the world, the Lord is come." He came to bring salvation to bring joy to us and joy to the angels and most importantly, joy to Himself. The salvation provided in the gift of Jesus Christ produces the joy of God, and that's what this story is about. It's illustrated in a shepherd's joy when he finds his sheep, a woman's joy when she finds a coin, and a father's joy when a wayward son comes home. Verses 11 to 32, probably the most familiar of Jesus' stories, the story of the prodigal son. Everybody knows a little bit about that story, but it really is not the story of the prodigal son, that's just one third of it. It's about a prodigal son, a loving father and a very dutiful son. A younger son who lives openly in wickedness and immorality and disregard for all conventional thinking, all moral standards, doing only what he wants to do when he wants to do it, the way he wants to do it, and pays the consequences, it's also about an older son who's very devout apparently to his father, stays home, does everything that he's supposed to do, does it the way his father wants him to do it. Fits into the conventional expectations of the religious community around him. Performs admirably. One would be classically the bad son, and the other would be the good son. And in the middle, touching both lives profoundly is this amazing figure of the loving father. Now it is important in understanding this story, we've been telling you this, to understand that these people were highly sensitive to the idea of honor and shame. You did everything in your life basically in order to sustain your own honor, or to achieve your own honor, because that's what was so important. It was very, very important to be an honorable person, it was a works/righteousness system. You earned your way into favor with God by being good and being religious and being moral and toeing the mark and walking the line and dotting all your I's and crossing all your T's in terms of the standard for behavior in the community. Very important that you maintained your honor that way and that you were respectable and honorable and that you didn't do anything to shame yourself. The Pharisees, who believed themselves to be honorable, they were the leaders of Jewish religion. They believed they were the architects of what honor was and they also were the definers of what shame was. They had concluded that Jesus was a shameful false Messiah, that He was in fact not of God at all, but of Satan. They said the worst about Him that could be said. They said He did what He did by the power of Satan. And for their evidence, they said look at the kind of people He hangs around. We see at the beginning of the fifteenth chapter another occasion where all the tax gatherers and the sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. He attracted the worst remnant or element of the society, the outcasts, the flotsam and the jetsam, the scum, the nobodies, the lowlifes, those who had been excommunicated from the synagogue, socially untouchable. People that the Pharisees wouldn't go near lest their supposed purity be somehow polluted. In fact, that was their criticism, wasn't it, in verse 2 about Jesus, "This man receives sinners and eats with them." Anybody who socializes with sinners betrays that he belongs there. And so as they are of Satan, so must He be of Satan. Well, Jesus needs to defend Himself. He needs to defend Himself that He is not of Satan, He is of God. And so He's telling them three stories to demonstrate this. He is among them because they're lost like the sheep the shepherd had to go and find. He is among them because they're lost like the coin the woman had to go and find. He is among them because they're lost like the sinful prodigal son that the father receives and embraces because he was lost and now he's find. Do they not understand the heart of God? No they don't. Don't they understand that heaven's joy is not in the self-righteous 99 sinners who think they need no repentance? Don't they understand that God's joy is found in the salvation of sinners? How far from God they are. They don't know God at all, these Pharisees and scribes who criticize and malign Jesus. And these stories are intended to make that clear. The third story is really the main one and I won't go through all of it. You know the story. But everything in it is a shameful thing as the Pharisees sort of sit back and listen to Jesus, they're the audience, telling the story. It's a head shaker and an eye roller from the beginning. Oh, it's one outrageous thing after another that violates all their conventional sensibilities. First of all, the younger son makes a shameful request. He asks for his estate now. Well you didn't get it in that culture until your father died. This is tantamount to saying, "You're in my way, I wish you were dead. Since you're not dead, act like you're dead. Give me what's mine." Shameful, unthinkable in that culture of high honor for of all people the father of a family. And then the father acts in a shameful way with a shameful response. He gives him what he asks. What father would do that? A father should slap him across the face and punish him, tell him, "Absolutely not. I will not be so dishonored." But a shameful request is followed by a shameful response, the father gives him what he wants. This is the request of the sinner to be as free as he can be from God, as free as he wants to be to fulfill his desires and his lusts. And you now what? God gives the sinner just that freedom. You can take your sin as far as you want. You can take it as deep as you want, as high and as wide as you want. You can go into every nook and corner that you choose to go into. You have that freedom. And so he does. The shameful request and the shameful response is followed by a shameful rebellion. We know the story in verses 13 to 16. The son goes away into a far country, leaves Israel, as it were, goes into a forbidden Gentile land, unclean. So unclean that a Jew coming back would shake Gentile dirt off his clothes so he didn't bring it into the land of Israel. He ends up trying to eat the food of pigs, the unclean animal, working for a Gentile for no pay but just the right to fight the pigs for the carob pods that they're eating. It is a rebellion that hits rock bottom. He wastes his substance, involving himself with prostitutes and whatever other wasteful things he can do. Runs completely out of a fortune which his father gave him which he turned into cash as fast as he could at a discount sale. And now he's got his cash, he wastes it and it's gone and then a famine hits and he has no resources and he ends up with the pigs. The shameful rebellion is followed by a legitimate shameful repentance. He feels badly in verses 17 and 19. He says, "Look, I have nowhere to turn, I'm going to die. I'm hungry. My father pays the people who are day laborers who work for him and he pays them more than they need," which is to say he's kind, he's generous, he's a good man and I know my father and I know he's compassionate, and I know he loves me and I know if I go back he'll be willing to accept me on some terms. So I, he says, will go back, verse 18, to my father and I'll say, "Father, I sinned against heaven," that is another way of saying my sins have piled as high as heaven, this is a full confession, holds back nothing. "And I'm telling you I have sinned as high as heaven, you know it, I've done it right in your face. I am no longer worthy to be called your son." This is the stuff of real repentance. Comes to his senses, evaluates his sin, evaluates where it's taken him, evaluates that he has no resource within himself to change it. I'll go back, I trust my father. He will accept me on some terms. I'll offer to work for him as a hired man. Not a household servant, that would be too much, not a son, that would be way too much, I'm not worthy of it. But I'll earn my living day wage, the lowest person on the social-economic ladder. That was the Jewish view of repentance. You feel sorry, you go to God and you say, "Okay, God, what do I need to do?" And God says, "Well, you're going to have to make restitution. You're going to have to work it all off. And if you work long enough and you're faithful and you do your religious duty and you do your righteous works and you're moral and you're good, then maybe down the road somewhere when you've brought it all back and you can completely restore what you've wasted, we'll have potential reconciliation. But you've got to do it to the end." That's the way they viewed repentance. Salvation in the legalistic system of Judaism, and in any other legalistic system in the world and all religions are a form of works/salvation except true Christianity, they're all the same, good people go to heaven, people who are religious who do good things. If you do them long enough and well enough, that's going to be how you get to God. And he had that conventional kind of thinking in the story, Jesus makes him a Jew subject to Jewish thinking and so he says I'm going to go back and earn my way into the favor of my father. I'm going to earn my salvation. I'm going to do whatever it takes for as long as it takes to get my way back into my father's house and into his treasures and into his heaven. And so he comes back. Now remember, the Pharisees are listening to all this and they're saying, "This whole thing is a big story of shame...a shameful request, a shameful response, a shameful rebellion, a shameful repentance." He's going to come back, "Ah, now the father's going to do something honorable." But the father gives the son a shameful reception. Amazing, verse 20, "He gets up, comes to his father. He arrives in stinking garments that smell like a pig." He has nothing at all, he's destitute, absolutely bankrupt, absolutely nothing. His father seems him a long way off which indicates the father's actually been waiting for him, hoping for him, suffering in silence in his absence, loving him even while he's gone. The father sees him, feels compassion for him and ran...he runs right through town, which a nobleman in the Middle East do not do. That is unacceptable shameful behavior. First of all, you don't let your legs be shown in public. And we went into that in detail. But he runs and he runs through town to get to the boy before the boy gets to town because when he arrives in town, the whole community is going to heap scorn and disdain and mockery on him because that's what they're supposed to do. That's part of his penalty for the way he behaved toward his father. The father takes the shame that should belong to the son. He does a scandalous and shameful thing, runs through town before the son ever gets there, saves him from the shame, throws his arms around him, kisses him all over the head, which is tantamount to saying, "You're a son and I receive you as a son. All is forgiven, all is past. Trusting in me and coming, repenting of your sin is all I ask." And all that can come out of the boy's mouth in verse 21 is, "I've sinned against heaven and in your sight, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son." And he drops the part about being your hired man because that's irrelevant now he has been reconciled. And here is the glory of salvation, folks, God forgives the one who asks and who repents without any works, with nothing to commend him in his filthy rotten stinking rags as a beggar who possesses nothing and who can earn nothing. This is gracious salvation. But to the Pharisees, it was ridiculous. They didn't understand grace at all. All they understood was you earn your way in. This was outrageous, shameful, shocking. This father just continues to do dishonorable things. Nobody would do that. When the son comes back, you don't see him for a few days, you make him sit in town and take the scorn for a few days. And finally you might give him an audience and all you're going to say is, "This is what it's going to take, you do this, you do it for this many years and you give me everything you earn and we'll see if you can ever earn back the part of the estate that you wasted. And if you do, then we'll be reconciled." That's what they would expect. That's what was honorable. That's what he deserved. That's what he should get. That's not what the father gave him. The father's reception was a shameful thing in their minds. And the shameful reception goes into a shameful reconciliation in verse 22. The father not only takes him back as a son, but he gives him full privileges. Bring the best robe, put a ring on his hand, sandals on his feet. What is the robe? Honor, this is the most important garment in the family owned by the father, worn by the father at the most prestigious events the family ever conducted or was engaged in. Give him all the family honor that is possible to give him. Then take the signet ring which you used to stamp official documents which gives him freedom to act and authoritatively to act on behalf of the family with all the family resources. And then put shoes on his feet. Servants are barefoot, hired men are barefoot, but masters and rulers and sons wear shoes. Give him full sonship. Give him full power of that sonship, full authority and full honor. This is a picture of salvation. When the sinner comes bankrupt with absolutely nothing, cast himself on his father's mercy, says, "I've wasted everything, my sin is as high as the heaven. I've sinned against God, I've sinned against you. I can offer you nothing. I'm willing to work." Then the father embraces him in love and says, "You don't need to work, I give you full sonship with all rights and privileges, all honors, all authority. That's salvation. Why does the father do that? Because it gives him joy. In verse 23, what the Pharisees would see is a shameful celebration, "Bring the fattened calf, kill it, let's eat and be merry." The father's joy, the heavenly Father's joy is found in the sinner who comes home and repents and is forgiven. This is the joy of God. Verse 24 says, "This son of Mine was dead." You remember, I told you when he left they had a funeral for him, he was out of the family. But he's come to life, he was lost, he's been found and they began to be merry. This is the third party in this chapter. There was a party when the sheep was found. There was a party when the coin was found. And there's a huge celebration when the son that was lost is found. That's the whole point. What makes heaven rejoice is the salvation of sinners and that's why God sent His Son into the world. The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost, not just for the joy of the sinner, not just for the joy of Christ, but for the joy of God and the joy of the Holy Spirit, the whole Kingdom of God, says Paul the apostle, is joy. And when we get to heaven it's going to be one long everlasting celebration. Now that gets us up to speed. And at this point, the third character enters the scene, the older son. Verse 25, it's going to take us two weeks to dig into this because it's really interesting. Now most people say the older son, oh yeah, he was the Christian. Yeah, he was the believer who was at home doing what he should. That's not true. No, that's not true at all. The older son, fascinating what Jesus does here, the older son...now you've got to understand, you're the Pharisees and the scribes, the legalists, you're sitting there listening to the story, everything everybody has done up to now is shameful, everything. You're just waiting for somebody to do what you perceive as the right thing. The son did shameful things when he treated his father. The father shamefully gave him what he asked for and shamefully took him back and shamefully lavished love on him and shamefully forgave him and made him a son without any works and shamed himself again by giving him all honor, all authority, all power, all leadership. And then shamed himself further by calling the whole community to come together and celebrate a massive feast over this wonderful reconciliation. I mean, the whole thing is shameful. Now here comes somebody who will do something that the Pharisees think is the honorable thing to do. This is our boy. This is our guy. Verse 25, "And in..." By the way, meeting him, they meet themselves. This is their guy. This is they. "His older son was in the field." Now he's been out in the field working that day as much as landowners work, sitting under a shade tree making sure everybody else does what they need to, overseeing is what they do. In fact, noblemen in the Middle East didn't usually work. That was somehow beneath their dignity at a certain point. But anyway, he was out in the field. What strikes me is that the father hasn't told him anything. The father certainly hasn't been looking for him. The father hasn't sent a messenger out to the field wherever he was to say, "Hey, hey, hey, your brother's back and we're going to have a party, come on in, greet your brother, embrace your brother, rejoice with me and help me get this party off the ground." Because, look, he was the number one primary party planner in the family. That was the job of the firstborn son, he had the responsibility to carry off all the events of the family, particularly those that were designed to be in honor of the family. And the party was in honor of the family, not so much the son who came back, but the father who took him back, reconciled him. And the whole village game together to give honor to such a loving gracious merciful forgiving reconciling father. But nobody bothered to tell him. The father doesn't go to him. Why not? Wouldn't you listening to the story? You say, "Why didn't somebody go get him and bring him back?" The answer is, he has no relationship to the father. The father knows he has no interest in his brother, he proved that at the beginning of the story when he didn't try to stop his brother from doing what was terrible. He had no interest in his father, proved that by not intervening between his brother and his father to stop his brother from such a dishonorable act toward his father. In fact, he took his part of the inheritance gladly, never defending his father's honor. He has no relationship to anybody in the family. Being out in the field is sort of a metaphor for where he was in terms of that family. The younger son was in a far country, this guy's in a far field. But the symbolism there is they're both way off from the father. They both come home but to very different receptions. So he's out in the field. The day ends. It says he came and approached the house. And since he hadn't up to that point heard anything, there must have been an indication it was a pretty big estate. This father has a great estate where someone can actually be far enough away you don't even know when a huge celebration involving hundreds of people is going on at your house, which is a way to indicate the greatness of the Kingdom of God. But he comes back and he approaches the house. And he says, "He heard music and dancing." Now again, everything up to this point has been shameful. Shameful request by a younger son, granted in a perceived shameful reply by the father, the son acts in a shameful rebellion, ends up making a shameful repentance, the father gives him what they perceive as a shameful reception, reconciliation, a big rejoicing celebration...it's all just against what all of them believe to be right. They're drawn into the story now. They've been making critical judgments all the way along. Jesus was a master at this. He pulled his audience right into the story. They had to make ethical judgments all the way. Simple story, understandable, ethical elements of the story, they sit in the position of making the ethical judgments. There they are, the experts on honor and shame, having been surprised and shocked and outraged by the conduct of everybody, they are about to find somebody they like who turns out to be them. It's brilliant stuff...brilliant stuff. They understand nothing of divine grace, they resent divine grace, they don't understand the loving heart of God. They don't understand His mercy and tenderness, compassion, forgiveness and desire to reconcile with sinners. They know nothing of that. That's why they don't understand why Jesus, God in human flesh, spends His time with sinners. This is the one guy that makes sense to them. They resent the unholy son. They see him as the opposite of their own self-righteous selves and they think the father is some kind of a fool for shaming himself in the way he treats this simple son. But finally they have somebody they can identify with, somebody who knows what honor is. And he comes to approach the house. Not having been included in anything at all. The father knows that. He knows he has no interest in him. He knows he has no concern for his joy. He knows he doesn't care about his younger brother. He knows that. He has no love for his father, no desire to honor his father, no respect for his father, no interest in what pleases his father. He has no compassion on his father's grieving heart for the wayward son. He doesn't care at all about his brother. He's a Pharisee, he is a Pharisee. He pretends to stay in the father's house, to be dutiful, to do what the father says, to hang around, to get what he wants, to get approval and affirmation and wealth and land and community prestige. He wants to appear religious. On the outside he upholds all the conventional modes of external honor. So he comes and he hears the music and the dancing, the sumphonias(?) and the choros, from which we get symphony and chorus. It's a party. There's music and in those days the men danced in a circle, men only, and there was clapping and singing. There would be instruments included in the music. In fact, sumphoniasis originally a double pipe but it also in some Arabic translations is used to refer to voices together. So voices, instruments, dancing, the whole thing is going on. It's a celebration. The fattened calf has been killed. What they did was not filet it, but they chopped it up into slabs of meat and they would cook it in chunks in the bread ovens. And they would start the party in a very imprecise way, life was not nearly as by the clock as it is today. The day was over, the work was over, the announcement would go out, come, killing the fattened calf. The son is home and people would begin to come when they arrived and they would come and they would eat and the meat would continue to be cooked. And it would be continually cooked for hours and the singing and the celebrating would go on into the night as the ebb and flow of this wonderful celebration took place. Well it's already on its way. It's already full-blown when the older son arrives. And again an indication that he probably came a long way, indicating the greatness of the father's estate. He is stunned. He is shocked. He is surprised. He is confused. But mostly he is suspicious, because legalists are always suspicious, particularly of joyful people. And by the way, something this big wasn't ever planned in a day. This was planned by months and months and months of preparation. And not with him as the center of it. He is, after all, the owner of the land because the estate has already been divided, though he doesn't take possession of his part until his father's death, it is already assigned to him. These are his resources. This is then his calf and all the rest of the things that are going on are using the things that actually belong to him and he hasn't even been consulted. Here's the biggest event that the village has ever known, the biggest event the family's ever known and he doesn't even know anything about it. He doesn't even know it's happening until he shows up. This too is another outrageous act on the part of the father who just continues to do shameful things in their minds. It's an insult. And so, he arrives. "And when he approached the house he heard music and dancing,"and then it should say, "And he rushed in to his father and said, 'Father, what's all the joy about?'" But he doesn't do that. If he loved his father, he would have rushed into the house and said, "What's going on? What's going on?" And his father would have said, "Your brother's home," and he would have embraced his father and rejoiced with tears because he knew his father loved his brother. He knew he had ached in his heart as long as he was gone, and he knew he had gone out to look for him day after day, even though he didn't know he was back...noone had told him yet. Whatever made his father rejoice would make him rejoice if he loved his father. But he has no love for his father at all, he has a love for himself. It's all about him and his property and his reputation and his prestige. So in verse 26 it says, "He summoned one of the servants." Servant actually is paidion here and it's from paisin the Greek which means a young boy. All the family servants would be inside. They would be taking care of all the guests. As I said, a hundred to two-hundred guests wouldn't be unusual to eat a fattened calf. Not everybody ate a huge 16-ounce piece. And the fact is they didn't eat a lot of meat except on special occasions and then not a lot. But on the outside there were young boys and what this tells us a little bit about that Middle Eastern culture, the adults would all be inside, they would all be in the house having...in the courtyard of the house having this great celebration at some point, and out on the fringes would be the kids that didn't get to come, but they were sort of the perimeter celebrators, you know? The fringe participants, the young boys would all hang out on the edges because this is a huge event. And this would be the first group that he would meet as he comes in and the first ones he runs into after he hears all this are these young boys. So, verse 26, "He began inquiring what these things might be." This is shocking. What in the world...I go to work, it's a day like any other day. I go out there to sit under the tree and make sure everybody's does what they're supposed to. I come in and you've got the biggest celebration ever. What is going on? And why wasn't I consulted? And how is it that I don't know about this? And he says to him, verse 27, "Oh, your brother has come." Oh-oh, that should have filled his heart with joy. That should have been enough that after that was said he rushed in because he knew how his brother's life had started out when he left. He must have been so anxious and excited to find out how that whole thing had ended up. He knew his father's heart had been broken when his brother left. He knew how he regularly looked for him and longed for him. If he loved his father at that point, he would have immediately run in. But it really was fear that his brother would come back. "Your brother has come and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has received him back safe and sound." His worst fears, his brother came back, oh, and his father...what?...received him. This outrageous conduct is more than this older brother can bear. Look at the phrase "safe and sound," that's a funny thing, isn't it? An Old English colloquialism that seems to last in our modern translations. It's actually hugiainoin the Greek from which we get hygiene and it basically means wholeness, well-being. But in the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament, that word is almost always connected to Shalomwhich means...what?...peace. That's really what he's saying. It's not that he's not physically hurt, it's not limited to that. He's received him back in peace. This is not just good health, this is Shalom, this is peace of a full reconciliation between a father and son. It isn't his son came back and the father told him to sit at the edge of town for a week and think about what he had done until he gained a right to talk to his father and then he'd give him the things he needed to do to earn back his reconciliation. Not that. The father received him and he received him in Shalom, he's made peace. Shalomforever. That's why there's a party. There wouldn't be a party if he had come back and had to work for the next twenty years. This...this is the worst possible scenario because now the father is using his resources on this party. The son has already depleted the whole family treasury by taking his half, selling cheaply and leaving which meant that that whole thing couldn't grow so that the older son when the father did die would have more. Now he's back depleting more of our family resources. And the foolish father is using those resources on him. The son is the favorite guest at the banquet but the banquet is really in honor of the father. The town is there to celebrate a father who's that merciful and gracious and kind and loving in reconciling. You see, that's the picture of heaven's joy. And a legalist who thinks you earn your way to heaven doesn't understand that God's joy is found in justifying the ungodly, that God's joy is found in forgiving the sinner who is bankrupt and has nothing. The older son, that's why his worst fears have come true. His brother's back, his father has embraced him, this is outrageous. And for the first time in the story the Pharisees are saying, "Yep, that's exactly the right attitude, that's exactly what he should feel. He should be outraged. We are outraged. This whole story is just one outrage after another." And so he can't be a part of a shameful event. His son has shamed himself. His father has continually shamed himself. He's gotten the whole community involved in this shameful celebration. And he's not going to be a part of it, verse 28, "He became angry and was not willing to go in." Of course not. And that's the answer to the original issue, isn't it? The Pharisees said, "Look, you receive and eat with sinners. You have a banquet with sinners. How can you do that?" They didn't understand that God's joy and God in Christ, Christ's joy was in receiving repentant sinners, prodigals, profligates, the immoral, the outcasts. But for a legalist, that's outrageous conduct, absolutely outrageous. But what you see is he had no love for his brother. He didn't rejoice in his brother coming back, anymore than he cared when his brother left. He had no love for his father. He didn't rejoice with his father anymore than he defended his father at the beginning when his father was hearing the request from his younger son. This is no believer. This is no Christian. This is a typical religious hypocrite standing on the outside condemning the gracious work of salvation. He's angry. That's the only emotion he feels. And you know what? The Pharisees and scribes think it's right and they're saying, "Yeah, we're angry too, we'd be angry too. We'd feel exactly the same way. This is absolutely unacceptable conduct." Legalists don't believe in grace. They don't understand unmerited favor. They don't understand free forgiveness. They don't understand the removal of punishment. They don't understand somebody else bearing their shame, taking their scorn. They don't get that. And he will not go in. And so here is a public display of private hatred. He'd probably done a better job of hiding his hatred than that in the past. He probably had the community believing that he was very respectful of his father, honored his father, maybe even cared for his father. And he stuck around the house. He did whatever his father wanted him to do. And everybody probably thought he had some love for his father. But here his real attitude comes out. He cannot enter into this joy because he has no love for God and he has no love for the sinners God is recovering. This is religious hypocrisy. It's still in the world today, it's everywhere. They're all over the place. People who look like they hang around the house of God but they don't know the heart of God. They're trying to earn their way to heaven which is the greatest deception that Satan has ever invented and it is the characteristic of every false religion on the planet. When salvation comes only to those that are spiritually bankrupt, destitute, impoverished and fall on their faces as beggars before a God they trust will be willing to forgive them, and repent of their sins, and then they receive His lavish love and all that comes with it. But legalists don't like that. How can you do that? How can you just do that when he didn't deserve it? It's all about what you deserve and what you earn and what you gain and how good you are. So the older son has the perfect opportunity if he chose to to honor his father. But the truth is, he's a rebel. He's not an outward rebel, he's an inward one and they're worse. He's a secret sinner. He feels all the same lusts that his brother felt, but he hides them because legalism never changes your flesh. He feels the same lusts, the same longings, the same desires, but he caps them and never fulfills them because he has a stronger desire for prestige and honor and to gain his father's estate and to be well thought of. And so he's driven by pride more than he's driven by baser things. But the base things are still there. And now all of a sudden we know that he hates his father and hates his brother. We know that he's indifferent to the recovery of his brother and indifferent to the compassion of his father. He can't rejoice with either one. And that's exactly the way the Pharisees were. When you think about a hypocrite, you have to think a little more deeply than the surface. Hypocrites stay near the house of God. They hang around. They're religious. They're moral. They have no relationship to God. They have no desire to honor Him. They have no interest in His honor or heaven's joy. It's all about their own self-promotion thinking somehow they can earn their way into the good will of people and even God. The truth is, they're completely alienated from God, no part of what God does like the son in the field, not even consulted about the things that move the heart of God. Religious hypocrites do what's expected on the outside. They follow the external religious and moral patterns. But inside they're just filled with secret sins. Jesus said about them, on the outside they're painted white, inside they stink and they're full of deadmen's bones, like rotting corpses. Under the surface they are filled with bitterness, hatred, jealousy, anger, lust. And then as I said, the older son is likely in real life envying the prodigal. The prodigal gets to do what he would never do, but desires secretly to do. He would hate seeing his brother live it up in the very sins that he openly condemns but inwardly desires. He's like all hypocrites...sad, morose, melancholy, empty, unfulfilled, hiding his heart under the burden of a superficial religion. And he feels like he earned his praise. He earns his position. He earns his reward. He earns his honor by his rigorous painful loveless obedience, performing the duties while capping his secret sin. Well the truth is, the hypocrite is lost and more profoundly lost because he spent his whole life convincing everybody he's good and it's a long ways from there to admitting you're really wretched. Whereas if you're like the prodigal and you have made it clear that you're wretched, it's a short step to admit it. Self-righteous hypocrites hate the idea of salvation by grace alone. They hate the idea of full forgiveness for repentant sinners. They will not come to that party. They will celebrate. Hypocrites are more deadly to any religious environment because they set a tone for the kind of conduct that kills spiritually and eternally. You don't need to repent. You're good. The 99, back in verse 7, so-called righteous persons who don't need to repent, and as long as you don't need to repent like the prodigal, you can't be saved. You can't enter the Kingdom of God. Jesus came to save sinners, self-confessed, repenting sinners. Repentance is the key to everything. This son, he has no interest in that. He has no knowledge of God, no love for Him and no love for sinners. Really there are two kinds of sinners in the world...the religious ones and the irreligious, the moral and the immoral, those that hang around the things of God and try to keep the Law, and those that run as far as they can and live in wild wasteful immoral living. But the Father is there for both. Whatever kind of sinner you are, Jesus came into this world, born into this world in order to live and to die and to provide salvation for both kinds of sinners and all those in the mix in between. Well the story isn't over. There's one final scene, when the father goes out to confront the older son. And at this point, the ending is so shocking, you don't want to miss it next Sunday. Join me in prayer. It's an incredible thing, Father, to dig into these great truths. How such a simple story can have such profound meaning. O Lord, how we thank You for sending Jesus Christ into this world for that great event which we celebrate today on this lovely Christmas day. And may it be a day when our thoughts are toward Christ, the Savior, born into the world, born that He might die for us, born that He might run the gauntlet for us, bear our shame, our scorn, bear our punishment, to throw His arms around us and kiss us and reconcile us as sons. We pray, God for the prodigals who are here, the younger sons who haven't yet come to their senses, who haven't yet realized that they're in a foreign land and they're bankrupt spiritually and they're bankrupt morally and they're left with nothing but to crowd in with the pigs to eat the scraps when they could come to You to a loving forgiving reconciling Father who has everything they need and more and who waits to put a robe of honor and a ring of authority and shoes of power and responsibility on their feet and start another heavenly celebration for their homecoming. I pray for those, Father, who might be hearing me now who are out in that far country having wasted their lives and I pray, O God, that You would prompt them to come now to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to come in the name of Christ to a God who forgives completely and instantly lavishly pours out on the sinner eternal blessing. Shalom forever, full sonship. And, Lord, also I'm sure there are some of those older brothers here this morning who have been religious and dutiful and moral and gone to church and kept the Law and done all the little religious duties that their prescribed religion required and they kind of feel like they're on the upside of more good than bad and they just think it's all kind of adding up to their benefit and they're going to earn their way back. They're going to be one of Your hired men and they're going to go out there and they're going to work and they're going to be good and religious and in the end you're going to give them reconciliation because they earned it. Father, may they see themselves in the Pharisee, may they see how horrible it is and how distant such an attitude is from You. They don't know Your heart. They don't know what pleases You. They don't know that You wait to forgive sinners when they repent and believe in You, apart from anything they do. There are religious sinners who need to come to the celebration, come and repent and have You throw Your arms around them and kiss them. We pray, Lord, that You would work Your work in the heart of all who have not yet returned to the Father's house. May they know He's waiting if you come in the name of His Son, seeking forgiveness and salvation, He gives it with all the rights and privileges. This is the glory of the Christmas gift in Christ. Father, we thank You that You sent Your Son to be our Savior, Jehovah saves, Jesus, to give His life for us. We thank You that it is because of His sacrifice and His bearing of shame, because He was willing to take the just, the right punishment for our acts of dishonor and rebellion we have acceptance now with You in His name. We celebrate this Christmas the gift of Christ, not as a babe in a manger only, but as a Man dying on the cross. He came, He was laid most likely in a wooden manger and at the end He was nailed to a wooden cross and therein is the great reality of the incarnation that is at the heart of the redemption that You desire because it brings You eternal joy. We rejoice with You, Father, and we can't wait till the heavenly party, until we're there to celebrate with all the hosts of glory. Until then may we be faithful to proclaim the message of Your forgiveness in Christ's name. Amen. Have a blessed Christmas.

Recipe by Torrerizor "This recipe is really unique as it doesn't use a thickening agent, and is very versatile!" Hmm. None of these ingredients are on sale today. Show ingredients on sale Sort stores by Save money at local stores when ingredients are on sale! Watch video tips and tricks skinless, boneless chicken breast halves - cut into chunks ground black pepper 1 1/2 cups grated Parmesan cheese As many others, I increased the flavor with the butter, onion, garlic and pepper. I used half and half for less calories and thickened the sauce with a little flour. (I also used a whole wheat pasta.) Easy recipe! Husband gave it a thumbs up! I added onions and garlic to the pan with olive oil and a little tarragon. The dish was good but I think it needs something to "thicken" the sauce better. I used half and half and it curdled a little. Next time, I'm going to add some chicken broth to pan and a little flour/butter mixture before the cream and see if that makes a difference. Made this for the family. It was a big hit. As other reivews suggested, I sauteed garlic in butter with chicken and mushrooms. I also added extra heavy whipping creas and it turned out perfect (I used 2 cups instead of 1 1/2 cups). Family requested that I fix this again. Just made this for the first time and it was wonderful but I added 5 cloves of FRESH crushed garlic and increased the cream to 2 cups. I also added about 1 teaspoon of basil for a little color & flvor and will add fresh broccoli the next time. The sauce WILL thicken - just give it TIME! It is worth the wait! This was very good! I did make a few changes; I used half-and-half instead of heavy cream to make it a bit lower in fat, and put about a teaspoon of corn starch to make it thick. I cut out the butter and used spray instead, and I also sauteed the mushrooms separately in a touch of white wine for some flavor ant it turned out really well! I will definitely make this again! This was SO good!!! Very rich and creamy. The only changes I made were to increase the cream to 2 1/2 cups and I added 2 cloves of fresh crushed garlic to the chicken mixture. Also, I new the sauce would thicken but it does as it reduces so I used about 1 tsp. of corn starch mixed in a little water, then added to the sauce. It thicken up real fast without reducing too much! This was so good, better than restaurant fettuccine! I was very impressed considering how easy it was! This is a keeper!! i use the same recipe but i also add some rosemary. try it this way and hope u'll like it I made this for dinner last night and my family loved it. I could tell by looking at the recipe that it might be bland (that is why only 4 stars), so I sautee'd onion and garlic in the butter before I added the chicken and mushroom.. awesome * Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Homemade Chicken Fettuccine Serving Size: 1/4 of a recipe Servings Per Recipe: 4 Amount Per Serving Calories from Fat: 395 Celebrate Passover with Jewish main dishes, desserts, and traditional holiday foods. Choose your Easter dinner main dish from hams, savory lamb, and over 150 more recipes. Delicious recipes, party ideas, and cooking tips! Get a year of Allrecipes magazine for $7.99! See a lighter but still delicious version of chicken fettuccine Alfredo. What's cooking in Ellington? This creamy, satisfying linguine. Make homemade fettuccine with or without a pasta machine.

Monday, February 20, 2012 As I was web surfing for grist for the blog mill tonight my eyes fastened on this heading, "Is the Church a Hospital?" I instantly recognized this cliche from way back in my own churchianity days, when the blinders were still on. It was another one of those many cliches the church had to cover up their own failures, sins and the reason nothing ever changed. The church had become home to those who had "bloomed where they were planted", and faded there, and kept there for fear of leaving due to various threats such as the accusation of being a "church hopper", if you dared to check out other local churches in the area because just maybe you were sick of the one you were in. Well, except for the all too frequent new comer, dysfunctional sinner, someone had invited to church,(the hospital), where they were supposed to get fixed, but usually didn't. Anyways, I was thrilled when I saw this heading because I just knew it was right up my alley. I've been saying for a long time now, the church is NOT the place for sinners, but yet, as you drive down the streets and highways, you will often see billboards inviting sinners into the church with an advertisement saying, "Sinners Welcome", or something similar. Folks, this is one of the biggies why I left the church. I was literally attacked by the church leadership for not being more "accepting", "loving" and "tolerant" of downright sin and perversion going on in the church, right under their nose. I had become the problem, not the grinning sinners waving bye bye to me from the front door of the church as I beat my final exit. The most blatant and cruel form of spiritual abuse goes on inside the church walls. The church is "supposed to be" by all scriptural accounts the spotless, holy BODY OF CHRIST, Jesus Christ's representatives in a sinful world, the Bride of Christ without spot, wrinkle or blemish. If you are presently going to a church, can you honestly say this describes your church? Friends, most mainstream churches bear no resemblance whatever to the early church, the church Jesus set up in the book of Acts. What's more, please....if you are struggling with the inward feeling that you are in one of these pseudo-churches, pray for guidance that Jesus would help you leave this Babylonian harlot and find a godly fellowship. I hope Evelyn, of http://exitchurchianity.wordpress.com/2009/09/07/the-church-is-a-hospital/won't mind my copy and pasting this to the blog. Click on the Title, (above) to go directly to her wordpress blog. Awesome stuff! ALL credit goes to her and Jesus for her brilliant and insightful writing. I hope to lean on her often for more of her genius and experience in warning innocent travelers about the pitfalls of "doing church". "There’s this cliche (popular saying) in the organized church that “the church is a hospital”, but I’ve been thinking about this cliche lately. I wonder if it’s true. Is it Biblical? God symbolizes His ppl in many ways in Scripture, such as a flock of sheep, a Body, a Temple, a House, a Bride, a Vineyard, & an army. But did He ever symbolize us as a hospital?? People in the organized church say that “the church is a hospital” because it’s a place where the sick can come & be healed. Well…sorry to say, but I don’t see sick ppl coming into the organized church & being healed of sin. I see sick ppl TAKING OVER the pews & the pulpit, & spreading their sickness everywhere. I see sheep trying to get well, only to be led BACK INTO their sickness by sick shepherds & sick goats. I see ppl getting sicker than they were when they came. Is the church a hospital?? If so…I would have to liken the organized church to a hospital that practices conventional medicine, & here is why… The ‘conventional’ medicine industry is controlled by the ruling elites. Therefore, it is the predominant (most popular) medical industry. Many ppl assume that conventional medicine is the best option because it’s popular…but it’s only popular because it has a powerful propaganda machine behind it that is fueled by the richest families in the world. Their goal is to use human beings as cash cows, encourage sickness, KEEP ppl sick, & reduce the population (especially unwanted groups such as minorities, poor whites, the mentally ill, the elderly, & the disabled) thru sickness & poisonous ‘treatments’ that create additional health problems. Most hospitals practice ‘conventional’ medicine. Not because it’s the most effective, but because many years ago, the Rockefellers punked Western medical schools & hospitals from teaching & practicing natural medicine. The Rockefellers threatened to take away their license, fine them, shut them down, & imprison them if need be. So medical schools & hospitals quickly succumbed to the Rockefellers, who controlled the ‘conventional’ medicine industry at that time, & did not want any sort of competition. Once again, the goal of the ‘conventional’ medicine industry is to use human beings as cash cows, encourage sickness, KEEP ppl sick, & reduce the population thru sickness & poisonous ‘treatments’ that create additional health problems or flat-out kill ppl. There are a # of ways that this is accomplished… They do not treat the ROOT CAUSE of sickness, they only treat the symptoms. They claim that they do not know the root cause of sickness, in order to justify why they haven’t discovered or created a cure yet. This conditions the sick not to expect a cure…but to be a repeat patient. They keep coming back to the hospital for pills, surgery, chemotherapy, & radiology to treat their symptoms. For this reason, hospitals are not full of ppl who are healed. They are full of repeat patients that are not being healed. Their symptoms temporarily disappear then return, just like a weed temporarily disappears when its branches are trimmed…but eventually grows back because it wasn’t pulled up by its roots. Even many of the nurses & doctors are sick, but ppl trust them with their lives because they have been indoctrinated at “medical schools” to practice ‘conventional’ medicine. Their patients provide a residual income for the ‘conventional’ medicine industry. This reminds me of the organized church. The root cause of sin (a sinful heart) is not being treated. People are only dealing with the symptoms. This is why there are so many books, tapes, & dvd’s on the 7-laws of this & the 5 steps to that. People want a quick fix that can trim the branches of their sins, but it’s only behavior modification. Behavior modification sounds & looks nice OUTWARDLY…but it’s only for a season. Since the sinful heart is not being dealt with by the Holy Spirit, ppl eventually return to their vomit. This reveals that they only had a FORM of godliness, but denied the power that could make them godly on the inside. Just like ppl in hospitals say that they’re “waiting on a cure”, ppl in the organized church say “I’m waiting on God to deliver me from that” or “God hasn’t delivered me from that yet”, but the problem isn’t that God hasn’t arrived to deliver folks from sin yet. IF God is in you, then He is ever-present to deliver. The problem is a lack of repentance & a lack of perseverance/endurance. How dare we return to our vomit & then blame it on God by saying that He hasn’t delivered us from that yet. Freedom from sin is always available IF we abide in Christ’s Word…but do we want to?? The Word says that by Jesus’ stripes we are healed from our sins, but many ppl only misuse that verse to name & claim physical healing. They don’t apply it to being healed from sin (which is the proper context of it). The organized church is not full of ppl who are healed. It’s full of ppl who are groveling in their vomit & making up excuses why they commit adultery against God. Instead of abiding in God’s Word to be set free from sin, they misuse His Word as a sin-crutch…to coddle themselves in their sins & make themselves feel comfortable living in darkness. Are ppl profiting from misusing the Scriptures in that manner?? 2 Tim 3:16 says that the Scriptures are “profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,” *reads it again* NOPE, I don’t see anything in this verse that says the Scriptures are profitable to coddle us in our sins. There are SO many cliches in the organized church that condition ppl NOT to expect a cure for their sin. They are programmed to DIS-believe God’s promise to heal us & set us free from sin. They say “we’re all just sinners, no one’s perfect, we’ve all fallen short of God’s glory, God knows my heart, you can’t judge me, God looks past my faults & sees my need, etc.” All of these cliches that ppl use to condition themselves to REMAIN in sin & live below God’s New Covenant standard make me want to scream. I am tired of hearing them. I am tired of the “woe is me. I’ll never be set free from sin, so I might as well get comfortable in my vomit” mentality. I am tired of the “I’m glad that God’s grace covers my sins, because I’ll never overcome them” mindset. Is that what being a Christian is about? Being saved from hell, but not saved from sin??? Being forgiven, but not being delivered?? Being translated into the Kingdom of God, but not being transformed by the renewing of our mind?? Did Jesus call us out of the world, to add us to a so-called “hospital” that doesn’t heal folks?? I think I’m going to create some cliches about deliverance from sin & living holy! Will they catch on like wildfire?? Probably not… People ignore the parts of the Bible that talk about deliverance from sin, then they cling to the parts of the Bible where God promised material prosperity to His Old Covenant ppl, even though that promise was NOT made to the New Covenant saints. Is that what being a Christian has been reduced to?? Getting rich, but not getting well?? False shepherds in the organized church have a lot of explaining to do, because they are not being healed either. They spread their sickness across the congregation by committing adultery, watching porno, financially soliciting the poor, lording it over the sheep, stealing, teaching doctrines of demons & false traditions, binding heavy requirements on men’s shoulders, making disciples that are twice the sons of hell as themselves, & doing everything else that Jesus forbid in Matthew 23. Peter wrote about these false shepherds in 2 Peter 2: ” 17 These people are as useless as dried-up springs or as mist blown away by the wind. They are doomed to blackest darkness. 18 They brag about themselves with empty, foolish boasting. With an appeal to twisted sexual desires, THEY LURE BACK INTO SIN THOSE WHO HAVE BARELY ESCAPED FROM A LIFESTYLE OF DECEPTION. 19 They promise freedom, but they themselves are slaves of sin and corruption. For you are a slave to whatever controls you. 20 And when people escape from the wickedness of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and then get tangled up and enslaved by sin again, they are worse off than before. 21 It would be better if they had never known the way to righteousness than to know it and then reject the command they were given to live a holy life. 22 They prove the truth of this proverb: “A dog returns to its vomit.” And another says, “A washed pig returns to the mud.” Godly elders are supposed to train up the saints in righteousness…not lead them back to their vomit. It’s almost like ppl are being saved out of the world by Jesus, only for some false shepherd to lead them right back into the world. These false shepherds are exact opposite of God’s standard for elders in Titus 1:6-9, yet ppl trust them with their soul. How can they teach anyone how to live holy, when they themselves are unholy? How can someone who is unclean teach others how to be clean??? Romans 2:21-24 – “Well then, if you teach others, why don’t you teach yourself? You tell others not to steal, but do you steal? You say it is wrong to commit adultery, but do you commit adultery? You condemn idolatry, but do you use items stolen from pagan temples? You are so proud of knowing the law, but you dishonor God by breaking it. No wonder the Scriptures say, “The Gentiles blaspheme the name of God because of you.” & in another place it says “Many will follow their evil teaching & shameful immorality. And BECAUSE OF THESE TEACHERS, THE WAY OF TRUTH WILL BE SLANDERED.” (2 Pet 2:2) Jesus said that He came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Those who are well do not need a doctor, but those who are sick. But no one who comes to Christ for healing/salvation from sin STAYS sick. The Gospels show that when ppl sought Jesus for healing, they were made every whit WHOLE, they were HEALED. The ppl that Peter shared the Gospel with in Acts 2 didn’t stay the same, they experienced a CONVERSION/CHANGE of heart. Their fellowship was truly unleavened (pure & healthy). This is the way that the Body of Christ should be. So how do we deal with those who are sick? We share the Gospel with them, we lovingly rebuke them, and correct them…but if they are unrepentant they do not belong in fellowship with the saints. “Don’t you realize that this sin is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old “yeast” by removing this wicked person from among you. Then you will be like a fresh batch of dough made without yeast, which is what you really are. Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed for us. So let us celebrate the festival, not with the old bread of wickedness and evil, but with the new bread of sincerity and truth. When I wrote to you before, I told you not to associate with people who indulge in sexual sin. But I wasn’t talking about unbelievers who indulge in sexual sin, or are greedy, or cheat people, or worship idols. You would have to leave this world to avoid people like that. I meant that you are not to associate with anyone who claims to be a believer yet indulges in sexual sin, or is greedy, or worships idols, or is abusive, or is a drunkard, or cheats people. Don’t even eat with such people. It isn’t my responsibility to judge outsiders, but it certainly is your responsibility to judge those inside the church who are sinning. God will judge those on the outside; but as the Scriptures say, “You must remove the evil person from among you.” (1 Cor 5:6-13) Apparently, Paul didn’t view the Body of Christ as a hospital full of sick ppl. He viewed us as a fresh batch of dough made without yeast (unleavened bread). The Body of Christ should be an assembly of saints who are living in the experience of healing from sin…not dwelling in sickness. The nature of sin is that it spreads…it is unwise to let strangers in the sanctuary, or tolerate ppl who call themselves Believers that are living in sin. Their sins will spread like a plague among those who have just escaped from the pollutions of the world. They will lay stumbling blocks before those who are striving to walk upright in the Spirit. Jesus said “But if you cause one of these little ones who trusts in me to fall into sin, it would be better for you to have a large millstone tied around your neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea.” (Matthew 18:6) I truly believe that the organized church operates much like modern-day hospitals that practice ‘conventional’ medicine. They talk about deliverance, freedom, & healing, but they’re not really interested in ppl being set free from sin, because that’s not in their best interest. If ppl begin abiding in Christ’s Word, they will become HIS disciples, & then they will KNOW THE TRUTH, & the Truth WILL SET THEM FREE. The organized church wants ppl to be disciples of their organizations & false shepherds. They want ppl to abide in their word & false traditions. The organized church want ppl to stay bound in sin, so that they will continue seeking “a word from the Lord” thru the false shepherds who themselves are bound in sin. The more repeat patients the organized church has, the more ppl there are in the pews, putting their money in the collection plate to fund salaries & more buildings to house MORE repeat patients. & the vicious cycle continues… The Pharisees operated the same way in the Gospels. They burdened ppl who were already in sin, by laying false traditions and man-made teachings on their shoulders. This kept the ppl bound in sin, so they had to keep coming to the Jewish Temple to buy expensive animal sacrifices which were offered up for their sins & ceremonial cleansing. These expensive sacrifices NEVER made them CLEAN/HEALED. It only put money in the pockets of those who sold the animal sacrifices, & the Pharisees who ran the Temple. Jesus messed up the Pharisee’s cash flow & corrupt religious system, because He taught the TRUE WORD of GOD with authority from the Father & told ppl to FOLLOW HIM. As ppl began following Christ, they were set free, & the Pharisees began to lose control of the ppl. Today, I see the Bride of Christ waking up & beginning to follow her True Shepherd–Jesus Christ. She is leaving the false shepherds who tried to make merchandise of Her & burden her with man-made rules, & she is rejoicing in her blood-bought freedom & the healing hand of the Master’s touch. I believe that this passage is prophetic of the Church in this hour: “Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity! & He laid His hands on her, & immediately she was made straight, and glorified God.” (Luke 13:12-13). God is loosing us from our infirmities & making our crooked places straight. We are leaving the way that seems right to man, and following the way of Christ. Since the false shepherds did not have a heart to strengthen the weak, heal the sick, bind up the broken, bring back what was driven away, nor seek what was lost…God Himself is delivering His flock from all the places where they were scattered on a cloudy and dark day. He is breaking the bands of Babylon’s yoke from the necks of His sheep and delivering them from the hand of those who enslaved them. Modern-day John the Baptists see the Bride of Christ awakening & preparing to receive her Bridegroom, & rejoice: “He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease.” (John 3:29-30) But the modern-day Pharisees are angry, embittered, & threatened: “The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, “You see that you are accomplishing nothing. Look, the world has gone after Him!” (John 12:19) The Pharisee’s livelihood depended on sick, repeat patients…& so does the organized church. I don’t think this will change because of what I see in Revelations 17-18. Nor am I interested in trying to reform a Babylonian Harlot that is hell-bent on sleeping with every Tom, Dick, & Harry, & silencing anyone who speaks against her abominations. In Revelations 18, God said to come out of Babylon…He didn’t say to reform her. If you’re in a Babylonian ‘church’ where ppl are sick & folks aren’t being healed from sin, get out of there & follow Jesus. Fellowship with like-minded Christians who are being healed & set free from sin. You will know them by their good fruit (love). Beware of folks who say that “the church is a hospital” but they’re not getting well or being made whole. Paul warned us about these impostors in 2 Timothy 3:1-9.

Did You Know? Facts, Figures & Folklore about the Jewish Holiday of Passover March 31 : 08 days till 1st night Passover Did you know that Jews are prohibited from eating bread and other fermented grain products during Passover? This prohibition is a reminder of the fact that the Jews left Egypt in such haste that they did not even have time to let their bread rise. Instead, they baked unleavened bread, or matzah, on their backs as the fled from the Egyptians. Spring has arrived and with it comes the eight-day Jewish holiday of freedom. It’s time to clean out your chametz, open up a box of matzah and set up for your seder. So join our Passover festivities to learn all about this pinnacle holiday in the Jewish calendar. We’ll be presenting a new “Did You Know?” fact each day as we countdown to the first night of Passover on April 08th (begins at sundown)! So stop by again tomorrow.

Around 15-20 years ago in NYC, I wandered into a little shul on West 79th Street called the Carlbach and found a Jewish scene like none other. As a girl from the deep south, I had never experienced this kind of Judaism. It was spiritual, fun and uplifting. There was an old Rabbi who led the congregation, and he was the man himself. Shlomo Carlbach had an engaging presence that I will never forget. It introduced me to a new type of being Jewish and I remember running to that shul on many Saturday mornings for yet another dose. When he was there himself, it was like being on another orbit. So, you can imagine my delight while sitting in a dark theater on Broadway watching the new play Soul Doctor, I was brought back to that time. My only complaint is that while he was alive and I was sitting in a room with him, I didn’t talk to him about his story. His history. Because it is more interesting than I ever imagined. The real Shlomo Carlbach, and that is who the story is about, grew up in Vienna and came to America as a young boy. Daniel Wise, the story’s author, explains how he studied to follow in his father’s footsteps as an Orthodox Rabbi but found flaws in their type of praying. So he became the “Soul Doctor,” starting at Columbia University, introducing a new type of hippie Judaism, one with instruments and song. He traveled to San Francisco during the Summer of Love and created a movement, inspiring many unaffiliated, lost souls to observe religion in a new way and eventually took that movement around the world. Along the way, he met Nina Simone, a singer who hadn’t quite made it yet, and their friendship is the subplot of this play. Bonding over their similarities the abuse endured in slavery and Nazism, they spent a lifetime learning about music and life from each other, and it was a fascinating friendship. Having a personal connection story to the story certainly made it interesting but my mother, who came along, was enraptured and mesmerized by the music, dancing and story that she never knew. Eric Anderson, who plays Shlomo Carlbach, is pretty terrific and holds a presence almost similar to the man himself. I was surprised to hear that the actor isn’t Jewish in real life after the show, but he nonetheless embodied the soul of a great Rabbi. Amber Iman is equally as charming and brilliant as the famous soul singer and she is an integral part of the story which opens in 1972, at a concert in Vienna, where she introduces Carlbach as ‘my soul brother-from-another-mother.’ I’m thrilled to be giving away TWO tickets to Soul Doctor on Broadway! To win, just comment below and let me know if you’ve ever the story about Shlomo Carlbach and Nina Simone. You can get additional entries by doing one of or more of the following: – Follow The Culture Mom on Facebook. – Follow The Culture Mom on Twitter. – Follow The Culture Mom on Pinterest. Winners will be selected randomly. This giveaway will end on Wednesday, August 28th at noon EST. Winner will be posted here, on the Culture Mom Facebook page and via email and will have 24 hours to accept their prize. Disclosure: I was not compensated to write this post, however the tickets for the giveaway are sponsored by the production.

Ritual follows four dancers as they rehearse in the studio. Their preparation is prayer-like, full of repetition, meditation, ecstasy, and reflection, reinforcing the sacredness of daily practice. Set to poetry by Black and Jewish spoken word artist Aaron Samuels, Ritual’s text reflects on his family memories of Passover, an ancient Jewish tradition that celebrates freedom from oppression. Interview with Director/Producer Stacey Menchel Kussell Main photo: Doron Perk, Xavier Townsend, Isaies Santamaria Perez Congratulations! Why did you make your film? For many years, I have been wanting to create a film about the sacredness of daily ritual, and the sense of order and reflection that these practices give people. I attended an artist's retreat (Asylum Arts) in the spring of 2016, and I received a grant to make a new work with other artists in the network. I chose Aaron Samuels to create original poetry and Carlos Metta to create and mix an original score for the film. Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this film? Ritual balances dance, poetry, and music in new ways. The audience member can take something different from each genre as well as sit back an experience them all together. The film, as described in the text, reflects on the Black and Jewish heritage of the poet. The Passover holiday is very much about freedom from oppression. The film showcases the tenacity and fight needed to keep up traditions in the face of difficult circumstances. How do personal and universal themes work in your film? The film's themes are very personal to me. Before getting into film and journalism, I was a professional dancer and I spent many hours of my life in the studio. Even more than the stage, I think the studio is a spiritual place for dancers. It is a place to sort out problems physical and emotional, and to create order in the head and the body much the way a person might seek this out in prayer or mediation. On a more universal level, I think the film reflects on resilience and asks bigger questions about what motivates us to keep our rituals and continue returning to our practices. How have the script and film evolved over the course of their development and production? The process was a real evolution. I started first brainstorming with Aaron over the phone and Skype, about rituals and Passover, and he wrote a new poem based on his family's experiences during the Passover seder. From the text we decided on two stanzas, and Carlos composed the score with this text in mind. I gave the written and recorded poem to the dancers in the film and they all created improvisations based on the poem as well as their own personal rituals. My camera crew and I filmed their improvisations and warm ups, and from that footage my editor and I sculpted the choreography shown in the film. It wasn't so much that the original idea changed, but as the process moved along, the project developed its own energy and story. What type of feedback have you received so far? So far, the feedback has been really positive. Both dance audiences and non-dance audiences alike have felt the film has evoked a lot of emotion, and have been really taken with the combined visual and audio effect of dance set to poetry. Has the feedback surprised or challenged your point of view? This is the first time I am putting out a film direct to social media, so I am fascinated by the different reactions. A few observations have been challenging, but overall I am learning a great deal form the process. What are you looking to achieve by having your film more visible on www.wearemovingstories.com? I hoping that a feature here will allow the film to be viewed by larger and more diverse audiences. Who do you need to come on board (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists) to amplify this film’s message? It is a short film, so I think those more connected to social media and journalism would be very helpful, as well as film festival directors. What type of impact and/or reception would you like this film to have? I would hope this film is thought provoking, and the audience is pushed to think about rituals in their lives, and similarities of these experiences across regions, cultures, or beliefs. What’s a key question that will help spark a debate or begin a conversation about this film? What are your rituals? What drives you to keep these traditions in your life? What are the key creatives developing or working on now? I am currently working on a new film about women's fitness and pregnancy called Expecting featuring, American Ballet Theater principal Michele Wiles the film is in post-production due for release in fall 2017. Interview: April 2017 We Are Moving Stories embraces new voices in drama, documentary, animation, TV, web series and music video. If you have just made a film - we'd love to hear from you. Or if you know a filmmaker - can you recommend us? More info: Carmela Director: Stacey Menchel Kussell Producer: Stacey Menchel Kussell Featured Poet: Aaron Samuels About the writer, director and producer: Director/Producer: Stacey Menchel Kussell is a writer and filmmaker that focuses on dance, Jewish history. Her first film Renewal premiered at Lincoln Center in 2015, and her written work has appeared in The Forward, Dance Magazine, and Tablet Magazine. Featured Poet: Aaron Samuels: Aaron Samuels is a critically-acclaimed writer and speaker. His debut collection of poetry, Yarmulkes & Fitted Caps was released on Write Bloody Publishing in 2013. Key cast: Featured dancers: Navarra Novy-Williams, Doron Perk, Makeda Roney, and Xavier Townsend Social media handles:@staceymenchelkussell, @poetryaaron, @elmetta, @curlgirlfit, @doronperk, @itmustbex Facebook: Stacey Menchel Kussell Looking for (producers, film festival directors, journalists): Funders: Asylum Arts and ROI/Schusterman Foundation Made in association with: Where can I see it in the next month? On Youtube and Vimeo

Barf BagWelcome to Barf Bag, a daily politics roundup to help you sort through the chaotic Trumpian news cycle. Trump had a quiet day, a good sign or a bad sign? Only time will tell... Here’s all the shit we couldn’t cover today: - Here’s a list of 14 Jewish Community Centers across the US that received bomb threats today. [ABC 7] And in Philly, hundreds of Jewish gravestones toppled. [ABC] Trump has been in office for one month. - The White House is expected to support an investigation into the death of Navy SEAL William Ryan Owens, an inquiry demanded by his father, who also reportedly refused to meet Trump when Owens body was returned to the US. White House press secretary Sean Spicer said in a briefing Monday there will probably be three investigations; one into Owens’ death, one into the death of civilians, and one into a wrecked helicopter which was left behind. [Washington Post] - Donald Trump gave an exclusive interview about the Oscars to Breitbart, you’re welcome to find the link yourself. - Should you ever feel like giving up, remember one thing—plagiarist Benny Johnson still has a job. Wonder who gave him this tasty exclusive... [IJR] - Marco Rubio says town halls used to be fun and blames the liberal activists for ruining them. They’re “not town halls anymore,” he told CBS4-Miami’s Jim DeFede. “And I wish they were because I enjoy that process very much.” [CBS Miami] - The Supreme Court today entertained debate over whether North Carolina may ban sex offenders from using certain social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. The court seems likely to allow the law to stand, citing social media as a “marketplace of ideas,” god help us all. [New York Times] - Virginia governor Terry McAulife says “I don’t know, I might” want to be president. It’s nice to want things. [New York Times] - Donald Trump, who claims he was spared from the Vietnam draft because of his “bone spurs,” complained today that everyone used to say “we never lost a war” when he was in high school and college and now no one says it. [MSNBC via @braddjaffy] - It’s just a report, so who knows what could happen, but apparently both Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama have passed on joining the cast of Dancing With the Stars. [UPI] - The Department of Justice has changed its mind and no longer believes Texas’s voter identification law is discriminatory. Jeff Sessions, himself a long-time fan of voter suppression, had the distinct honor of delivering the news to the state of Texas and the various civil rights groups who had been working with the Obama administration on the case. [Texas Tribune] Here are some tweets that the president was allowed to publish: This has been Barf Bag.

The Christmas season. A young girl. A handpicked maiden. A virgin. She nurtured within her a sacred promise. Mary carried dreams deep within her heart. The waiting had begun. Not everyone understood. People whispered with side glances and shaking of heads. The angel greeted her. Startled her more like it. The Presence of God was near. Near to her…her beauty radiated from the inside out. She was about to embark on the journey of a lifetime. This journey was about to change her forever. She would always be known as Mary, the mother of Jesus. One chosen by God to fulfill a most sacred of tasks. To carry this most precious Seed. One who had never been touched by a man, much less slept with one. She was going to mother the ‘Son of the Highest’. She was going to birth a son. She was going to be Mary, the mother of God. Her reply, “I’m the Lord’s maid, ready to serve. Let it be with me just as you say.” (The Message) And, then the waiting. She waited just as we do. Nine months. But before all that, she had a lot of explaining to do. Can you imagine? Put yourself there. Joseph was not so sure. This was NOT how things were supposed to go. The disappointment and shock were palpable. Honorable Jewish men did not marry pregnant Jewish women. It just was not done. So, in the waiting, there was difficulty. There was the typical pregnancy adjustments and pains and challenges. She knew the promise spoken to her by the angel in the secret place. She knew this gift she carried would be called Holy. Son of God. Such beauty in the hidden promise spoken to this young heart. I imagine this promise was something so sacred and beautiful, guarded lovingly within her heart and held tenderly throughout the years. Oh, the beauty of it. In her final days of waiting, Mary and her Beloved set out and traveled many miles where she gave birth. In a barn. A filthy, noisy, smelly barn. There was no gentle midwife with soothing words and no sweet post-birth photo shoot with sweet smelling blankets and adoring faces. No, these parents were sharing a space with manure and hay and animals. No family or support system. Just two young kids. In a borrowed barn. Waiting on the fulfillment of a promise. And bringing in the Son of God. A dirty barn and the Most High. And such is life. Full of waiting. We have promises spoken to us in the secret place. Given to us when the least was expected. We grabbed hold. We took it and planted it deep into our heart. We believed it. And then perhaps the mess came. Maybe a lot of mess came. Too much mess. “Let it be with me just as you say.” Just like Mary, I have said it. Obviously, I’m not carrying around the Savior of the world. But, I am carrying around other dreams. Dreams significant to my world. The world God has placed me in. A different seed. A different gift. Spoken into my heart. Spoken into my life. And life happens and stuff seems to interrupt. My expectations are not fulfilled. My timeline is off. And, so the waiting continues. And the waiting is not easy. Nor are the stretch marks beautiful or the delayed gratification satisfying. But, in the waiting I am growing. In the waiting I am stretching. In the waiting I listen. Part of the waiting is sitting quietly. Waiting is hard work. At least that is the best I can make of it. Much was bombarding my heart and mind. So, I took a break from Sweet Sage Lane. I wasn’t sure what might come out on the page. I wasn’t sure it would be beneficial to much of anybody. And sometimes parts of our waiting seasons require silence and stillness. To be fully transparent, a couple months ago I struggled with depression and anxiety at new levels I hadn’t experienced in quite some time. Not everyone understands that journey. But, I am doing much better and God used many sources to bring light and hope back into my heart and mind. Yesterday, and then again today, I was reminded once again the importance of making the most of the season I am in. At the appointed times, Mary did the things she needed to do. She ministered to Elizabeth and travelled to take care of family business. And, sometimes our seasons require movement. Waiting requires preparing for the appointed times to come. Because, the appointed moments will arrive. Waiting is hard work. So, once again in this beautiful holiday season, I am reminded of Mary. The Lady in Waiting. The one who prepared for the Son of God to be born. The one with an open heart. The one without an agenda of her own. The one willing to open her life to an adventure of unknown proportions. At the appointed times, Mary did the things she needed to do during her waiting. So, as was with Mary I say, “Let it be with me just as you say.” In the waiting I anticipate the fullness of beauty and wonder. This advent season is a hope-filled reminder of promises kept and wonders foretold. My heart opens with full expectation and renewed anticipation. In this, my heart is stirred and comforted with a long awaited and much needed peace.

Student Rabbi Chayva Lehrman Chayva is a fourth year rabbinical student at HUC, where she is also studying for a masters degree in Jewish nonprofit management. Before she rabbinical school she worked in Washington, DC in government and international development, but that the work was interesting but not as fulfilling as the work of the rabbinate. Chayva was the student rabbi in Lake Tahoe for two years and Fairbanks, Alaska this summer, where she led services, kids programs, officiated life cycle events, and Judaism outdoors programs. In addition to rabbinical school, she loves hiking and backpacking, music of many types, and swing dancing. Her first name is pronounced with a hard “ch” like champion and “ay” like in stay, but she doesn’t mind being asked to pronounce it. Chayva values authenticity in all parts of her rabbinate. She seeks to always present Jewish tradition accurately, pray with the full range of feeling our rich liturgy contains, and be fully present with each member of the community. She encourages community members to be direct in their questions, interests, and feedback, and looks forward to developing relationships this year.

4 Nights 5 Days Day 1: Arrival Cochin –Munnar You will be picking from Cochin Airport and drive to Munnar (04 Hrs drive). On the way enjoy some waterfalls and natural scenic spots. On arrival at Munnar check into Hotel and relax for the rest of the day. Overnight stay at the hotel will be arranged. Day 2: Munnar Sightseeing After breakfast spend the day with local sightseeing. Situated at the confluence of three mountain streams - Mudrapuzha, Nallathanni and Kundale, Munnar is 1600 Meter above sea level. This majestic hill station was once the summer resort of the British government in South India. Local sightseeing of Munnar includes visit to Rose Garden, Photo Point, Honey Tree, Mattupetty Dam, Echo point, Kundale Lake. Afternoon proceed to Rajamalai were the rarest species of mountain goat, "Nilgiri Tahrs", can be spotted. Overnight stay is arranged at Munnar. Day 3: Munnar - Thekkady After breakfast check out from the hotel and drive to Thekkady (04 Hrs); on arrival check in to the hotel. Proceed for the sightseeing tour of Thekkady - one of the world's most fascinating wild life reserves. The Periyar wild life sanctuary in Thekkady is spread across 777 sq km of which 360 sq km is thick ever green forest. Noted for its geomorphology, diversity of wild life and scenic beauty, the sanctuary was declared a Tiger Reserve in 1978. Optional activities like Boating at Periyar Lake, Spice Plantation visit and Elephant Ride can be done at an extra cost. Overnight stay is arranged in Thekkady. Day - 4 : Thekkady - Cochin After breakfast check out from the hotel and drive to Cochin (04 Hrs). Spend the afternoon with local sightseeing in and around Cochin - the Queen of Arabian Sea, this is one of the finest natural harbors in the World and was one of the major centers for commerce and trade with British, Chinese, Portuguese, Dutch, etc. Sightseeing attractions in Cochin include Dutch Palace [closed on Friday & Saturday], Jewish Synagogue [closed on Friday & Saturday], Jewish Street, St. Francis Church [closed on Sunday], Santa Cruz Cathedral Basilica [closed on Sunday] and Chinese Fishing Nets. Overnight stay is arranged in Cochin. Day 5: Alleppey - Cochin AirportDeparture Transfer (02 ½ Hrs) After breakfast check out from the House Boat drive to Cochin Airport (depend on your departure place / time) for your flight back home, feeling contented about a wonderful holiday you spent in the God's Own Country. Wonder's of Kerala - 3 Star Hotel - 2 Night stay in Munnar - 1 Night stay in Thekkady - 1 Night stay in Cochin - Houseboat with all meals

Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker decided to take action hours into the attack, fearing the situation was deteriorating. FLOWER MOUND, Texas – Hours after being taken hostage by an armed stranger at the synagogue he leads, Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker feared that the situation was deteriorating. The captor’s demands weren’t being satisfied. Terror was mounting among the rabbi and two remaining hostages. Glimpsing an opportunity, Cytron-Walker sprang into action. “I made sure that the two gentlemen who were still with me, that they were ready to go,” the rabbi recounted in an interview with CBS. “The exit wasn’t too far away. I told them to go. I threw a chair at the gunman, and I headed for the door. “And all three of us were able to get out without even a shot being fired.” A more complete picture emerged of what unfolded inside the Texas synagogue where an armed British citizen took a rabbi and three congregants hostage in an attack the FBI is now investigating as an act of terrorism. Cytron-Walker and another hostage, Jeffrey Cohen, described how hostage-taker Malik Faisal Akram revealed a gun as the group said prayers on Saturday at Congregation Beth Israel, then repeatedly threatened them over the course of 11 terrifying hours. He allowed them to call their families, Cohen said in a lengthy Facebook post, and at one point told them to get on their knees. Those accounts came as police in north-west England questioned two teenagers as part of an investigation that now spans two countries. Britain’s Greater Manchester Police said on Sunday that the pair had been taken into custody by counter-terrorism officers and that the department would assist US officials with the inquiry. The agency declined to share further details on Monday. In the United States, the FBI described the stand-off as a “terrorism-related matter, in which the Jewish community was targeted.” The agency added that the incident – which ended with the hostages safe and 44-year-old Akram dead – is being investigated by the Joint Terrorism Task Force. “We never lose sight of the threat extremists pose to the Jewish community and to other religious, racial, and ethnic groups,” the FBI said in a statement emailed to The Washington Post. Details of the hostage-taker’s background were beginning to emerge in his home of Blackburn, a town in Lancashire, England, with a significant population of immigrants who arrived from Pakistan and India beginning in the 1960s. There, Akram grew up in a well-known family, his father the founder of a small mosque. He struggled with mental health issues, according to his brother, Gulbar Akram, who declined to elaborate further. The area is “unfortunately well-known for producing some terrorists in the past,” said Raffaello Pantucci, a researcher at the Royal United Services Institute, a defence and security think tank. In 2015, a 14-year-old from Blackburn became the youngest person convicted of a terrorism offence in Britain. The teen was jailed for inciting terrorism in Australia after instructing an Islamist militant to behead or kill officers at an Anzac Day parade. But Pantucci said things had been quiet in recent years. “Blackburn is quite a conservative community, quite fundamentalist,” he said. “The mosques there do not like violence nor the attention it attracts.” Akram’s father, Malik, founded one of the tightknit, heavily Muslim community’s small local mosques, called Masjid e Raza, according to the older men who came for prayer on Monday afternoon. They declined to discuss the seizing of hostages in Texas. Young people who gathered down the street at fast food joints described their neighbourhood as “super Muslim” but “chill.” The teenagers said they didn’t view Blackburn as a hothouse for radical Islam – their conservative parents were most worried about drug use, not al-Qaeda. Abdul Samad Umerji Ismail, a trustee at the Masjid-e-Irfan mosque on Eldon Road in Blackburn, confirmed Akram had prayed at his mosque, but said he hadn’t seen him there for a couple of years. The news has left the community wondering how “from our town … something happened like this.” He added, “People like this ruin everybody’s name.” Akram landed at New York City’s John F Kennedy International Airport on December 29, according to law enforcement officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation. The synagogue attack came about two weeks later and more than 1,500 miles away, in the Dallas suburb of Colleyville. That morning, Akram visited a local Starbucks and ordered two cappuccinos, according to employees Heidi Risley and Sierra Ketron. He asked Risley for the time after ordering – it was 8.43am – and sat at a corner table for at least a half hour, constantly looking around him, Ketron recalled. Risley said she shared the encounter with police after recognising Akram in news footage. He knocked on the door of the synagogue during morning services. Cytron-Walker said he let the man inside and spoke with him while making him a cup of tea. “And in that moment, I didn’t hear anything suspicious,” the rabbi told CBS News. “Some of his story didn’t quite add up. So I was a little bit curious, but that’s not necessarily an uncommon thing.” Cohen, in his Facebook post, described the synagogue’s guest as seemingly “calm and happy to be in from the frigid 20 degree morning.” Akram said hello and smiled, he added. The first hint of what was to come happened as the congregants gathered at the synagogue – a small in number due to the pandemic – were praying. Cytron-Walker’s was facing away from the congregation, toward Jerusalem, when he heard a clicking sound. It was, Cohen wrote “that unmistakable sound of an automatic slide engaging a round.” He dialed 911, his phone screen facing down. He considered wrapping his prayer shawl around their captor’s neck if he could get behind him, but “never got the chance.” During the stand-off, Akram repeatedly referenced Aafia Siddiqui, an American-educated Pakistani woman widely known as “Lady al-Qaeda” who was convicted on terrorism charges in 2010, calling for her release. People who heard him on the live stream of services, which carried part of the ordeal, said Akram chose Congregation Beth Israel because it appeared to be the closest gathering of Jews to a federal facility in Fort Worth where Siddiqui is being held on an 86-year sentence for trying to kill US soldiers. Akram, who could be heard saying he targeted the synagogue because the United States “only cares about Jewish lives,” called for Siddiqui to be released. He referred to Siddiqui as “my sister,” an expression of solidarity because her family says they were not related. He asked to see her and said they would rise together to Jannah, the Muslim paradise where the faithful are taken after Judgment Day. As the crisis unfolded, he spoke to his family in England as part of the FBI negotiators’ attempts to defuse the situation, the officials said. His brother said the family was “devastated” and “do not condone any of his actions.” He told The Post on Monday his brother “released” the hostages through the fire exit, adding that he was at the Blackburn police station working with FBI negotiators, so “I should know.” But that claim was contradicted by the accounts of those taken hostage. Cohen and Cytron-Walker described relying on active threat training to manage the frightening situation. “This training saved our lives – I am not speaking in hyperbole here,” Cohen wrote. In courses over the past year – the most recent on August 22 – Secure Community Network instructor Stuart Frisch said in an interview that he taught the rabbi and temple members how to react to situations using the “run, hide, fight” method. Cytron-Walker said he was taught “that if your life is threatened, you need to do whatever you can to get to safety, you need to do whatever you can to get out.” It was in the final hour, when “it didn’t look good,” that he threw the chair. The congregants, who according to Cohen’s account inched closer to the door over the hours they were held, were within 20 feet of it and able to flee. “We escaped,” he wrote. “We weren’t released or freed.” Some members attributed the escape to the calm demeanour and quick thinking of their rabbi. Devorah Titunik, a member for about 15 years, said she wasn’t surprised by Cytron-Walker’s handling of the standoff, adding: “If ever I was in a situation like that, the person I’d want to have there would be Rabbi Charlie.” The attack sent shockwaves through the congregation. In interviews, congregants said they feared anti-Semitism in the US, with many referencing the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh that killed 11 people. Stacey Silverman, 53, watched Sunday’s crisis over the synagogue’s livestream with her 20-year-old daughter, unable to see what was happening because the video was stuck on a prayer book. Listening for hours as Akram ranted, she was terrified that “at any minute we could hear a tragedy unfold.” Even after the hostages escaped to safety, mother and daughter did not fall asleep until 6am, still shaken by what happened. Silverman said it was “kind of a scary time to be a Jew in this country.” “We’re horrified that [this] happened,” Silverman said. “But I don’t think we’re shocked.” – THE WASHINGTON POST

I like this. Brian Solis is one of those internet business gurus who clogs the newsfeeds of other internet business gurus. Here he is speaking at TED for ten minutes about the premise of a book he wrote recently. Here are some notable quotes that have an impact on how I think we should be thinking about communicating about Jesus, and equipping, and getting members of our church family communicating about Jesus… “There’s a “Me” in social media for a reason. And that is because you and I make the world revolved around us. That’s cool. But we just have to live with that. Because we live in an era, and economy, where people are brands, and brands are trying to become people” “In this economy as a brand, as a business, it’s my job to talk to you and through you at the same time. Because this economy is driven by shared experiences, what you see and what you experience right now is what you’re sharing right now. And people can be touched without actually having to be there.” “Social capital is defined as trust and reciprocity… try to earn trust and reciprocity as a business… and that is what the future of capitalism is about… what people say here [Twitter] contributes to your brand. So. I’ve written before about how wonderfully my friend Mike O’Connor in Rockhampton models using the local media to share the gospel with his community. Here is another example, and another. I posted a picture of a story the Rockhampton Daily Bulletin ran on the back of an interview with Mike following the ACL’s unfortunate comments the other day. The headline was slightly misleading, and the story truncated one of his statements – but it was a great example of speaking lovingly about Jesus. Mike decided to clear up some of the misconceptions with a follow up letter to the editor, written with grace, and dripping with gospel. I told him it was too long, so we put together a shorter version – but the paper went with the extended edition. Though with a similarly unfortunate heading (that Mike didn’t write)… Here’s the text: Gays welcome, but not homosexuality On Saturday September 8th, the Morning Bulletin ran a small article titled “Gay couples are welcome at Church”. In that article, I was briefly interviewed and extensively quoted. I’d like to take this opportunity to clear any ambiguity surrounding my comments. The church’s point of engagement with culture on every issue needs to be Jesus Christ. Our message to the world is a person, his name is Jesus. This is a message the church has at times, failed to make clear, opting instead to moralize and to dictate to the lifestyle choices of other people. Hypocrisy is a fair criticism of Christians when morality is the prevailing message heard rather than the good news of Jesus and the new life he gives. The church needs to stay on message and not be misunderstood or open to misunderstanding when it comes the cultural issues of the day. I’m sorry if I’ve added to this confusion. So let me be clear: smokers, homosexuals and all of Rockhampton need Jesus Christ. Rockhampton Presbyterian Church wants people to accept or reject Christianity on the merits of who Jesus is, on the things Jesus has done and over the things Jesus actually said. Our church welcomes all people, as Jesus welcomes all people – Jesus was regularly eating with tax collectors, prostitutes and sinners. We want members of every community to come and find a place in the new community God is gathering around Jesus – one that is not based on sexual preference, gender, race or religion but based on a personal acceptance of Jesus as Lord and Saviour. When people enter Jesus’ new community and put their faith in him many old things will need to be left behind; for some people, homosexuality is one of those things because Jesus makes us new. Again, this way of life is for those who confess to be followers of Jesus, they are not a prerequisite for investigating Christ’s claims nor an insistence to change for those who choose to have nothing to do with Jesus. “Welcome” doesn’t mean ‘condone’, ‘tolerate’ or even ‘turn a blind eye’. ‘Welcome’ simply means that: welcome. We want everyone to come and hear about the Saviour we talk about at church every week as we open the Bible and consider together what it says about him. Like all other sins, homosexuality is not consistent with the lifestyle of those who confess to be followers of Jesus Christ. However, we want all people to hear about Jesus and put their faith in him and we would invite you to come and do that with us this Sunday, or any other at 9am. Rockhampton Presbyterian Church So, for anybody who says it’s not possible to be clear, winsome, speak against homosexuality (or at least call it sinful), and for Jesus – here’s a bit of published evidence to the contrary. Tying up some loose ends around here before I return to serving up YouTube videos which is just about the limit of what my mental capacity can handle for the next few weeks, I just wanted to lay out some of my thinking about what the relationship between my last career (which I still do a bit of) in Public Relations, and my future vocation – gospel ministry. I’m increasingly aware not just that there’s a gap in the market for thinking about how churches engage with the public via the media (a subset of PR), and not a huge number of resources out there for thinking about what Christianity looks like in the Media. CPX does a great job, the Sydney Anglicans, and especially Peter Jensen, have some resources, which we saw come into play on Q&A this week, and Communicate Jesus is a great first step for thinking about how to communicate timeless truths in a timely way. I’m also aware that for many people “PR” is synonymous with “Spin” and deliberate deception, or providing inane sound bites so that you’ll get picked up in the news cycle. These are essentially antithetical to Christian ethics, and the message of the gospel. Though clarity and being succinct is important. I also mentioned in my post about what college is teaching me that I’m increasingly reflecting on how proclaiming the gospel benefits from understanding culture. I want to flesh that out a little in this post – particularly as it relates to how I think about public relations and whatever skills I might have there. So – in a nutshell – I think Paul, in his rejection of Corinthian sophistry (see B.W.W Winter, Paul and Philo amongst the Sophists) turned to Cicero, who in De Oratore had rejected flashy, substanceless, but impressive oratory that majored in pathos, for an approach to oratory that focused as much on ethos (the character of the speaker), and logos (the substance), as pathos (the ability to stir an emotional response). I think Paul was a highly trained, though non-professional rhetorician who became a Pharisee because he couldn’t professionally advance as a Jewish orator, and this explains the rhetorical power of his letters, and his impressive presentations to councils, kings, and court rooms in Acts. I think his appearance in the marketplace, and then the Areopagus, in Athens is, by analogy, the first century equivalent of blogging, media engagement, speaking to parliament, and going on a TV talk show. I think he benefited from recognising a truth in Cicero, also present in the work of the prophets etc – where value was placed on character and developed this to emphasise a Christ like suffering character (and I think that explains his words in 2 Cor 10-13 – you can read more in my essay here). I’d argue that in some sense he has “plundered the gold of the Egyptians.” Which is a concept that Augustine pushes pretty hard when he tells Christians to get a good “classical” education in De Doctrina Christiana (On Christian Teaching – again, you can read more of my essay here). “…all branches of heathen learning have not only false and superstitious fancies and heavy burdens of unnecessary toil, which every one of us, when going out under the leadership of Christ from the fellowship of the heathen, ought to abhor and avoid; but they contain also liberal instruction which is better adapted to the use of the truth, and some most excellent precepts of morality; and some truths in regard even to the worship of the One God are found among them. Now these are, so to speak, their gold and silver, which they did not create themselves, but dug out of the mines of God’s providence which are everywhere scattered abroad, and are perversely and unlawfully prostituting to the worship of devils. These, therefore, the Christian, when he separates himself in spirit from the miserable fellowship of these men, ought to take away from them, and to devote to their proper use in preaching the gospel. Their garments, also —that is, human institutions such as are adapted to that intercourse with men which is indispensable in this life — we must take and turn to a Christian use.” Luther followed suit a little bit, he was particularly keen to communicate in forms that worked, and part of the nature of their “working” was their popularity. He even liked fonts. He sent a letter to one of his rich friends that said: “have some boy collect all the German pictures, rimes,songs, books, lays of the Meistersinger, which have this year been painted, composed,made, and printed by your German poets, publishers, and printers. I have a reason forwanting them. We can make Latin books for ourselves, but we wish to learn how tomake German ones, as we have hitherto made none that please anybody.” He didn’t just use pop culture, he also played the media relations game, or its equivalent. Here are some stats about his use of the printing press during the reformation (read more in my essay here). It is estimated in the first three years, 300,000 of Luther’s 30 popular pamphlets were circulating,and by the tenth year, two million copies of Luther’s 400 plus pamphlets were circulating, not just in Germany, but throughout Europe. The Reformation led to a sixfold increase in output from German printers. These were published in the vernacular, and aimed at the public, not the elite. The case for making PR, which is a modern form of “communication” and an academic discipline an example of this “gold” means establishing that it is actually a redeemable thing… and not just saying whatever it takes to get people to believe whatever you want. First off, it’s worth making the distinction between “media relations” and “public relations” – media relations is a subset, an important subset, of PR, and its really where my expertise lies. But media relations will be a bit piecemeal, and disconnected from an organisation’s priorities – or in this case the mission of the church – if it isn’t part of a bigger communications plan that considers what your message is, and what its implications are for the public, and how you’re going to communicate your message so that the public understands it. I was a Christian before I started working – so my approach to PR, and my PR ethics (and before that, my approach to journalistic ethics which I thought about while at Uni) were shaped by my faith. I think this actually made me better at my job, because I think the murky side of PR which is caricatured as “spin” and prides itself on not answering questions with anything but a repeated “key message” or not engaging with criticism is a communications cul de sac, which will hopefully eventually die out when people realise what sort of politics and public discourse it produces, and that it erodes the very trust that PR should be seeking to build. I think that’s starting to happen. I was more interested in full, and pre-emptive, disclosure of stuff that went wrong, never lying by commission, or omission, showing how key messages related to issues, questions, and real life for real people, and maintaining a relationship with journalists and the public by generally being trustworthy. This didn’t always happen, and it may be that I’m incredibly naive. Conforming to the type of PR that involves essentially selling one’s soul and becoming a robotic sound bite speaker driven by self interest, or the desire to win, or conforming our message to whatever medium we’re speaking to – so, for example, going on Q&A to score cheap points by insulting the views of the people next to you, rather than listening to what’s being said and offering a gentle opinion – would be a case of turning the gold we plunder into a golden calf (see this Matthias Media piece on being mindful of how we use “gold”). So when I talk about PR I’m essentially assuming this worldview, and this definition. Which isn’t always what other people are operating with. But what are the implications for this? I’d say we need to think about how we do the media relations part (and you can read my thinking about how to do that here), but that needs to be a subset of thinking about communication, of our key message (the gospel, how king Jesus changes lives through his death and resurrection and the launch of his not yet fully realised Kingdom), how it relates to our audience (everybody), and the manner in which we’ll communicate this (I’d suggest Paul’s “all things to all men” 1 Cor 9:19-23). I think we need to think about what theoretical frameworks or disciplines we can use – like Augustine – and what mediums we can adapt – like Luther. The media engagement stuff is useful, in a sense, without this sort of thought and planning. If you have an event you want to promote, or something. Which is why I write how to posts. But it gets supercharged when you plug it into some strategic thinking about how you’re going to communicate to the same person in an attempt to build, or nurture, a relationship with them. A relationship doesn’t have to mean you know their name, or have their phone number, that would be nice – but a “brand” type relationship means they don’t just know who you are, but have some idea of what you stand for, and how that is relevant to them. This is what “public relations” is about. Public relations ultimately isn’t so much about knowing how to say what you want to say. It’s about knowing why you’re saying something, and who you’re saying it to. This is where having some sort of Public Relations or Communications Strategy for your brand – in this case, your church, which is essentially a subset of a much bigger franchise – is essential. We’re never going to be able to sit down and get a universal “Communication Strategy” for the church beyond the Great Commission – so I’d argue each church has a responsibility to think about how it communicates the gospel as part of its call to participate in the Mission of God. A Public Relations strategy starts with identifying what it is that you, as an entity, want to communicate, and why. I’d say that’s relatively easy for us in the first instance. It’s the gospel. But then it should probably include what you want to communicate as your church’s distinctives – what’s your point of difference from other churches, on the basis of your context, or theological convictions. What do you “do” that you want people to know about before they come into your doors? What do you do that you want people to know about when they come through your doors (at Creek Road we have some really helpful “Plumb Lines” that describe our approach to church). Then it identifies “who” you want to relate to – and should include internal stakeholders – our members, leadership teams, elders, staff, as well as our external stakeholders – the people in our community, non-Christian friends and family members with some association with the church, the people of our state and nation… and what sort of channels we’d use to talk to them in the most authentic and relational way possible. Then it moves to “how” best to relate to these groups – you’re probably best off relating to as many of the internal stakeholders face to face, or as “authentically” as possible. Your communication should be a reflection of your relationship. So it’s ok to communicate to people you don’t know in the pages of your local paper, but it’s probably not a good idea if your elders are finding out about changes at church when they sit down with the paper for a cuppa. This means, for external people, knowing the demographics of your area, and knowing what sort of channels those demographics use to learn stuff – so to caricature a couple of generations – talk back radio for the oldies, Facebook for anyone under 25… Once you’ve got the strategy sorted out – you can produce a communications plan – so that what you’re doing integrates with what you’ve decided you should be doing. Steve Kryger at Communicate Jesus posted up one week of his Communications Plan for Church By The Bridge. It’s a really useful example of what applying some thought looks like, and once you get to that stage having some idea how to do things like putting together an email newsletter, or writing a media release, or doing stuff on social media, is really useful. You’ve also got to figure out how often you want to be communicating with people – both those who are on your team so that they stay on the same page – and those outside so that they develop a picture of who you are and what you stand for. This is what I think when I use the words “Public Relations” – this sort of strategy, planning, and doing – not just the doing. I don’t mean the shadowy stuff where you’re sort of pulling the strings to create opportunities to be heard, or coaching your spokespeople to stay on message and not look silly doing it, or cleaning up the mess in a crisis – though these are all aspects of what PR is. Public Relations – like this – is useful for getting the members of your church family working together and knowing what you’re on about when they’re out being ambassadors for Christ in your community, it’s useful for managing changes – large or small – in your congregation and the way you do stuff, and it’s useful for presenting the gospel in a way that people have information communicated to them in your community. That’s why I think this is gold worth plundering. I guess part of the reason I’ve written this post is because I realise that I’ve focused on the “how” more than the “why”… and that’s potentially unhelpful. Here are some of the things I’ve written about why we should do PR, and the substance of our “message” from my Public Relations resources page Here are some “how to” posts Wow. Just wow. Look, Peter Jensen said tonight on Q&A that he supports the ACL – I’m going to write to him and ask him to support them with some PR advice. Just wow. While every word he spoke was seized on and ridiculed by Catherine Deveny, Peter Jensen winsomely, faithfully, and articulately, presented the gospel and called for a more respectful public discourse about serious issues. Let me just start by articulating, lest there be confusion, why I think Peter Jensen did a good job while saying substantially the same thing as the ACL. He talked clearly and winsomely about Jesus and how the gospel impacts our social position. Not on all issues – Jesus was almost absent on his treatment of Asylum seekers – though his love for others wasn’t – and he said that it wasn’t “unChristian” to seek asylum”… he also talked about things in a measured way and talked about wanting to improve the tone of conversation around these issues – I don’t think the ACL models this well, and they certainly talk about Jesus much less than Jensen did, and does. A friend suggested that my favourable response to Jensen, when he not only endorsed the ACL, but took the same position as them, was possibly a result of bias, or that it would be perceived to be the case. But let’s walk through last night’s program and see how the Archbishop did (this friend didn’t actually watch until the end, and I thought it got better as it went along). On Asylum Seekers I think this was where what I am guessing was a strategy that Archbishop Jensen employed to demonstrate that careful engagement isn’t the order of the day on Q&A – he has been, perhaps rightly, criticised for being a little waffly – but I think he may have been inviting people to interrupt. He’s typically incredibly well briefed and sensitive to different mediums. There’s also this: Peter Jensen requested to be seated next to me on #qanda last night. Any ideas why? — Catherine Deveny(@CatherineDeveny) September 11, 2012 Which is interesting. So I think he’s subverting the medium to make a point about public discourse. ROSS GRENFELL: Archbishop Jensen, do you agree with Tony Abbott’s comment that good Christians would not use the back door in relation to asylum seekers using boats? After all, weren’t Mary, Joseph and Jesus undocumented asylum seekers when they fled to Egypt to escape Herod. TONY JONES: Peter Jensen? PETER JENSEN: No, I don’t agree with it and I do agree they were refugees and Christians ought to be extraordinarily sensitive to refugees and their needs. I agree with all those things. Can I go on? TONY JONES: Yes, of course. PETER JENSEN: I thought you might allow me. I do think, in terms of our political discourse, I’m sorry we can’t let the Government change its mind and get away with it because, after all, when new facts come in we’ve got to have people to change their minds. In the light of my recent posts on asylum seekers I will say, that apart from tone, in the black and white form of the transcript, Catherine Deveny made some solid points, given extra credibility off the back of her recent Go Back To Where You Came From appearances. Catherine Deveny: …This is very easy. This is not about stopping the boats, this is about starting the planes. This is about processing in Indonesia and in Malaysia. There is no deterrent that you can set up in Nauru or Manus Island or Christmas Island that is going to stop those people getting on boats. They say to me – every single one of them has said to me, “I would be happy to be swallowed up by the ocean than go back to where we’ve came from.” You have no idea what these people are facing. It is extraordinary that we’re not doing our basic obligations as signatories to the UN Refugee Convention. We shouldn’t just be doing what the UN suggests we should be doing, we should be doing so much more. We have so much to give. This is a country that has been built on boat people, as they call them. I don’t see boat people. I just see people. There was a nice moment where Peter Jensen promised to hold the government to account on its treatment of asylum seekers according to a recent report - which he had read, and could engage with. CHRIS EVANS: Well, as I say, you can’t put a length of time on it. We don’t honestly know but in implementing the whole package one would hope that the deterrent value would start to see a change in behaviour. It’s one of the reasons why I think the… TONY JONES: All right. So, no, just having elicited that answer I just want to hear from Peter Jensen. Are you satisfied with that, no time limits? PETER JENSEN: Yes, well, I’ve had a look at the report. The spirit of the report is saying something a bit different, I think, Chris, and I trust that as you implement it you will be there’s nothing like hopelessness. CHRIS EVANS: No. PETER JENSEN: And to have arrived at Nauru and to have Australian protection in that sense, I know it’s an independent country, but to have no timeframe will breed the hopelessness that leads to self-destruction and to depression. So I would be looking for something better than that if possible, I have to say, and I think that’s the spirit of the Aristotle-Houston report. I actually thought Chris Evans was worse to listen to than Catherine Deveny. The Archbishop’s gospel contribution began in earnest on the question of the Sydney Anglican’s alternate marriage vows. ELIZABETH ANNE SMITH: As a young woman and feminist living in the 21st century, where everyone is entitled to equal rights, I would like to know what valid reason the Church has to request a wife submit to her husband in marriage. TONY JONES: Peter Jensen, let’s start with you since you started this debate. PETER JENSEN: I thought it might be me. Yes. Thank you very much. Thank you for the question. Really I mean that, because at long last we’re beginning to have a conversation which sounds as though it’s going to be a rational and serious conversation about the nature of marriage and I have to say, from my point of view and perhaps some others as well, the whole question of marriage and family is one in our community that needs careful thought. Now, when I say the Church, by the way, we have put forward a possible service for use. It’s not mandatory. It’s an alternative. Let me say that. What we’re seeing, I think, is a clash of world views between what I’d call individualism and what you may call family or, in a sense, community. It’s a clash of world views which is going on all around us and it has drastic consequences one way or another. If you agree with me that a man is a man and a woman is a woman and although they are we are absolutely equal, equal in the sight of God, both made in the image of God, both with the same destiny, both with the same value, all those things are inherent in the Christian gospel and they must remain in the Christian gospel, agree with that and yet, on the other hand, I would say there are differences between men and women which both sides bring to a marriage and we have not been good recently at working out what it is that men bring to marriage and women bring to marriage. This was perhaps my favourite moment of the night, Tony Jones treats his guests with thinly veiled contempt a little too often… TONY JONES: Okay. Let’s just get to the heart of the matter and to the question. Now, you’ve said biblical teaching is that the bride can make a voluntary promise to submit to her husband. So what exactly does the word “submit” mean to you. PETER JENSEN: Well, it is a biblical word. TONY JONES: Well, it’s an English word, actually. It would have been in Hebrew in the Bible. PETER JENSEN: I don’t know quite how to tell you this, but it was Greek actually, if that’s all right but don’t worry Then there was this: PETER JENSEN: If submission is in view, it is because a husband has made certain key promises. This is more about men than it is about women and it is about a concern that men are not being men in the community. What men bring to marriage, what men bring to anything, is that sort of physical strength, if you like, a certain degree of arrogance, a certain degree of determination to be bossy, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. What men are being asked – they were asked something before the women say anything. What men are being asked is will you live towards your wife like Jesus Christ who gave his life for his bride. Will you do that? And if the man says yes to that and only then, otherwise I would not recommend it, if a man says yes to that and so commits himself, then I believe it’s right for a woman, if she chooses to, to say I submit to that in the sense that I recognise it, I respect it, and I’m going to give you space in our marriage – I’m going to give you space in our marriage to be a man. As Tony Jones turned to Catherine Deveny in response to this Peter Jensen showed he had been briefed, with a reference to a tweet she put out a week ago. I’m never married. I oppose marriage but support #marriageequality because marriage is a mistake everyone has the right to make. — Catherine Deveny(@CatherineDeveny) September 5, 2012 PETER JENSEN: Now, you believe in marriage. CATHERINE DEVENY: No, I don’t. PETER JENSEN: That’s an important first point. CATHERINE DEVENY: I don’t believe in marriage. PETER JENSEN: You don’t believe in marriage. CATHERINE DEVENY: I’ve never been married but I’m a very big supporter of same-sex marriage because I believe that marriage is a mistake that everyone has the right to make. I have never been married but I would like to congratulate you on your decision to proudly fly the misogynist and medieval colours of your religion and I do support your right to discriminate within your religion. And what I think is great is that you can choose to go to Las Vegas and be married by an Elvis or now you can choose to go to the Anglican Church and be married in a museum by a dinosaur…. So I think it’s interesting that you guys are going for a niche market there. I mean you guys could have gone for the Gloria Jeans, the corporate rock, the Hillsong, the ‘Be awesome for Jesus’ but you’re going, ‘No. No. Men are in charge because of the mumbo jumbo.’ So congratulations. TONY JONES: I think you ought to be able to respond to that but briefly I just want to hear the… PETER JENSEN: Where would you start to respond to that? I’m looking for a respectful and serious discussion of very important issues. CATHERINE DEVENY: That is respectful. PETER JENSEN: And we get dinosaurs and this sort of stuff. Interestingly, in the churches for years now we have not been using this language and we’ve gone down to 30% of the market. CATHERINE DEVENY: Mm, the market. PETER JENSEN: I’m saying, no, I think there’s a clash of – I think it was your word. I think it’s a clash of cultures here, very important. I may be wrong about all this. I’m only human. I think it’s important. That my friends is epistemic humility. It’s disarming. BRONWYN FRASER: Hi. I work with Christian cultures – women in Christian cultures overseas who do have this biblical wife submission approach to marriage and they also report some of the highest levels of domestic violence and sexually-based violence. Up to 60% of the women have experienced this. Could it be that this sort of inequality in marriage can lead to domestic and sexually-based violence and, as a Christian, how does this actually represent what Jesus stood for? TONY JONES: Peter Jensen? PETER JENSEN: Yep. I believe this, again, gets to the heart of issues that are very important and can I say I utterly abominate the whole idea of domestic violence. I think it’s a wicked thing and any person – particularly any man who lays his hand on his wife is, to my mind, committing a grave sin. So that is what I believe. Now, is my view contributing to that end? I trust not because, properly understood, my view is saying that no man could ever do that, that it’s really he is to behave towards his wife as Jesus Christ behaved towards the Church. He was again humble and open to discussion on gay marriage. “PETER JENSEN: Yeah. Yeah. And again there’s an argument for this and it’s one that we ought to conduct in the right spirit, I believe, and with give and take and listening to the whole matter. I do… TONY JONES: So you have an open mind about gay marriage? PETER JENSEN: Well, I have the same open mind most people have about most things. Namely, with a good argument you may change your mind but for the moment you keep going down one track.” Then it got really interesting, for me, anyway, given the last week… I take some solace from the bolded bits… PETER KEEGAN: The Australian Christian Lobby has again made the headlines for offensive remarks made by its director, Jim Wallace. As a Christian, I continually find that the ACL does not speak for me and does not represent the kind of faith that I see reflected in the teaching and ministry of Jesus. Archbishop, will you publically say that contributions like those we heard from the ACL pose a greater risk to the health of our public discourse and the integrity of our faith than the presence of lifestyles or beliefs that may differ from our own? PETER JENSEN: Again, thanks for the question. No, I won’t say that. I am generally supportive of ACL, I have to say. I don’t support everything that’s said by its leaders. TONY JONES: What about this very specific statement where Jim Wallace suggests that homosexuality poses the same kind of health risk to the community as smoking does? PETER JENSEN: It needs to be observed that he has been somewhat quoted out of context in some reports. I’m not sure about that one but in some reports he’s been somewhat quoted out of context. But what he has done for us, rightly or wrongly, what he has done is given us an opportunity to talk about something significant, namely the question of health risks. Now, I think it is true to say – I think it is true to say – it’s very hard to get all the facts here because we don’t want to talk about it and in this country censorship is alive and well, believe me… In response to a gay teenager, brought up in a Christian home who explicitly cited the rejection from his Christian community as the reason for his suicide attempt, the Archbishop had this to say… I loved the last bit, because it’s what I’ve been arguing our response should be. ALISTAIR CORNELL: My question is for Peter Jensen. I was born and bred Anglican but at the age of 15 I tried to take my own life. What advice would he give to a 15 year old suffering almost to the point of death from the rejection of his community about being gay? PETER JENSEN: Thank you and thank you for the courage of coming on and telling us that story. You see, one of the difficulties is to get that story, to get it to someone like me and to give me the chance to assess it for what it is… PETER JENSEN: Well a 15 year old sorry, I need to be careful here. We don’t want to talk about this particular young man with his courage. But clearly a teenager is going through a period in their lives, exciting as it is, in which they’re seeking to find themselves. A person who feels in themselves same-sex attraction and I might add, a lot of such folk have talked to me over the years, is seeking, I think, to find themselves, to find an identity and in our sort of society, with its emphasis on sexual activity as an identity finding activity, there is therefore the opportunity to think that that is the way to do things and yet here you have this frowned upon same-sex feeling. TONY JONES: Okay, I’ve just to interrupt because we do need to hear other panellists on this subject but put simply are you saying or repeating, in a way, or making, you know, a sort of more complex argument about what Jim Wallace said, which is homosexuality is bad for your health? Are you seriously trying to make that argument tonight? PETER JENSEN: I would like to know see, people tell me that it is and they produce literature on the subject. I can’t get a discussion going on this because it’s a forbidden subject. Now, I’m open on this. I hope it’s not true, Tony. I don’t want to see my friends dying and I’ve seen my friends dying. I don’t want to see that. I don’t want to hear stories like that. But, dear friends, sorry, when do we get to the point where we can talk about this without shouting at each other and hurting each other? This bit was helpful too… TONY JONES: Well, can I just ask, presumably you’ve looked at some of the science around the health statistics, have you actually looked at the science about the gay gene which suggests that it is intrinsic in a person their sexuality and if you’ve looked at that, I would ask you this: if God actually created homosexuals, would you not then have to turn around and change your mind on all of these issues? PETER JENSEN: Thank you, Tony. God did create homosexuals. I don’t need the gene to tell me that. God created homosexuals. God created every person and loves every person, without doubt. TONY JONES: No, I mean he created if there is a gay gene, would you say the creator was responsible for creating that? PETER JENSEN: Well, I would say that that that may be the case but we’re not talking about same-sex attraction, we’re talking about the acting out of same-sex attraction. We’re talking about well, I realise that we’re living in a very, very different world from the one I’m talking about but I’m living in a world where a number of my friends have life long committed themselves to no sexual relations. Then we were on the home stretch – atheism and proof of God’s existence. “CATHERINE DEVENY: For me, I mean, you can took about proof and there’s no proof. I mean one of the things that I always think about is like if God exists why doesn’t he show himself? But when you actually look at the Bible, which is – that’s the only text that I’m – like, religious text that I’m really familiar with, it is basically social engineering embedded in fairytales and horror stories which is just chock full of homophobia, misogyny, discrimination and division and most people haven’t even read it. It has been written by 44 – you know, 60 people, I think, 44 chapters, you know, three different languages over thousands of years, thousands of different interpretations and despite all of those different interpretations, the only thing they can all agree on is homophobia, misogyny, discrimination and division. So, I’m sorry, the way that I see it, it’s just been a very, very handy way to keep people in their place, particularly women, homosexuals and people who don’t believe what they believe.” Then there was this. Pure gold. Christ centred gospel in the face of the chatter of Catherine Deveny who couldn’t resist scoring cheap points with angry soundbites. This is why I’m so very happy with last night. I know most people agree with Catherine Deveny’s assessment that the church is out of touch on social issues – you only have to look at the comments on this post that went up when it was just my tweets… but that’s not the point. Winsomely, and gently, responding to criticism and seeking a conversation where you can get to this point – having argued your position on social issues on the basis of Jesus and the gospel all the way through – that’s why this man is an example for how to, as John Dickson says, do public Christianity. Peter Jensen on Q&A – the best public Christianity I’ve seen. Pure grace & intellect under fire. — John Dickson (@johnpauldickson) September 10, 2012 PETER JENSEN: Okay. Has God shown himself? Yes, I believe he has and I believe he’s shown himself in Jesus Christ. I believe if you want to know examine his life, examine what he said, examine his miracles and that’s where the big issue is. Come back to Jesus Christ and examine his life, examine what he said, examine what’s around him. I have to say that Catherine’s account of the Bible is as fanciful as a tooth fairy. It’s got no bearing on the reality of the Bible. CATHERINE DEVENY: You mustn’t have read it. PETER JENSEN: Yeah, I’ve read it a bit. And really the big look, I tell you what, the big story of the Bible is just as simple as anything. Jesus Christ came into the world to save us and he is God amongst us. What more could we ask? I tell you what, it’s the most gracious I’m so sorry you’ve got your view of it. CATHERINE DEVENY: You said, “What more could we ask?” Equality, that would be good. PETER JENSEN: Well, we’ve got it because every man and woman… CATHERINE DEVENY: I’m sorry, a white middle class man like you does have it. Try being disabled, try being an asylum seeker, try being gay, try being a woman, you’ll find it’s not there. TONY JONES: Okay. All right, Catherine. No. No. No. No. Okay. All right. Sorry, I said we’d give him the last word. I didn’t mean… CATHERINE DEVENY: Yeah, I think he said plenty of words. PETER JENSEN: Well, the last word is that in Jesus Christ we have that equality and in Jesus Christ was have that salvation and all I can say is the most wonder that the love of God for everyone, no matter who they are, no matter how they’ve lived or whatever, is the greatest reality in the world. Here are my tweets from during the show. “call it queue jumping, call it what you will” – how bout we call it “seeking asylum” #qanda — Nathan Campbell (@nm_campbell) September 10, 2012 Wow. Peter Jensen talked about civilised conversation. And then we turned to Catherine. #qanda — Nathan Campbell (@nm_campbell) September 10, 2012 I love Peter Jensen’s epistemic humility. “I might be wrong about this”… — Nathan Campbell (@nm_campbell) September 10, 2012 Deveney speaks to Jensen mockingly. Jensen doesn’t respond in kind. There’s a worldview in operation. — John Dickson (@johnpauldickson) September 10, 2012 I would, had I my preference, get rid of the others and just have Peter Jensen and Anna Krien. They seem interested in conversation #qanda — Nathan Campbell (@nm_campbell) September 10, 2012 It’s weird Catherine. I thought this was a question to Peter, and suddenly you’re talking… #qanda — Nathan Campbell (@nm_campbell) September 10, 2012 Ooo. This will be interesting. Archbishop Jensen on the ACL… — Nathan Campbell (@nm_campbell) September 10, 2012 Gee Peter Jensen is winsome. #qanda — Nathan Campbell (@nm_campbell) September 10, 2012 — Nathan Campbell (@nm_campbell) September 10, 2012 Why are you asking an Anglican about condom use? Seriously. There was this thing called the reformation #qanda — Nathan Campbell (@nm_campbell) September 10, 2012 Christianity is about Jesus. Yes. #qanda — Nathan Campbell (@nm_campbell) September 10, 2012 Whatever social capital Deveny banked on Go Back To Where You Came from was just spent on #qanda — Nathan Campbell (@nm_campbell) September 10, 2012 This is probably the most important post in my recent series of ACL related posts – it’s the one objection that keeps cropping up when these posts start doing the rounds on Facebook – and I think it’s reasonably important ground to cover. It’s probably the longest post I’ve ever written. It’s over 5,000 words long, plus a picture containing more words. I’d split it, but I don’t want to extend this series any further than it needs to be… in sum, to save you reading… I start by clearing up some of the issues people have raised in response to my previous posts – in the comments here, and on Facebook. Then I provide my rationale for making my criticisms public, alongside a framework I try to operate in (though I acknowledge that I fail in this area). My points are: I want to make a few important points to begin with… 1. I am sure that the people involved in the ACL are Christians who love Jesus. From what I know of their ministries outside of the ACL – particularly Jim Wallace and Wendy Francis – they are concerned that people know Jesus. My problem is that they seem unwilling to see this translate into the positions they adopt in public discourse under the auspices of the ACL. 2. It is only really the public presence of the ACL, especially in the media, that bothers me – I have no idea what they do behind closed doors as they meet with politicians – which is doubtless where they see their main contribution in the political process. Like it, or loathe it, much lobbying now takes place via the media – and it is in the media where they are presented as the voice of Australian Christians – whether the ACL thinks of themselves that way or not. Their website makes this claim: “The ACL does not seek to be the peak political voice for the church, but to be a professional witness to Christ in the Australian Parliaments which allows for the voice of the church and individual Christians to be more respectfully received in the public square.” If parliament is where they want to do their work then they should say no to media appearances. Or be careful when they take on such media appearances not to speak beyond their remit, or be represented as the voice of Christianity in Australia. They are treading a fine line when it comes to their stated aim regarding the impact they have on the voice of the church and individual Christians in the public square if they are squeezing those Christians out of the public square. 3. I’m not suggesting the ACL should only talk about Jesus. That’s clearly not their function. I do have issues with their function – but I recognise their right to exist in a democracy. Rather, I’m suggesting they should start by, and possibly end by, talking about Jesus as the foundation of any moral position, and a relationship with Jesus (not legislation) being the true answer to any brokenness they identify in society. Even if this is edited out by journalists who are only interested in controversy (and I don’t think most journalists are like that, in my experience) – at least we could point to their work and say “context is important” – at the moment there is no real context for the moral proclamations the ACL makes except “this is what the law in Australia has always been like thanks to our Christian heritage”… this means, conversely, that I will not as one person suggested shut up about the ACL and just talk about Jesus – tackling issues from a gospel framework is important for our witness to the world. I will always talk about Jesus as I point out the shortcomings of how Christianity is represented in the public square. I can’t see any of my posts about the ACL where I haven’t done that. 4. I’m also not suggesting that evangelism is the ACL’s function. Nor that the ACL is “the Church.” It is not the ACL’s job to evangelise, but it is the ACL’s job to think about how what they say helps or hinders this job for others. I’d also say that when the ACL is in the public sphere representing Christians – they also need to be representing Jesus, and presenting their activities in the context of the gospel message. I am suggesting that when the exercise of their function is damaging to evangelism and the work of the church they’re not fulfilling their charter as a parachurch organisation – and when they “go rogue” like this it is the church’s job to call them out for it. If the damage is done in public – to the church’s witness to Jesus – then the response needs to be public to undo such damage. 5. Christian unity is in Christ – not in a conservative political position or our “Christian heritage” – one of the constant criticisms when my posts hit the interwebs is that Christian disunity is unattractive to non-Christians. And there is a fundamental truth there that I agree wholeheartedly with. It would be much better for our witness if we all just got along – but if there’s one thing church history shows us – it’s that it’s unlikely we’re all going to get along, and it’s especially unlikely when people stop being united on the main thing – Jesus, and the next main thing – loving one another as a testimony to our relationship with Jesus (John 13:35). This is part of the reason Paul tells Christians not to sue each other in Corinth (1 Corinthians 6). I’m going to argue below that this is not the only passage that has any bearing on public disagreements between Christians, because it’s not really saying “don’t argue with each other in public” – though it provides an ethical paradigm to work from, which does value unity. 6. I do believe that Matthew 18:15-17 is relevant here, though not as relevant as some suggest. I think raising a disagreement with the party involved is a valuable exercise – though I don’t think these verses are directly applicable (I flesh this out more below). I have discussed my problem with the ACL with them directly, and at some length, without fruit. I will always give them an opportunity to respond to what I write, and notify them when I have written about them. I’m not sure if I think the ACL is “sinning by omission” but I think they’re doing public relations, and public Christianity, in an unhelpful way. I think that 1 Peter 3:15 is probably as important – I suspect the gentleness and respect that we’re to show to outsiders should be typical of our dialogue with each other. I need to be better at speaking in love when directing my writing at Christians, there is a remarkable difference in tone between my posts to Christians, and those aimed at non-Christians. Though perhaps this is the difference between “rebuke” and evangelism. 2 Timothy 2 is also particularly pertinent (but note that it doesn’t say “don’t disagree” or anything about the context of the disagreement (be it public or private)… “24 And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. 25 Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, 26 and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.” I will say that I do not think this is a foolish or stupid argument, but a wildly important one. “23 Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels.” Ephesians 4 is also relevant… but again, maintaining unity doesn’t mean avoiding criticism. Criticism doesn’t equal disunity except in the most modern adversarial approaches to life. I’ve bolded the bits I think are relevant to this post. “As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5 one Lord,one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. 7 But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.” 11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. 14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. 16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. 20 That, however, is not the way of life you learned 21 when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. 22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. 25 Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body. 29 Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. I find it hard to think of truthfully telling other Christians to talk more about the foundational truth of Jesus -who changes our approach to morality – as something that doesn’t build them up, or something that grieves the Spirit. 7. I am predominantly driven by concern for my non-Christian friends with what I write here. I hope my posts are helpful for other Christians in clarifying issues, and providing a framework for thinking about how public relations, evangelism, ethics and Christianity fit together. I am really only claiming to be anything like an expert on the public relations side of things, and I claim that reluctantly and mostly on the basis that people still pay me a fair amount of money in that field. I write these posts, and I share them as widely as possible, because I want any non-Christian friends who I hope to be a witness to through what I speak about, how I speak about it, and how I live, to know that I don’t think the gospel looks or sounds like it does when the ACL gets on a platform and whether intentionally or otherwise, makes unhelpful comparisons between things to further a political agenda that I do not always share. 8. I think it is really important not to water down sin, but I think it’s more important not to water down the gospel into “don’t sin”… I’m pretty careful when I’m writing not to suggest that the moral issues at the heart of the ACL’s campaigns aren’t moral issues (though I do think there’s a profoundly important difference between homosexual temptation and homosexual practice when it comes to sin). I’m not saying that Christians should never speak about morality – I’m just saying when we do it should always be in the context of what Jesus has done, and who Jesus is. And my preference would be to lead with that, then talk about sin, then talk about Jesus again – who Jesus is in relationship to the world makes what the Bible says about morality important, here’s what the Bible says about this moral issue, the good news is that even though we all fail morally, Jesus died in our place, taking our punishment – and he offers a restored relationship with God freely. It’s not really that hard. You simply say: As Christians we follow Jesus, who we believe is Lord of all, and restores our relationship with the God who created everything. We believe God created the world in a way that makes this behaviour wrong, and while a case can be made from nature, we base our opinion on what he has revealed in his word, the Bible, which shaped our legislation in this country historically, and we think a better case needs to be made for moving away from this foundation. We believe that people are broken – including us – by a desire to not live this way, but God sent Jesus as a first step towards fixing us, and now works through his Spirit to help Christians live his way.” Obviously I’ve argued elsewhere that because the Spirit is only active in regenerating Christians the case for legislating Christian morals with the expectation that people will keep them is fairly weak, but others have different opinions regarding the uses and efficacy of God’s law. That’s a rather long preamble, and it has touched on the points I’m going to make below. But this is important stuff to think through well – because it’s important for how the gospel is presented and understood by the people we live, work, study, and play with… Why I will criticise the ACL in Public: It’s a Gospel issue If I didn’t think that failing to even mention Jesus when you’re talking about the brokenness of humanity and the solutions that human rights provide was a problem, I wouldn’t be critical. But if people think this is what the church thinks is the solution to a broken world – we have a problem. The solution to the problem of sin, at a social level, and for the individual, is for people to know Jesus as Lord. The ACL is pushing a Christendom styled solution to a post-Christendom society. While 62% of Australians culturally identify as Christians, less than 20% are churchgoers – which I would suggest is a much better measure of Australia’s commitment to Christianity. Of that 20% there’s an incredible diversity of political affiliation and even a diversity of understanding of what the gospel is, who Jesus is, and what sin is. The “Christian constituency” is a myth. Why I will criticise the ACL in Public: They are operating in public, the damage they do is public I don’t think of myself as an ACL watchdog. Or watchblog. I’m not waiting for them to stuff up so that I can criticise them. There are more than 5,000 posts on this blog, and probably 15 of them are about the ACL. I could count – but you can check it out yourself. I often blog about other Christians in the public sphere, and how to do PR stuff without mentioning the ACL. I want that to be clear. Some people only pay attention when I pick on the ACL… but they’re not a particular “bee in my bonnet”… I try very hard to abide by the principles of publicly criticising people that Tim Keller posted here, because I think they’re really useful guidelines (and part 2 – which is part 3 of a bigger series). 1. Carson’s Rule—You don’t have to follow Matthew 18 before publishing polemics. Don Carson wrote an Editorial on Abusing Matthew 18 in which he addresses the often-made argument that a Christian should not publicly write criticism of other Christians’ theological views without going to them first, privately, citing Matthew 18. But Carson points out that this passage is talking about two people in the same church, or at least in the same ecclesiastical connection, since if the two parties disagree the whole matter can be taken to “the church,” meaning the congregation and its leaders… …In short, if someone is publicly presenting theological views that are opposed to sound doctrine, and you are not in the same ecclesiastical body with this person (that is, there is no body of elders over you both, as when, for example, both of you are ministers in the same denomination,) then you may indeed publicly oppose those without going privately to the author of them. Carson does add a qualifier, but that comes under the next rule. 2. Murray’s Rule—You must take full responsibility for even unwitting misrepresentation of someone’s views. If someone can demonstrate that I have misrepresented them I will retract, edit, and apologise for such a misrepresentation. “Don Carson says that if you have strong concerns about Mr A’s views, and you are considering publishing a critique, it may be wise to go to Mr A first, but “not out of obedience to Matthew 18, which really does not pertain, but to determine just what the views of the [other person] really are.”… … This is very sobering. In our internet age we are very quick to dash off a response because we think Mr A promotes X. And when someone points out that Mr A didn’t mean X because over here he said Y, we simply apologize, or maybe we don’t even do that. John Murray’s principle means that polemics must never be “dashed off.” Great care should be taken to be sure you really know what Mr A believes and promotes before you publish.” I slightly diverge from Carson and Keller here – because I think being able to provide an immediate response to the perceived position of Mr A is vital for limiting some of the damage, and it’s the nature of blogging or reporting to be producing content as quickly as possible or you miss the moment. It’s PR 101. But I am pretty careful to read closely, as sympathetically as possible, and to update posts where necessary. Sometimes I’m not as sympathetic to the ACL as I should be – and I apologise. I’m always happy to rewrite sentences that impugn someone’s character or motives if they’re pointed out. I think my responsibility is to be mindful of the potential of misrepresenting others. 3. Alexander’s Rule—Never attribute an opinion to your opponent that he himself does not own. They were to “strive for truth, not victory” and they were to “know when to put a stop to controversy. It is a great evil in keeping it up” unnecessarily. He also urged them to not go public with criticism unless the error was very dangerous and important. Like Lloyd-Jones and (as we will see) John Calvin, Alexander taught that the ultimate purpose of controversy was to persuade and win over people in error. Therefore we must “avoid whatever is apt to create prejudice in opponents or auditors.” In other words, we must not argue in such a way that it hardens opponents in their views. These other principles are similar: 4. Gillespie’s Rule A – Take your opponents’ views in total, not selectively. 5. Gillespie’s Rule B – Represent and engage your opponents’ position in its very strongest form, not in a weak ‘straw man’ form. I do try to avoid guess work regarding the motives of certain people, and wherever possible, my understanding of the ACL comes from their own website, publications, and media releases – rather than the mainstream media. However, I think, when it comes to the public sphere – that it’s just as important to understand the public perception of the people you’re engaging with. The ACL may not seem to be the “peak body” – but it is certainly the “go to” organisation on public policy debates so far as the media is concerned, and as long as their annual report says: “… the regular mentions of ACL in the media demonstrate that ACL is continuing to mature as a player in the Australian political landscape. It has become the go to organisation for Christian commentary on so many of the major issues facing Australia…” I’ll be questioning whether their commentary is essentially “Christian”… which I think means it has to contain the gospel. I’ll be dealing with this last principle substantively in the last point. 6. Calvin’s Rule – Seek to persuade, not antagonize, but watch your motives! “In short, it is possible to seek to be winsome and persuasive out of a self-centeredness, rather than a God-centeredness. We may do it to be popular. On the other hand, it is just as possible to be bold and strongly polemical out of self-centeredness rather than God-centeredness. And therefore, looking very closely at our motives, we should be sure our polemics do not unnecessarily harden and antagonize our opponents. We should seek to win them, as Paul did Peter, not to be rid of them.” 7. Everybody’s Rule: Only God sees the heart—so remember the gospel and stick to criticizing the theology. I’ve probably fallen foul of this one a couple of times – in part because I think the very act of lobbying is counter to the gospel - in part because at times I have been critical of people alongside being critical of what they’ve said. But I will say again, as I have said above, and in previous posts – I do not doubt that the ACL is an organisation of my brothers and sisters in Christ. I agree with some of the criticism that has accused me of resorting to ad hominems on occasion – and I’ll strive to do that less, and to apologise more. And I’ll also be taking some principles from John Newton, cited in Keller’s third post on the rules (and fourth post in the series). “But no one has written more eloquently about this rule than John Newton, in his well-known“Letter on Controversy.” Newton says that first, before you begin to write a single word against an opponent, “and during the whole time you are preparing your answer, you may commend him by earnest prayer to the Lord’s teaching and blessing.” This practice will stir up love for him and “such a disposition will have a good influence upon every page you write.” Later in the letter Newton says, “Be upon your guard against admitting anything personal into the debate. If you think you have been ill treated, you will have an opportunity of showing that you are a disciple of Jesus, who ‘when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not.’ ” Why I will criticise the ACL in Public: To equip others Because I believe that Christianity, and especially Jesus, has an essential place at the table in public discussion, I want other people who want to participate in public discussion to have resources for thinking about how they might do that. I do have a certain level of expertise in this area that I haven’t really seen demonstrated elsewhere in the evangelical scene in Australia – and I’m constantly reaching out to other Christian experts in this field, or even secular experts, for feedback on these posts. People have told me that previous posts have been helpful for them, people like Mike O’Connor, in Rockhampton, who had this piece published in the Rockhampton paper this week (you can read a little more about where the paper slightly exaggerated his position here (though I’m not sure if you need to be his friend to read it)): Why I will criticise the ACL in Public: Because we need to grow up and move past the bizarre idea that robust criticism necessarily indicates disunity I’m fairly certain that apart from one unfortunate moment when I referred to the ACL as pharisees, I’ve never actually suggested they weren’t Christians. I apologised for saying that, and even at that point I didn’t think that the ACL weren’t Christians, just that they were in danger of misrepresenting the gospel in a manner consistent with the Pharisees’ understanding of how to relate to God. Paul pretty publicly criticises people in his writings (Paul affirms Peter’s apostolic authority (Gal 2:6-8) but also records, in writing, in the most public book of the last 2,000 years, that he “opposed Peter to his face” (Gal 3:1-19) because a moral position he has adopted is inconsistent with Christian unity in the gospel of Jesus, and he’s doing their witness to the Gentiles a disservice. His words, I think are both pertinent and paradigmatic for this discussion: 15 “We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles 16 know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified. 17 “But if, in seeking to be justified in Christ, we Jews find ourselves also among the sinners,doesn’t that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! 18 If I rebuild what I destroyed, then I really would be a lawbreaker. 19 “For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!” Paul also pretty publicly names Euodia and Syntyche, in the midst of trying to correct them, in a public document that was to be read in the context of the church gathering where there would be presumed to be a mix of Christians and non-Christians (cf 1 Corinthians 14:24-25)… urging them to be united in Christ – and he still regards them as co-workers in the gospel (Phil 4:2-3). There’s nothing to suggest that when the Bible suggests people aren’t doing a great job at representing the gospel that they’re not Christians (I’m thinking particularly of Acts 15:36-41 which records a sharp disagreement about John Mark’s approach to ministry). It seems that calling one another out, in public isn’t a threat to Christian unity. I’m not saying I wouldn’t sit down and have a cuppa with people from the ACL, nor that I don’t think they are Christians, simply that when they speak they are not speaking for me, because I don’t think they’re speaking the gospel. This isn’t a lawsuit between believers. I’m not taking the ACL to court to shut them up. I’m not launching any official action against them for falsely representing me as some Christians did with a political party calling itself Australian Christians, when they wrote to the Victorian Electoral Commission. And I don’t think that’s really the point Paul is making in 1 Corinthians. Corinth had a culture of vexatious litigation being used as a status booster where people would sue people for the boost in status a victory would bring – this was a problem because it denied the reality of who they were, in Jesus. I’d feel convicted by this passage if my attacks on the ACL were in any way simply an attempt to boost traffic here by picking on an easy and unpopular target. But I feel sick to the stomach when the ACL makes it harder for people to know Jesus – and that’s my motivation. I truly want the ACL to do a better job of talking about Jesus – if that wasn’t the case I’d stop making that the substance of my criticism. Further, upping your status at the expense of other believers – which Paul again deals with when he’s talking about idol food in 1 Cor 8-11 – is bad because they distract people from the true basis of their unity – Christ. So from 1 Corinthians 8: Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that “We all possess knowledge.” But knowledge puffs up while love builds up. 2 Those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know. 3 But whoever loves God is known by God. 4 So then, about eating food sacrificed to idols: We know that “An idol is nothing at all in the world” and that “There is no God but one.” 5 For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”), 6 yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live… 9 Be careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block to the weak. 10 For if someone with a weak conscience sees you, with all your knowledge, eating in an idol’s temple, won’t that person be emboldened to eat what is sacrificed to idols? 11 So this weak brother or sister, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge. 12 When you sin against them in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. 31 So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. 32 Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God— 33 even as I try to please everyone in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved. My argument from these passages, and the whole of Corinthians, is that we’re to be united around Christ, for the purpose of winning people over – and reading the conclusion of Paul’s argument about how the Corinthians are living in the world back into chapter 6, I’m arguing that the problem with lawsuits amongst believers is that they ruin the testimony of what Christ is doing in our lives. My problem with the way the ACL approaches the public sphere is that they run the risk of ruining our testimony about Christ. That’s why I don’t think this passage applies. I think it’s possible to robustly criticise each other, in the public sphere, so that non-Christians know we take the gospel seriously. That we are prepared to be robust with each other, while in fellowship, because we want to get the gospel right. The idea that we should hide our divisions behind closed doors will lead to the conclusion that we don’t actually care about this stuff enough to speak about our differences. It’s a product of our immature approach to politics in our country – where opposition is loud, adversarial, and dramatic – to think that any disagreement is bad and unhelpful. This plays out in all sorts of really harmful ways in society and leaves us with anaemic, politically correct, solutions to issues because nobody is passionate enough to come to improved resolutions through conflict. If we run away and bury our heads in the sand, say that criticism itself is wrong by nature of being public, or refuse to be sharpened through discourse then we’re going to end up with a fairly weak presence in the public sphere anyway. UPDATE: Also – a few other people have suggested that we should just be thankful the ACL does the hard work that the church isn’t doing, and wear the cost of the gospel being obscured, or use the controversy they generate as opportunities for “conversations”… the main theme of these comments is that we should let God work through the bad teaching, or the imperfect vessel… I’d say this is a little unhelpful, and short sighted – if you want the ACL to continue surely you want it to be getting ready as it responds to, and engages, with criticism from Christians as well as non-Christians. Plus part of the “conversations” it generates are conversations where we have to distance ourselves from the ACL anyway – if we want to be properly representing and proclaiming the gospel of Jesus. So this is, in a sense, exactly what posts like this are doing – they’re continuing the conversation. Letting such “imperfect vessels” go uncorrected is pretty dangerous and will lead to a weak, confused, and potentially liberal presentation of the gospel. Better to robustly and lovingly offer correction – whether in public (so that you’re loving the audience of these “vessels” as well), or in private. I have two more ACL posts to write. Including this one. And then I’m done on this round, and we’ll return to normal programming. A big part of the problem with how the ACL does business is that they go in to situations with a hostile posture and things go down hill – situations like TV debates, university debates, interviews where they’re forced to defend something they’ve said or argue about how something has been interpreted – because they adopt an adversarial posture the conversation is immediately off the rails and unlikely to produce productive results. They’re remarkably better when that’s not the case – it’s much easier to have a gracious and winsome conversation if you’re having a conversation. Which is exactly what happened when Wendy Francis sat down with SameSame editor Chad St. James. They had a civil conversation – and St. James has reported it with polite empathy. It’s a nice read. It humanises both of them. Wendy provides an interesting account of the blow up that followed a tweet sent from her account by a PR person. “But I think the very concept of child abuse is always linked to sexual abuse, well in my mind it is anyway. That was the real tragedy of that whole tweet. If the staff at the office had tweeted legalising same-sex marriage is taking a way a child’s right away to have a mother, then I probably wouldn’t have been so upset about it. But I was livid and really, really upset about it. My children were upset about it. Because it certainly inferred sexual abuse I think. So that just unforgivable. But I don’t think I handled the media well afterwards. But looking back I don’t think I know how I could’ve avoided it. I can 100 percent promise you, I had nothing to do with that tweet. I hated it, I absolutely hated it. I wished I hadn’t been out of the office so I could’ve been there. I immediately sort of went into melt-down mode wondering what it was all about. I was fuzzy with the responses afterwards, not really knowing what to. I had all these people advising me what to say. I had people ringing me saying “you should really go with that, that’s a great comment” and I was saying I can’t possibly go with that, it’s an awful comment.” So that’s nice. She does a really nice job of making her position on the GLBTI issues a product of social concern, rather than homophobia, and leaves St. James feeling vaguely sympathetic for her position. So that’s nice. My one concern comes from her answer to these two questions… What does the Australian Christian Lobby stand for? It stands for being a voice for values. We see that there is a value set, that Australia has traditionally been built on, and that is the Judeo – Christian heritage. And that’s like a lot of the west has been built on that as well. And the some of the policies that we have, if you look at what is at the heart of them its things from the Christian faith such as “do unto others as you would have them to do unto you” and the good Samaritan. Those sort of things are built into the Australian psyche, the whole good Samaritan, going a further mile, all of those things are from a Christian heritage. As we moved as a society away from being just Christian, and I don’t begrudge that, I think as we have had new immigration from other countries. In Brisbane for instance we celebrate Ramadan, we celebrate Buddha’s birthday, we celebrate Christmas. So we have this really good multicultural link, but as we have moved away from any one faith-base then we’ve got a bit of a void of where our values are based. So for me that is what I believe the Australian Christian Lobby is doing, seeking to keep us on track with the value system that has stood us in really good stead. What does Wendy Francis stand for? Wendy Francis is a mum and a grandma, a wife. I have always felt strongly about justice issues, I also feel very strongly about children. I think as our society has changed, one of the things that have changed for me the most is that we used to do whatever we do was on the best interests of the child. I think that’s changed, I think it’s now very “me”. Mind you, I have to say I think your generation is turning that around a little. I think your generation is sick of that. I think it’s the baby boomers who are a much more me generation. We’ve had it very good. We’ve all got houses, and now houses are out of reach for a lot of the younger ones. I think that “me, me” has impacted how we look outwardly. So for Wendy Francis, I think a lot of my motivation is coming from getting back to what is best for children. If we look at what is best for children, then I think that’s going to be what’s best for society. If you want to be the Australian Christian Heritage Lobby, or the Christian Values Lobby, that’s fine. But if you call yourself the Christian Lobby, and you say you’re on about Jesus – which I’m sure Wendy is – I think these are the questions where the gospel comes in naturally. Rather than the moral framework that Christianity has produced in our legal system. There was also this bit… “You operate on a set of beliefs, and I do, and both of us are vitally important in what we call democracy, because if we’re going to have a true democracy every voice has to be heard. So I think it’s vital that the Christian voice is heard because we represent a large part of the constituents. In the latest census I think there were 62 percent of people that identify as Christians. It doesn’t mean that they’re all practising Christians, it’s probably more like 20 percent that are practising Christians, but still there is 62 percent identify in that way. So it would be ridiculous to think that there wasn’t some sort of input from what people believe into our parliaments.” They need to decide if they represent the 20% or the 62% – and if the latter, they need to change their name and to stop pretending they’re speaking for the church. In this interview Wendy Francis has the second part of 1 Peter 3:15 sorted, the ACL still needs to work on the first… 15 But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect… The ACL doesn’t seem to get it. When you say the wrong thing you apologise. You don’t blame people for taking offense. You don’t hide behind being “misquoted” or “misrepresented” - you avoid saying unhelpful and offensive stuff that isn’t the gospel. Our job as Christians in public isn’t to be offensive – it’s to let the gospel cause offense where it will, by being faithful. “We rightly warn of the health impacts of smoking. Surely we cannot allow these aggressive activists to conceal the facts of a lifestyle that accounts for over eighty percent of new HIV cases in Australia annually. “If we warn against smoking because it carries health dangers, we should also be warning young people in particular about activity which clearly carries health risks.” It’s interesting that he’s moved away from mental health issues and suicide to HIV/AIDs, which involves 1,000 new diagnoses per year. So that’s more than 800 people. I guess he realised he couldn’t possibly win on the first position and made a tactical withdrawal. Mr Wallace said at no stage did he say that “smoking is healthier than gay marriage”, as reported by some media. “What I did say is that heterosexual sex and homosexual sex are different and have different health consequences. They should not be packaged the same way as marriage because, as just one of many reasons, they are different. “If we warn against smoking because it carries health dangers, we should also be warning young people in particular about activity which clearly carries health risks,” Mr Wallace said.” He overstates the case somewhat when it comes to the impact of Prime Minister Gillard’s decision to pull out of speaking at their conference: “Australian Christian Lobby Managing Director Jim Wallace said the decision would come as a deep disappointment to Australia’s Christian constituency.” I’m a member of that constituency and I’m not at all disappointed. From the ABC... He said some interesting stuff here… “I’ve been misquoted in trying to suggest that that means I’m comparing smoking with homosexuality. In the sense that, I’m not saying for a moment that homosexuality is more dangerous than smoking.” “I’m comparing the packaging. I’m talking about the packaging. What I’m saying is that packaging is important in how we present things to people… then certainly, the packaging of marriage, particularly the packaging of the heterosexual lifestyle and the homosexual lifestyle as one thing under it, and I spoke yesterday about a range of issues under it.” “I’m talking about the importance of packaging.” “I don’t think all gay people have a choice.” You can also watch him get torn apart on the Project. Here’s what he says on the Project… after the story introduces the factoid that suicide prevention Australia says gay people are 14 times more likely to commit suicide than others. Then they asked him about why he compared homosexuality with smoking… “That’s not what I said at all. I’m really annoyed that this is another example of vitriolic gay activism…” “The point of my comment is the importance of packaging… it would hide the fact of the consequences of it from the health point of view.” He also keeps saying that the struggle people experience with sexual orientation is “in their teens” – bizarre. “We have to be able to discuss these issues… we can’t close down debate by not discussing the issues associated with this lifestyle under the packaging debate…” He doesn’t prove that he’s been misquoted or misrepresented at all. He blames everybody else. This is interesting – and not uncommon – I’m yet to see the ACL issue a genuine mea culpa when they’re caught out saying something dumb. Like in the furore surrounding a tweet Jim Wallace issued last Anzac Day which he called a “misrepresentation” before saying: “I apologise – I would never want to politicise Anzac day – never my intention,” Mr Wallace said. “The interpretation that is being made of this – that I am saying that Australians didn’t fight for everybody – is totally wrong.” Here’s the tweet… “Just hope that as we remember Servicemen and women today we remember the Australia they fought for – wasn’t gay marriage and Islamic!” “The tweet has obviously been seized on by everyone with an intention to discredit, but although ill timed, it did not and was never intended to suggest that veterans had not fought for all Australians,” said Mr Wallace.” Then there was the time he said gay marriage advocates were comparable to Goebels. Wallace has form for saying controversial stuff and then rather than backing away from the content, suggesting that he has been treated unfairly. Or using the furore to get more media coverage. Anyway. Here’s what he says about the current issue… “This is a victory for the demonisation tactics of gay activism and it’s a constant misrepresentation and spin of anything by people who support marriage as between a man and a woman.” Which would be great. If he was being misrepresented. He did compare smoking and homosexuality. Here’s what he said. In direct quotes. “I think we’re going to owe smokers a big apology when the homosexual community’s own statistics for its health – which it presents when it wants more money for health – are that is has higher rates of drug-taking, of suicide, it has the life of a male reduced by up to 20 years.” He still is, even if the heart of his issue is about packaging (whatever that means). “What I was saying is that on one hand we are vocal on our discouragement of people to smoke and on the other we are suppressing public dialogue about the health risks associated with homosexuality.” That is a comparison – we do something on one hand, and something different on another. The very definition of comparison. The first release also pointed to the study Wallace is quoting from – which is actually a “human rights complaint” a GLBTI group made against the Canadian health care system. These are the health issues the submission deals with: Now, there’s no doubt that some of those aspects – particularly the cancer and HIV/AIDS are related to homosexual practice itself, inherently, in the report. And it is possible that certain aspects of the gay lifestyle are related to lowered inhibitions and greater promiscuity – but points 1, 5, and 9, are causally linked to the homosexuals are treated (though not necessarily the only cause). Anyway. This is all a very long preamble. None of this would be an issue if the ACL didn’t have a strategy of going into, and out of, debates with the expectation that everybody is out to twist their words. Wallace provides enough rope in live interviews to make his accusations regarding “spin” and “misunderstanding” essentially meaningless. It would be much better by a million times if they just stopped using combative adversarial styled arguments to promote their case. It would be infinitely better if their content was Christian, in any meaningful sense. I’d love to see Jim Wallace publicly offend people with the gospel. It’s not a mark of faithful gospel ministry if you offend people – it’s a mark of faithful gospel ministry if the gospel offends people. Each gospel makes mention of the world’s negative response to the gospel: “20 For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. 21 Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, 22 and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.” 18 “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. 20 Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. 21 But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 Whoever hates me hates my Father also. 24 If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. 25 But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: ‘They hated me without a cause.’ Which is particularly relevant to the ACL’s case – because it is about how to deal with government… 12 But before all this they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake. 13 This will be your opportunity to bear witness. 14 Settle it therefore in your minds not to meditate beforehand how to answer,15 for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict. 16 You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you they will put to death. 17 You will be hated by all for my name’s sake. 10 And the gospel must first be proclaimed to all nations. 11 And when they bring you to trial and deliver you over, do not be anxious beforehand what you are to say, but say whatever is given you in that hour, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit. 12 And brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death. 13 And you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.” UPDATE 2 (update 1 is at the bottom of the post) – I have edited the post for clarity in a couple of places. The original paragraphs are at the bottom of the post. It’s been a while since I last felt the need to write anything about how disappointed I am in the way the Australian Christian Lobby claims to represent Christians, and Jesus, in the Australian public square. This should be understood as a sign that they were being less offensive than usual – because it’s not as if I didn’t keep checking their media releases… But today’s clanger will take some undoing. Jim Wallace, in a public debate with Greens leader Christine Milne, in question time, compared the health burden caused by the homosexual lifestyle with the health burden caused by cigarette smoking to essentially suggest that the government should be treating homosexuality like it treats smoking. He didn’t say that specifically. But read this: “I think we’re going to owe smokers a big apology when the homosexual community’s own statistics for its health – which it presents when it wants more money for health – are that is has higher rates of drug-taking, of suicide, it has the life of a male reduced by up to 20 years.” “The life of smokers is reduced by something like seven to 10 years and yet we tell all our kids at school they shouldn’t smoke.” Even if this is true – and the health stats are pretty popular with organisations like the ACL, and he attributes them to the homosexual community’s own research, so one expects they’re based on some sort of research, and at least alluding to the spectre of HIV/AIDS – even if this is absolute fact – it’s incredibly wrong headed and harmful for three reasons. First. Smoking is a behavioural choice in a way that homosexual orientation is not – it is either environmentally (probably) or biologically (possibly) wired into the psyche. Comparisons between the two simply because they come with a health cost are a bit misleading on that front. EDIT: This is not to say that those who experience unwanted same sex attraction as an orientation are unable to move towards heterosexuality, nor to say that homosexuality is never a choice. Sexual orientation is best understood on a sliding scale and is, to a degree, malleable – with the amount of change possible an individual issue END EDIT. Second. The health issues associated with homosexuality are, at least in part (EDIT: neither as big a part as public perception suggests, nor so small as to be statistically meaningless END EDIT), the result of the posture and approach that members of the church, aspects of Christian doctrine, and unnuanced statements by people like Jim Wallace (in this instance), and those claiming to speak for all Christians have assumed with regards to this issue. These health issues are not necessarily linked to homosexuality. But I would suggest that homosexuality is involved in a causal chain – both internatlly and externally driven – that can lead to situational depression, which can lead to drug use and suicide, I suspect the way the church has at times pushed guaranteed “solutions” to unwanted same sex attraction” in the form of conversion to heterosexuality can probably lead to an unhealthy amount of guilt associated with temptation – not even with homosexual practice. While these are possible for some individuals – at times an end point of a celibate struggle with natural orientation may be the more realistic, and Biblical, goal – see my Eunuchs for the Kingdom essay for more of my thinking, and research, in this area. Want to make someone feel bad for what they are naturally inclined to do – tell the world that schools should be educating kids not to do it. I’m not interested in arguing that homosexual practice is good for one’s health, or for one’s standing before God – but the mental health issues associated with homosexuality are, so far as public perception and the accounts of members of the gay community, related to the way homosexuality is spoken about and treated, and the church has had a role in this by not carefully and pastorally dealing with the issue and by perpetuating, or not speaking out against bigotry conducted in the name of Jesus. Third. Where is Jesus in all of this? This is my perennial criticism of the ACL. It’s possible to talk about Jesus when you’re talking about homosexuality. Look. Other people managed it on national television here. I did it here. And here. Before you get to defending marriage. If the ACL is more interested in banging on about the traditional definition of marriage at every turn, especially in the midst of a conversation about the tragedy of shortened life spans through drugs and suicide in the homosexual community, then it needs to CHANGE ITS NAME. Call yourself the Australian Traditional Marriage Lobby. Or the Traditional Relationships And Marriage Party (TRAMP). Get the word “Christian” out of articles like this. It didn’t get any better outside the heat of debate, when Wallace had a chance to nuance his statements. “But what I’m saying is we need to be aware that the homosexual lifestyle carries these problems and … normalising the lifestyle by the attribution of marriage, for instance, has to be considered in what it does encouraging people into it.” He’s perpetuating the idea that people will suddenly want to be gay – that’s such a small percentage of people in studies of the etiology (origins) of homosexuality that it’s practically an outlier. Then. He gets worse… “I am very sorry for that. My heart goes out to those people. But it is a fact.” Those people? I can’t help but interpret this as a bit of otherising. They aren’t “those” people, as though a new category. We are people. It seems to me that it’s only possible to capitalise on tragedy like this if you’re prepared to make some sort of distinction between you and them. Here’s how the ACL promoted the debate on its website: “Only in cutting through claim and counter claim to truth, can the rights of not just the loudest or the most powerful be guaranteed but the disenfranchised, the most marginalised, those without a voice. In this debate on same sex marriage there is such a voice – it is the voice of the child.” They could call themselves the Australian Children’s Lobby without even changing their web address. You don’t re-enfranchise the disenfranchised and marginalised by marginalising others, and once again, you don’t get yardage in the public debate by capitalising on human tragedy. This is a lesson the ACL needs to learn. Suicide is not a pawn in the chess game of Australian marriage legislation. You don’t offer hope with a defence of traditional marriage – you offer hope with Jesus and the opportunity of a long term identity defining relationship with him. UPDATE – Jim Wallace’s actual speech from the debate is here. It’s marginally better – because it doesn’t you know, suggest that we should apologise to smokers for not taking the health risk of homosexuality seriously… But it’s still bad. The only time he mentions Jesus is to establish the value of children… “And not just that, but a mother and father that as much as the law is able to encourage, will love that child and sacrifice for its best interests as willingly as it biological parents should or would have. Now unfortunately even with the best intent we have done this imperfectly – to the great detriment of children. Those who Jesus put on His knee and said it would be better for you to be cast into the sea with a stone around your neck than to harm one of these. But this gay activists’ agenda now means that we do it imperfectly intentionally.” The implicit take home message – though clearly unintentional – is that Jesus, like the ACL, only cares about children – there’s nothing said about how a relationship with Jesus might help anybody else. He mentions God once too. “But thanks to politics, the support of parties scrambling in this unholy game we’ve turned the great idea of democracy into, politicians have decided to play God and deny a child its natural right and succumb to this selfish and increasingly vitriolic voice of gay activism.” Perhaps the worst part is that he starts, in his opening gambit, with the fall. And its impact on human society. “Of course though we don’t live in a perfect world – it’s what Christians instead call a fallen world. It’s this imperfect state that the Church has wrestled with against tyranny and injustice, man’s inhumanity to man in slavery and the civil rights movement, abuse of power even within the Church and today daily on its streets and overseas against poverty and injustice.” AND THEN SAYS NOTHING ABOUT JESUS AS THE ANSWER TO THE PROBLEM OF THE FALLEN WORLD. Let me say that again. He talks about the problem of sin – and offers no solution – except to make sure children live with their parents. The only answer he provides is completely secular. “In a secular world we have to ensure that everyone has justice and particularly that everyone’s human rights are protected.” What’s the point of being a “Christian” Lobby if all you’re doing is claiming to protect human rights? UPDATE 2 – the original paragraphs that have been edited above so that the comments below make sense… First. Smoking is a behavioural choice in a way that homosexual orientation is not… “The health issues associated with homosexuality are, at least in part, the result of the posture and approach people like Jim Wallace have assumed with regards to this issue. Want to make someone feel bad for what they are naturally inclined to do – tell the world that schools should be educating kids not to do it. I’m not interested in arguing that homosexual practice is good for one’s health, or for one’s standing before God – but the mental health issues associated with homosexuality are demonstrably related to the way homosexuality is spoken about and treated, and the church has had a role in this by not carefully and pastorally dealing with the issue and by perpetuating, or not speaking out against bigotry conducted in the name of Jesus.” “Those people? How’s that for a bit of otherising. They’re not a special category of people. They are people. We are people. It’s only possible to capitalise on tragedy like this if you’re prepared to make some sort of distinction between you and them.” I was talking to a friend this week about a statement his church might put out on gay marriage and he said “have you seen any good press releases on this issue” and I said “no”… which isn’t entirely true, I could probably find one or two. So I wrote one (P.S – to that friend, I’ve tweaked this a bit since). It’s a bit wordy, and I’d want to edit some bits out depending on context, but it does, I think, incorporate our “key messages”… CHURCH/DENOMINATION NAME apologises to LOCATION’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Intersex community for any hurt caused to them in the name of Jesus when homosexuality has been singled out as a special sin. We recognise that this apology is particularly necessary given the heat involved in the current debate surrounding the redefinition of marriage. As a church community we are interested in people of all sexual orientations, and from all backgrounds, meeting Jesus, and having a long term relationship with the God who created the universe, we believe all human relationships come second to this one relationship. CHURCH NAME, Spokesperson name, said that while it will inevitably cause tension for people, CHURCH NAME must continue to define homosexuality as contrary to God’s design, as the Bible is clear on the matter, but admits the church has done a bad job whenever homosexuality has been singled out for special treatment. “As a church community we have to recognise that whenever the Bible discusses homosexuality as contrary to God’s created order, it does so in long lists of sins too often given a free pass by Christians speaking out in the same sex marriage debate.” “As a society we need to work hard at fostering debate which is inclusive and loving, where loving disagreement is not just tolerated but encouraged. It’s unfortunate that standing up for the current definition of marriage is inevitably framed as standing against those who seek changes to the definition. We are not seeking to question the personhood, or limit the freedoms, of the GLBTI community so much as seeking to uphold an institution that we believe was created by God.” “Perhaps, as a society, we should be taking stock of the heavy emphasis we put on sexual expression as a fundamental human right in the first place, this seems to inherently discriminate against those who are asexual in orientation, or the unhappily single. We believe that sexuality is important, but that it cannot function as the basis of one’s identity.” “We believe, as Christian churches have for almost 2,000 years, that Jesus Christ, who claimed to be the son of God, was crucified by the Roman Empire, and was raised three days later. We believe that this historical event verified his claims.” “From the beginning of Christianity this event has been called the gospel, which means good news, because it has implications for every human, it makes a relationship with God possible because the fundamental truth of human nature is that we cannot avoid doing those things that the Bible calls sin, that is stuff that isn’t in line with what the God who made all things would have us do.” “We’re not arguing that homosexual orientation is a choice, simply that what is natural to us can still be wrong. All of us are naturally wired to do these things. And the Bible says Jesus undoes that wiring. Not in a way that means we don’t do the wrong thing, but in a way that frees us from defining ourselves by those things.” “We believe, as churches have since the canon was established by councils 1,700 years ago, that the Bible is the word of God, containing the collation of documents necessary to guide us, but ultimately to tell, and foretell, the story of Jesus as the central event in history. Our calendar years still recognise Jesus arrival as a turning point.” “Jesus taught that marriage, from the beginning of humanity, was instituted by God as between one man and one woman. While we acknowledge that there are many cultures that have made modifications to this design, or that have no ties to the Judea-Christian tradition, we believe that this design is self evident from the anatomical sexual compatibility of men and women.” “Because we believe that Jesus, as God’s son, and God himself, speaks as the creator of humanity, and we believe the Bible is God’s word, we must continue to oppose the redefinition of marriage, and to continue to define homosexuality as part of the brokenness of our human nature.” “This is not a decision we take lightly because we recognise that some people in our community are hurt by disagreement, but it’s a decision we must take in order to continue to offer the hope that Jesus offers to all people.” “While we believe strongly in the separation of church and state, and have no wish to legislate our belief system for everybody, we recognise that all people in a democracy have a right to participate in policy debate. We continue to oppose a redefinition of the marriage act on the basis that we believe that defining marriage as a lifelong commitment made between a man and a woman is the best way to enable human flourishing. We believe that this is the type of family structure that God intended, though we understand that families are complex and all families need love, support and care, which we humbly offer in our church community.” “We are always happy to have conversations with people who disagree with us, and will continue to offer love, support, and prayer to those people, and anyone struggling with any sin, or people who want to understand who Jesus is.” For more information contact SPOKESPERSON on PHONE NUMBER What do you reckon? Is it missing anything vital? What would you cut, or add? We’re really enjoying being part of Creek Road this year. I love the way we’ve got a clear vision about the role we’d like to play in our city – we want to help people in Brisbane meet Jesus (like every other church that loves Jesus)… But mostly I love that so many people in our congregation are fired up to serve God, serve our city, and be on mission together. Its been fun to fuse my PR stuff with ministry in opportunities like this video, that the very talented Wade Iedema from Lifetone Media put together. I helped write the script, my friend Joe polished it, and came up with the idea of getting people from church to read it, and my baby girl, Robyn’s knee, and my coffee machine, make little cameos. What do you reckon? Pairing up coffee with good causes is something I like to do from time to time. A few years ago we used Indian coffee to help Dave raise money for clean Indian drinking water, last year we used coffee to buy beehives and grain through Tear’s Really Useful Gift catalogue, and now, you can buy some delicious Tanzanian coffee – a premium kind of coffee (it’s more expensive) – to help partner with Arthur, Tamie and Elliot as they head to Tanzania. You’ll even get a magnet! I have about 12kg of Tanzanian coffee up my sleeve, and would love to roast it all as part of this little initiative. So keep reading – and then buy up at the end – you can use Paypal, or, if you’d prefer, contact me by email to order some and pay via bank deposit. I will be mailing this coffee out a little differently – I’m planning to send it on Mondays or Fridays (my days off) – so order close to one of those days if you want it fresh. Here’s some more about the project – you’ll find this content duplicated on a dedicated page – and the Tanzanian coffee order form will sit where the old fashioned order form sits in the sidebar for as long as I’ve got coffee left to sell. Arthur, Tamie, and Elliot, are heading to Tanzania next year aiming to introduce a generation of Tanzanian leaders to Jesus. You can purchase some delicious coffee to help them out, and to get better informed about what’s going down in Tanzania, and what they plan to do there. They’ve renamed their blog, what was Cyberpunk + Blue Twin is now meetjesusatuni.com, and they have a Facebook page that I highly encourage you to like so that you can follow along on their exodus (most people would use the word journey here. But that’s so cliched). They’re raising support – and I’d encourage you to get on board, especially if you’ve benefited from the wisdom they’ve shared via their blog over the years. Here’s a little video, because lets face it, at 25 frames per second, a 3 minute picture is worth 4.5 million words (that’s 180x25x1000). So. That’s all well and good. But I’ve lured you here using coffee, and now you’re wondering what’s the go with that. Let me tell you. Tanzania is home to some pretty special coffees – especially from the Blackburn Estate (here’s Cup Coffee’s tasting notes for Clouds) – we’ve got 10kg of Tanzanian coffee from this estate – in two lots – “Clouds of August” and “Pick of the Harvest” that we’re going to offer as a way to support Arthur, Tamie, and Elliot. We’re not looking to raise a huge amount of money – probably just enough to cover their postage costs for a year, or something like that. But here’s the deal. This coffee is a premium variety. It costs about double what I’d normally pay for green beans. So that’s why this little project is a bit more in line with the prices you’d normally pay for small batches of roasted coffee. When you buy these beans you’ll get a little bit more info on Tanzania, some tasting notes, and a magnet to remind you to pray for Arthur, Tamie and Elliot as they prepare for life in Africa. Here are some tasting notes for each lot (from Ministry Grounds). Clouds of August A bright, sugary and lively coffee with nice peach acidity, notes of red apple and cocoa. A beautiful mandarin balance. Pick of the Harvest A complex and layered coffee with a buttery mouthfeel and notes of plums and red fruit. Here’s the Order Form – which you’ll also find in the sidebar of the home page. I don’t know why the spaces are so big in this order form. Sorry about that. This is useful, even if Ze Frank, the guy in the video, needs to blink… I’ve probably nuanced what I would say about “worship” since then – I think, and this is a working definition, that “worship is the sacrificial use of the gifts God has given you to glorify him by loving and serving him, and one another, and pointing people to Jesus.” I think that best accounts for Romans 12, and Paul’s approach to ministry and spiritual gifts, particularly in Corinthians. I’m pretty convinced by the argument that singing in our gatherings is part of “word ministry” – it is designed to both express something about our faith in Jesus, express something vertically in terms of vocalising our praise to God, and express something horizontally in terms of encouraging our brothers and sisters as we sing together, and highlighting something for the non-Christian in the midst of our gathering (ala 1 Cor 14:22-25). Singing is communication. Singing is word ministry. And laying aside all debates about the charismatic movement and whether flaying your arms around, or at least moving, is biblically mandated (or rather, warranted, ala what Bob Kauflin dealt with when he spoke in Brisbane last year), I think we I’d at least argue we’re doing this communication part badly… or at least not communicating as fully as we could be… if we adopt the dour posture common in the reformed evangelical (Presbyterian) circles that I move in. Image Credit: The Speaker’s Practice Most communications experts and consultants I’ve dealt with over the years – from uni lecturers during my undergrad degree, to consultants we hired in the workplace, to preaching lecturers at college – stress the importance of things other than words when we are speaking. Things we call “non verbal communication.” The number in the pie chart above seems pretty arbitrary – I’ve heard it said that non-verbal communication can account for up to 85% of what we communicate, or how effectively we communicate it, when we speak. That’s what these guys claim. They also claim that 90% of the emotional work is carried by non-verbals. If this stat is true then it plays into another aspect of communication – particularly when it comes to the fine art of persuasion. And if communication is not “persuasive” in some sense, if you’re just preaching to the choir – literally – when you sing, and you’re not trying to reinforce or hammer home something using music as a teaching tool, then I’d argue that it’s not really a particularly useful form of Christian encouragement, and you’re not really treating music as word ministry. Persuasion, since Aristotle (and later, my favourite, Cicero), has been divied up into categories of pathos (emotion), ethos (character), and logos (content) – here’s a run down from another public speaking site I found via google. And a little diagram – I’d argue from the stat above, even if its inaccurate, that pathos includes convincing non-verbals… Image Credit: Visual Books Project In my experience of my circles our approach to music heavily invests in the logos element of our music, treats music as a ministry that requires a certain character test for members of the band (ethos), and maintains a deep suspicion of pathos because it’s largely, especially in the absence of the other two elements, where manipulation goes down. I’ve written something about manipulation and persuasion before. And personally I am deeply, and culturally, suspicious of any attempts to manipulate the way I think with bells and smells, ritual, minor falls and major lifts, or any little tools that bands might use – like clapping. I’m not suggesting working our way through this chart until you find something that resonates with you. Image Credit: TimHawkins.net (get the T-Shirt) But I don’t think this suspicion is the answer – and I think its stymying our ability to communicate the gospel clearly in everything we do when we gather. I’m trying to figure out what being mindful of what I’m communicating non-verbally when I sing looks like. Good persuasion, following Cicero, means starting with character, and then tying logos and pathos together under that rubric. I think Paul takes Cicero’s ball and runs with it in his letters to the Corinthians (my Corinthians essay) – arguing that the character test for Christian ministry is being sacrificially cross shaped in how they do life, and especially how they gather… and I think, if emotion is carried by non verbal communication, and assuming we’ve got issues of ethos and logos right in our singing, then we need to be thinking about how we do pathos well with our non-verbals when we use singing to communicate the gospel. In a way that is sacrificial and meets the definition of worship I floated above. The call then, is for us to be genuinely authentic when we’re singing together, rather than faking authenticity, pretending to be bought in to the emotional stuff, because we want to communicate something. There are heaps of people, particularly in our culture, who are just like me – suspicious of overtly emotional stuff, wary of manipulation through an increasing sensitivity to the tricks of advertisers, spin doctors, and other charlatans – so we can’t do the pathos, or even the logos, right, without getting the ethos right first. But nor can we be so scared of this stuff that we avoid pathos all together – because a lack of emotional buy in amounts to an insincere and inauthentic approach to persuasion, and also fails at communicating as effectively as possible. It’s traditional for posts about doing non-verbal stuff while you’re singing to say the Christian thing to do is to be sensitive to the people around you and not do stuff that will distract or offend them – which if worship is sacrificial service of others as well as of God – goes without saying. The questions then are – if singing forms part of our word ministry – if it’s communication – how do we communicate our thankfulness to God using the means of communication that he has given us,* how do we best use these means to encourage each other about the power of the gospel in our lives as we sing, and how do we use them to communicate the gospel to outsiders? Interestingly, as a bit of a throwaway, this book chapter on gestures in communication, suggests that gestures are particularly helpful for overcoming a communication divide (from p 21) – I’m not going to hang the whole thesis of this post off this, but I wonder if seeing some familiar gestures in response to music (like the stuff you might see at a concert), rather than a room of dour people, may overcome some of the gaps between the inevitable Christian jingo and vocabulary some of our songs contain, and make the experience of corporate singing a little less weird – rather than more weird, though you could equally run with this point to justify interpretive dance… this book chapter also suggests we’re generally reliably able to spot people who are performing “rehearsed” gestures, rather than spontaneous. I don’t think the answer is looking something like this… * I’m trying to be careful here not to suggest a non-Biblical requirement where we must make gestures as we sing – I think the expression of the vertical aspect of our singing has significance for its effectiveness horizontally as a means of encouragement and communicating the gospel.

I hadn’t been to Israel since my grandmother’s death eight years ago. Oslo was rollicking along; Gaza and Ramallah were boomtowns. Backfires from trucks received only the mildest flinch. But when a hernia forced me to take a leave of absence from Columbia Journalism School a month ago, and I spent my days watching the relentless clashes on TV, I became homesick for my peeps. When I recovered, I left New York and went: without a plan, without an assignment, without a hotel and, most neglectfully, without a flack jacket. I did have a hastily purchased air ticket, 40 rolls of film, a picture of my wife and baby and one piece of advice: go to the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem. I arrived on Saturday, April 20. It was Israel in springtime: green Israel, Israel with wildflowers. The taxi drove through Jerusalem forest. I checked into the Mount Zion hotel, overlooking the Old City. Many Israeli reservists were billeted there. They had beer guts and old Galil rifles. The soldiers took over the espresso machine from the barman and smoked cigarettes around a grand piano being played by a reservist with an M16 slung across his back. A short while later, I took a taxi to the American Colony. The American Colony’s atmosphere is hushed, confidential. The walls have stone solidity; the staff has an erect deference. There is a cellar bar where you feel like an extra in Casablanca . There is a dining room where one can have cold avocado soup and carpaccio. It was Shabbat, but the Israelis had set up a special government press office to accommodate the parachuting press core. I filled out an application for a press card. The woman receiving it asked for press identification. In January, when Columbia handed out our press cards, we were told they were useless and, at best, could get us a discount at the Met. She took it without comment. Ten minutes later, I got the press card. An advertisement for body armor was posted at the exit. “Get your body armor here. The light blue kind like you see on CNN and NBC. Israeli made and only the best.” I called the number and met the man a few hours later at the Tel Aviv bus station. “Hurry up,” he said. “This place is a target for suicide bombers.” We went to his car in the garage. “You have two choices,” he told me. “The cheaper one has no groin or neck protection.” The expensive one had brand-new polymer plates, a reflective banner that read “PRESS” and a cell-phone holder. The cell-phone holder sold me. I returned to Jerusalem $1,300 poorer. Early the next morning, I saw a photojournalist and a female reporter in the lobby of the hotel. They said they were going to Ramallah. The Israelis had started the pullout at midnight. I went with them. It was 10 miles by taxi. Israel is small; one can go from carpaccio to the front line in minutes. When we arrived in Ramallah, the Israelis were finishing their withdrawal. Within an hour, the streets were filled with people who had not been outdoors for 24 days. People were sticking their fingers in bullet holes and pulling reporters into their shops to point out damage. The street was lined with martyr posters. These were the first I had seen. They decorated almost every storefront. Teen Beat for terrorists. The next morning, I slept in. When I woke, I turned on CNN: Reports of mass graves were coming out of the Jenin refugee camp; an investigating doctor stepped on a mine. I decided to go. After haggling on the phone with taxi drivers, I left around 1 p.m. Since the Israelis had pulled out, I felt no need for body armor. I was wrong. The checkpoints were closed. We stopped at Salem, a small hillside town, miles above Jenin. A man approached the taxi. “You are too late,” he said. “It is much too dangerous to go now. It takes an hour and a half to get to Jenin by foot. There are tanks and snipers ringing Jenin. By the time you get back, it will be sunset.” I told him I would go anyway. He said that I would have to hire one of the local boys who knew the Israeli positions. My guide’s name was Farid-16, tall and thin. He didn’t speak English. We descended the hillside. We passed through orchards of trees, wild grass and thin ravines. I focused on loping Farid. If I lost Farid, I was fucked. There’s a strange permanence to Jenin’s refugee camp. There is an absence of tents, of lean-tos; there are no sandbags of grain being handed out to people with distended bellies. The residents are classified as refugees because the camp was established in 1953, to house Palestinians fleeing the 1948 war. Until the Israelis came a month ago, 13,000 people lived in permanent homes along the camp’s narrow alleyways. Another 27,000 lived in Jenin proper. The Israelis say that 23 suicide bombers emerged from the alleyways. Once the Israelis came, Palestinian snipers were denied cover by armored bulldozers. Perhaps a 10th of the camp had been leveled. It is a clearly defined area the size of a football field. I crawled into collapsed homes, climbed ladders and pissed into a second-floor toilet that clung to a pipe. Then I heard rifle shots coming from a tributary alley. I ran up the alley and saw a large group of men hoisting a writhing body. I ran toward them, taking pictures. People grabbed my arms and shouted, “No pictures! No pictures!” I pushed their arms away and pressed the shutter release of my Contax. The injured man reached out toward me, his eyes brightly white in the shadows of the alley. When people started yelling, “He shoot you! He shoot you,” I paid more attention. 60 feet away a thin man walked toward me, a black revolver dangling from his hand. I ran and hid in an adjacent house. At first, my guides told me that it was a domestic dispute. Then they said that the Israelis shot him. I didn’t believe them. There were no Israelis in the camp, and the shots came from the alley. An hour later, I was told that the man was shot because he was a suspected collaborator: “The men said he help the jaish [Israeli army].” The next day, I read the papers in a German Colony café. There was no mention of the collaborator being shot, so I called the Jerusalem Post . They wanted the picture on the front page. I spent the morning writing an article. That night, I had a Sambuca with a Middle East correspondent from The Wall Street Journal . He said, “It would be a shame for you to go to Gaza and not meet with Hamas leaders,” and handed me a phone number. In the morning, I took a taxi to Gaza. During Oslo, the Erez checkpoint was lousy with cars. But when I crossed, it was deserted. Soldiers manned heavy machine guns. Concrete barriers stood in a silent phalanx. A soldier called out to me, but it took a while to find the voice behind the metal slit of the bunker. “Why didn’t you show me your pass?” he yelled. I walked across 100 yards of no man’s land. Chunks of concrete got caught in the wheels of my suitcase. A Palestinian taxi raced toward me and skidded to a halt. The driver yelled for me to hurry. He drove me another 100 yards to the Palestinian checkpoint and demanded danger pay. We were waved past a guard shack and the driver jumped out to lift a wooden drawbar. We drove on through the Jabalia refugee camp. It was preparing for invasion. Men with guns wandered the street in black, in gray camouflage, in drab olive. The buildings were made of bare concrete blocks. It was much like Jabalia, except that like beach property everywhere, the houses grew smaller as they became more proximate to the sea. I thought that if I lived here, I’d be pissed, too. Then I heard shooting and donned my body armor. My sensorium tingled. All at once, the taxi was surrounded by men with guns, surrounded by children, surrounded by a chanting throng. We had driven into a martyr’s funeral. I jumped out of the car and started taking pictures. The driver stood outside his taxi, an island surrounded by a purl of people. The procession carried three teenage boys on stretchers. They had been shot while trying to sneak explosives into a Jewish settlement. A man in grief led the way. Small children made victory signs with their fingers and smiled for the camera. The next morning, I had breakfast with other journalists on a large patio overlooking the sea. Experienced journalists indulged my neophytic questions. Palestinian hotties gossiped around hookahs, but a man told me that “Gaza was the hardest place in the world to get laid.” I spent the late afternoon walking through Gaza City and the evening preparing for an interview with Hamas spokesman Ismail Abu Shanab. The next day, Mr. Shanab spoke to me in the living room of his home. Two banks of florescent lights lit the double-height room. Maps of Israel and Gaza lined the walls. He wore a gray suit jacket and pants of a different hue. Shanab, 50, was born in a Gaza refugee camp but received a master’s degree in engineering from Colorado State University. We were joined by Mr. Shanab’s son, Hamza, 18, who said that he was proud that his father was a Hamas leader, but “tries not to brag about it” at school. I wondered if they knew I was Jewish. A January 1988 Hamas leaflet stated that “Jews are brothers of apes, assassins of the prophets, bloodsuckers, warmongers … only Islam can break the Jews and destroy their dreams.” But Mr. Shanab put me at ease. Broad-faced and gentle in demeanor, he said that “Hamas has nothing against Jews. We tolerate all religions, but when it comes to Israelis, it’s political.” Mr. Shanab held a demitasse of Turkish coffee between thumb and forefinger while announcing that Hamas would go along with the Saudi peace plan. He said that if Israel agrees to the Saudi plan, which contemplates Israel returning to pre-1967 borders, Hamas will “cease all military activities.” He said that the majority of Palestinians, like the majority of Israelis, want peace. On the way back to the hotel, I had my interpreter translate martyr posters. Once there, I emptied my phone card trying to sell the Shanab interview. When the San Francisco Chronicle bought it, I figured it was time to go home. “One week in-country” had a nice round ring to it. I was tired. I wanted to go back to the American Colony Hotel. I wanted the bartender to offer up my usual. I wondered if the little cliques in the bar would notice my war gristle, remark on my jaunty stride or dish out a little encomium. I wanted the photojournalists to envy the fresh dings to my Contax and notice the scuff on my armor. But I didn’t return. I wanted to get back to New York City because I missed my wife and knew that she would offer up my usual.

- Subscribe NowLimited Time Offer DuPont starts $55M seed production plant in Mo. DuPont, a rival of Monsanto Co., broke ground Monday on a $55 million soybean seed production facility in New Madrid County in southeast Missouri. The new plant, located on 129 acres, will be DuPont’s Pioneer Hi-Bred unit’s first in the state. It is expected to begin production in fall 2011 and employ 50 workers when fully operational. DuPont currently has about 30 employees in Missouri. Des Moines, Iowa-based Pioneer has a research facility in Miami, Mo., and sells corn, soybean, sorghum and wheat seed in the state. Pioneer’s president, Paul Schickler, said in a statement that the New Madrid plant will strengthen the company’s ability to meet the increasing product needs of its growers. The plant will primarily serve soybean growers in “more southern geographies” in the United States, the company said in a release. Plans for the new plant were announced in March. “Pioneer’s investment in New Madrid County through its new soybean production facility further demonstrates how the strategic use of state tax incentive programs can serve as a powerful tool to help draw quality companies to Missouri, creating solid, high-paying jobs, and moving our economy forward,” said Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, in a statement. Nixon attended the groundbreaking. DuPont has applied for $3.4 million in state tax credits, $230,000 in jobs training funding and a sales tax exemption for energy costs, Keener Tippin, a spokesman for the Missouri Department of Economic Development, told the Business Journal in March. Pioneer is expanding its North American production and research facilities and recently announced new research facilities in Johnston, Iowa; the center for Dryland Research in eastern North Carolina; expansion of its research facilities in Union City, Tenn.; expansion of drought research in Manhattan, Kan., and Plainview, Texas; a new research center in Ithaca, Mich.; and expansion in Hermiston, Ore. Wilmington, Del.-based DuPont (NYSE: DD) provides products and services for the agriculture, construction, communication and transportation industries. DuPont and Creve Coeur, Mo.-based Monsanto (NYSE: MON) are locked in a license dispute over their modified seeds. Monsanto led by Chairman, President and Chief Executive Hugh Grant, is one of the largest companies in St. Louis with 4,000 local employees and sales of $11.7 billion in fiscal 2009. - Most popular - Spokesman for late Tom Schweich found dead - Schweich aide’s suicide note: ‘I can’t take being unemployed again’ - Top 150 Privately Held Companies - Holmes leaves PrivateBank to lead Commerce Bank in St. Louis - Jewish group contacted History Museum before it axed panel - Pay tops $60 million for 5 top Edward Jones execs - St. Anthony’s to end affiliation with Cardinal Glennon - McBride Back From the Brink - On the market: the most expensive homes in St. Louis Hills - All-but-dead A-B InBev, SABMiller deal would have been profitable CEO/President Kentucky Derby Museum | Louisville, KY Analyst or Associate, Asset Management Gramercy Property Trust | Saint Louis, MO Program Director, Finance Lindenwood University | Saint Charles, MO Account Executive-Client Services Third Party Administrator | Saint Louis, MO Real Estate Marketing Coordinator Anonymous | Saint Louis, MO

One who visits the sick [on Shabbat should] say, "Shabbat restrains us from crying out, and healing will swiftly arrive." Rabbi Meir says, "Perhaps [Shabbat] will deliver mercy." Rabbi Yehuda says, "May the Omnipresent be merciful to you and the sick of [the People] Israel." Rabbi Yose says, "May the Omnipresent be merciful to you among the sick of [the People] Israel." Shabbat and prayer are deeply connected in the mind of the contemporary Jew. Shabbat is the time when many of us engage in public prayer each week. Though most Conservative synagogues have a weekday minyan, usually its attendance is much smaller than that of the Shabbat service. So it is surprising when we discover that our Sages frowned on the practice of making personal requests of God on Shabbat. Though the weekday service includes a plethora of requests, for such things as rain, prosperity, protection from one's enemies, and good health, the classical Shabbat service is largely devoid of these types of requests. In the mind of our Sages, Shabbat is to be a refuge from our troubles, a time when we avoid thinking of them. Focusing our Shabbat prayer life on our mundane problems would lead us to think about our workaday concerns unduly. But, what about the sick? Health is such a basic concern that when it is lacking, whether in ourselves or in a loved one, it is impossible not to think about. Our Sages recognized this and formulated prayers that would fulfill the human need to pray for the sick, even on Shabbat, while preserving the important principle that Shabbat is not a time for personal requests. The first two strategies in the above passage focus on making the healing powers of Shabbat known to the sick person. The second two make the request universal (or at least include all Jewish sick people) rather than personal. May we all know the power of the Shabbat to heal us in the days to come.

Girona is full of historically important monuments and is perhaps the best place to witness history unfold. The wonderful monuments and the rich history attached with the destination make Girona one of Top Historical Destinations in the world. Girona is a very historically important place and thus sees a lot of tourists every year. Whenever you are planning to visit a historical monument in Girona or a place of historical significance, it is always good to know a little information about the place, its opening and closing times, the ideal duration of visit and the need of tour guide to visit the historical monuments of Girona. Explore the historical monuments of Girona with a guided tour or opt for in-depth information of its historical account, this Girona guide is your go-to option for free. Move to things to do in Girona page for the complete list of attractions and activities. Can't wait to discover Girona by yourself? Create a Girona itinerary today! Top Historical Girona landmarks Traverse through the finest landmarks and famous historical buildings of Girona. #1 of 10 Historical Places in Girona | Added 20913 times in trip plans Plaza de la Cathedral, s/n, 17004 Girona, Spain 10:00 am - 08:00 pm Known for its splendid architecture, the Gerona Cathedral has the widest Gothic nave in the world. The construction of the Cathedral began in the year 1312. Since then, it has undergone a few renovations. Due to this, the cathedral design is a mix of Romanesque style, Gothic style and baroque style. A must see within the church premises is the tapestry of the Creation and the bell tower. #2 of 10 Historical Places in Girona | Added 10584 times in trip plans Passeig de la Muralla, Girona, Spain The beautiful and ancient city of Girona is full of historical marvels. One such marvel is the Passeig de la Muralla. Built between 9th and 15th centuries, these medieval walls surround a big part of the Girona Historic centre. Accessible from quite a few points, visitors can climb up and walk on the walls. It provides spectacular views of the city. #3 of 10 Historical Places in Girona | Added 19790 times in trip plans Calle de la Forca, Girona, Spain Located within the Forca Vella (a first century BC acropolis), the Jewish Quarter or Call is one of Girona’s most symbolic areas. A labyrinth of narrow streets and patios form the neighbourhood. An evidence of the importance of the Jewish culture in Girona, the area has still maintained its medieval atmosphere and is one of the best preserved Jewish quarters in the world. #4 of 10 Historical Places in Girona | Added 17742 times in trip plans Carrer Ferran el Catolic, s/n, 17004, Girona, Spain 10:00 am - 07:00 pm Dating back to the 12th century, the Arab Baths is a singular Romanesque construction inspired by Medieval Moslem baths. Having a surreal atmosphere, a must see within the building is the cupola covering the central pool. It is supported by ornately decorated columns. #5 of 10 Historical Places in Girona | Added 17085 times in trip plans Carrer de la Forca, 8, 17004 Girona, Spain 10:00 am - 06:00 pm Patronat Call de Girona or the Board of Jewish Quarter’s Museum of Jewish History is an interesting and informative display centre. The main aim of the Museum is to preserve and reflect the history of the Jewish communities of Catalonia. Spread across 11 galleries, the museum exhibitions are divided into- Community Life, Festivals and Traditi... #6 of 10 Historical Places in Girona | Added 16786 times in trip plans Carrer de la Sequia, 1, 17001 Girona, Spain 10:00 am - 08:00 pm A private museum, the Cinema Museum in Girona is one of the few museums in the world that offer a journey across the 500 years of the history of moving images. On display are artefacts, objects and information relating to the origins of film and how it developed into the form we know today. While visiting, do check out the projector used by the Lumiere brothers for their first public projection. #7 of 10 Historical Places in Girona | Added 3326 times in trip plans Pujada de Sant Feliu, Girona, Spain 10:00 am - 05:30 pm The Esglesia de Sant Feliu acted as Girona's first cathedral until the 10th century. It is one of the most representative Gothic buildings in the city. A stunning piece of architecture is the slender bell tower which was constructed sometime during the 14th to 16th centuries. The cathedral is so huge and magnificent; no one will judge you if you th... #8 of 10 Historical Places in Girona | Added 6847 times in trip plans Carrer de Jaume Pons i Marti, s/n, 17004, Girona, Spain How will you react if someone asks you to kiss their ass for good luck?! Well, the statue of Leona in Girona asks you to do just that! People kiss the statue’s derriere which is said to bring good luck to the kisser. It is an ancient ritual, origins of which are unknown. The statue is a Gothic sculpture and dates back to the 12th century. A c... #9 of 10 Historical Places in Girona | Added 5760 times in trip plans Monestir de Sant Pere de Galligants, Carrer de Santa Llúcia, 8, 17007 Girona 10:00 am - 07:00 pm Located within the beautiful and huge monastery of Sant Pere de Galligants, the Archaeology Museum of Catalunya-Ullastret has on display archaeological materials found in the excavations and sites in the various counties of Girona. The displays pertain to humans and human settlement and evolution and are divided into the Palaeolithic Period, the Ne... #10 of 10 Historical Places in Girona | Added 5163 times in trip plans Carrer Ballesteries, 29, 17004 Girona, Spain 10:00 am - 06:00 pm The Onyar River has some interesting buildings on its banks. One such building is the Casa Maso. Rafael Maso was one of the most renowned Catalan architects of the early twentieth century. La Casa Maso is the birthplace of Rafael Maso and is one of the most important works of architecture. It is the only open public house situated on the banks of O...

Colossians 4 Verse 11 Colossians 4:11 (NET) 11 And Jesus who is called Justus also sends greetings. In terms of Jewish converts, these are the only fellow workers for the kingdom of God, and they have been a comfort to me. And Jesus who is called Justus- the name Jesus was his birth name and was a common Jewish name meaning God Saves. The name Justus was a surname that meant fairness and righteous. A surname was a name given him later by others based on his circumstance, character, or desired character quality. Today a surname is name shared by a family. Or it can be a name chosen by the person so others can pronounce their name easier. This Jesus Justus was not the the same as Joseph-Barsabas-Justice mentioned in Acts 1 because The birth names of Joseph and Jesus are significantly different Jewish names. Nor is this the Titius Justus in Corinth named in Acts 18 because there is evidence that he was a Gentile while Jesus Justus is clearly Jewish. Discussion Questions: If you were to give nicknames for brothers and sisters in our church based on their circumstances or character, what names would you give them? What nickname would they call you or would you call yourself? If we were to give a nickname to our children based on a circumstance, character quality, or desired character quality what would it be? also sends greetings – meaning Jesus Justus was also with Paul at the time of this writing and sends along is greeting to the fellow believers at Colossi. In terms of Jewish converts – meaning Aristarchus, John Mark, and Jesus Justus were Jews who converted to be Christians. Convert means they changed from believing and practicing their Jewish religion to believing and practicing a relationship with Jesus Christ. Grammatically Tychicus and Onesimus could also be considered Jewish, but most commentaries believe those two were Gentiles and only these last three were Jewish. Discussion Question: Do you remember a time when you were converted or changed to begin believing and practicing a relationship with Jesus? If so, please share your conversion story. these are the only fellow workers – meaning these three men, Aristarchus, John Mark, and Jesus Justus, were the only Jewish fellow workers with Paul at the time of this writing. Discussion Question: Name those that you would count as a fellow worker in your ministry? for the kingdom of God – meaning the spiritual kingdom that is within believers. and they have been a comfort to me – meaning these three converted Jews came along side and comforted/encouraged/strengthened Paul. Discussion Question: Have you ever been in a struggle, an event, or in a foreign country where you were alone, but then you found someone with your same struggle, background, beliefs, or culture? If so, how did that comfort you? Discussion Question: How can we comfort others? How can we comfort our spiritual leaders? Listening Prayer method – a method where you write what you think God would say to you after meditating and studying a Bible passage. Are you a Converted Comforter? Continue to work and grow your commitment with others to serve together for my Kingdom. Sometimes your service can be to isolated from working with other believers. Be a comfort to others by listening to them, pray with them and for them, help provide ideas to help them deal with their struggle, and bear one another’s burdens. And do not ever forget those who have comforted you during the time of your burden: Sarah and Jared, Matt and Laura, Jamie and Brad, Ricardo, Bryan, Myrna, Christopher, and Ellen.

by Fedor Tot Since the mid-1980s, Steven Spielberg has increasingly moved away from films about sharks, aliens, and gun-slinging archaeologists and turned his hand to historical drama films, re-enacting key events in American and world history. From Schindler's List to Bridge of Spies, it’s these films that have bought him Oscars and critical acclaim aplenty, offering up evidence that the one-time entertainer and slick showman has matured into a serious artist. In the process he has accidentally become America's most important historian. Not its best, that's for sure. But his work reaches a far wider audience than the work of any reputable scholar buried in a dusty archive. His pictures have seared themselves onto our collective memories, giving us a shared experience of a past we did not live through. Just as John Ford mythologized the American West and the spirit of Manifest Destiny more than a half-century ago, condensing half-truths and legends into iconic images, so too has Spielberg mythologized World War II and America's legacy of slavery—for better or for worse. What's the first image that comes to your mind of the fighting in World War II? It probably isn't too far off from Saving Private Ryan's famous Omaha Beach sequence: utterly covered in blood, guts, and the muddy sand of the cold Atlantic ocean. Even today, with all the film's flaws—its patriotically over-the-top flashback framing device, its emotionally bludgeoning music score, the cliff-height corniness of its “inspirational” monologues—that opening sequence remains a towering achievement of action filmmaking. The film’s influence went beyond the world of movies. Saving Private Ryan had a profound effect on the games industry and the generation of people my age raised on PlayStation and Xbox, becoming the primary cinematic inspiration for the myriad Medal of Honor and Call of Duty games that flooded the market back in the early-to-mid 2000s. Medal of Honor: Frontline's celebrated opening level was little more than an exact videogame replica of the Omaha Beach scene; a legendary piece of game design that would not exist were Spielberg not there first. Similarly, I would argue that for most people, the first images that come to mind when thinking about the Holocaust come from Schindler's List. Spielberg's films on American slavery (The Color Purple, Amistad, Lincoln) haven't had as much success at producing iconic historical imagery—but with Schindler's List, Spielberg created not just a Holocaust film, but the Holocaust film. It’s the one shown in history classes, the one we can all call up an image from. Even most hardcore film geeks haven't sat through all nine hours of Claude Lanzmann's Shoah, but most of us have seen Schindler's List. Unfortunately, Spielberg is a great filmmaker, not a great thinker. And that’s the problem. "Unfortunately, Spielberg is a great filmmaker, not a great thinker. And that's the problem." In picking his projects, Spielberg's interests tend to lie in stories that speak either to his identity as an American (and a lifelong liberal at that) or as Jewish person. This is a director who has an intense love of detail and drama, with near-limitless storytelling capabilities, but also one who consistently fails to grasp the issues he's dealing with in their context. His attention to detail leaves nothing to chance, and the factual accuracy of his films is, as far as Hollywood goes, generally on the money. He struggles, rather, with the philosophical, emotional truths of the subject matter. Spielberg manages to gets his facts right in films that nevertheless feel false. Few Spielberg films, if any, have villains that are psychologically fleshed out. There are plenty of great villains, but not many complex ones: the shark in Jaws, the Tyrannosaurus and velociraptors in Jurassic Park, even the aliens in the much-maligned War of the Worlds. This isn't a problem in Spielberg's pure entertainments, where we’re perfectly happy to watch Indiana Jones beat up hundreds of Nazis; here, the villains are symbols meant to arouse fear, operating on a purely emotional level. But when Spielberg tries to tackle the ideological horrors of Nazism in Schindler's List, he fails, because of his inability to conceptualize and comprehend evil beyond the emotional. With the sole exception of Ralph Fiennes' terrifyingly icy depiction of German SS Captain Amon Göth, the Nazis in Schindler's List are distant, faceless monsters. They ruthlessly murder thousands upon thousands of innocent people throughout Schindler's List motivated purely by racism. We see that they have an intensely organized system of killing with extermination camps, in which Jews are stripped down and either sent to work or sent to death. These depictions are all factual. These horrible crimes did happen, and they happened like this. The problem is that these crimes are not situated in any larger context. They are crimes against humanity, nearly abstract in their pure depravity. Every single Nazi soldier is merely a hateful killing machine, with only Oskar Schindler, our good German with a conscience, to balance things out. There is no notion of Hannah Arendt's “banality of evil” maxim here. We now know that the Holocaust was not a matter of pure, murderous anti-Semitism whipped up amongst the German population; it was a systematic, mechanised, bureaucratic system designed to kill millions of Jews and other persecuted peoples. The killing was designed in such way that it did not matter whether you were anti-Semitic or not; you still became complicit unless you actively fought against the system, in which case you would join the murdered masses. We, the audience, are engineered to hate the Nazis reflexively, but we are never asked to consider how the Nazis came to be—surely the most important question for future generations to try to answer. The terrifying thing about Nazism's anti-Semitism was that it was not just an aimless hatred. It was rooted in what was then believed to be concrete scientific evidence. Nazism was thoroughly rooted in the scientific theory of the day: The fact that it has since proved to be bunkum does not change the fact that Hitler and other leading Nazis saw themselves as rationalists, part of a tradition of German intellectuals. Schindler’s List offers no notion of the historical roots of Nazi anti-Semitism, nor of how the state structures that Hitler put in place during the 1930s helped lay the psychological groundwork for what came later. Spielberg opts instead for a film that pulls the heartstrings, and in doing so turns the Holocaust into a spectacle. Nowhere is this more clear than in the famous scene in Schindler's List where a trainload of Jewish women arrive at Auschwitz and are ordered to strip and shave their hair, while being told they will be treated well and are simply undergoing de-lousing. They step into a massive shower room, and the doors lock behind them. Panic sets in as many of the women fear the worst—that they have been corralled into a gas chamber. Spielberg, it turns out, has been fooling us all along: it is just a shower after all. Why does this scene leave such a bad taste in my mouth? Because it’s a case of blatant emotional manipulation on a topic that needs no emotional manipulation. Spielberg decides to step past the godforsaken circle of hell into the gas chamber—but until the dead rise from their graves, neither he nor anyone else will ever be capable of comprehending the gas chamber. "To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric," wrote Theodor Adorno. Spielberg teases at the abyss, but in trying and failing, he produces wonderfully crafted but emotionally insulting cinema. In Schindler’s List, the Holocaust is presented as a past event, an aberration, a mistake in history. The Nazis in the film aren't humans but mutants, genetically engineered to murder. Never mind that most of them were once average people, like you or me, who—by a state-led process of conditioning, terror, and propaganda—were turned into murderers. Spielberg's version of the story manages to be historically accurate enough while offering the audience a reassuring whisper: Look at these monsters, look at their awful crimes, thank God we could never be like that. It shelters us completely from the fact that the Holocaust came from somewhere, and it comforts the audience that such atrocities could never happen again. Maybe I'm just cynical, but in a world where Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are viable presidential candidates; where a democratically-elected government has (at time of writing) just been illegally overthrown in Brazil, one of the world's largest democracies; where the far-right is creeping into power once again across Europe, this time suited rather than booted in the form of Marine Le Pen and Front Nationale in France; where a young progressive politician was just murdered by a white supremacist in the UK; where people shrug at the ever-increasing deaths of human beings trying to cross the Mediterranean into Europe in search of a better life; where, in my native Serbia, the acquittal of war criminal Vojislav Šešelj (a genocidal murderer only two decades ago) is greeted with celebration by the far-right, his ultra-nationalist/fascist party obtaining 8 percent of the vote just a few months ago in Parliamentary elections—well, in this world, the subliminally reassuring message that Schindler's List offers is absolutely poisonous. Spielberg positions his audiences as the ones in the right, the good ones, the ones who could never have been Nazis. Precisely because Schindler's List suggests Nazism was an aberration, the audience is blinded to present realities. The death of six million people was no mere mistake: suggesting it is absolves us from future responsibility. "Spielberg obviously isn't directly responsible for the rise of Donald Trump or war in Yugoslavia. But the subtle implications and readings of history in his films are certainly part of a wider public conversation about history, and lest we forget, it is his films that frequently reach the widest audiences." Yugoslavia, Rwanda, East Timor, Darfur. One need only take a brief look at world history since 1945 to see that the lessons of the Holocaust have not been learned. Granted, each of these tragedies had different contexts, roots, and causes, all separate from the Holocaust. But they all involved acts of genocide. Those who support Trump, Šešelj and Le Pen—they too position themselves as the good ones, as the guardians of true moral values. I've spoken to many people back home who fully support Šešelj and consider him a hero. The concept of genocide does not occur to them, and neither does the wide-scale burning out of Croatian and Bosnian homes in the 1990s in the former-Yugoslavia; they see him as a defender of Serbian homes (and it is true that many Serbs were turned into refugees or victims by reprisal attacks, most notably in 1995 in Operation Storm, where Croatian forces, in a single swoop, turned some 150,000 or so Serbs into refugees overnight). They see him as a warrior-bandit who fought for Serbian national interests. It is the Bosnian Muslims and Croatians who are the “Nazis” and the “fanatics.” Facts do not matter here, only gut feelings based on the knowledge that we are in the right. The moral stance of these people and that of Schindler's List are not so far apart. The nationalism and wars that engulfed Yugoslavia twenty years ago were tragic, and the reappearance of genocide on European soil shocked many (as if the Global South was the only place “backward” enough to be genocidal), but the fact of the matter is that those who genuinely believed that Serbia was being attacked saw themselves as the only truly moral force left. Schindler's List was released in 1994, at the height of the war, and the moral structure of the film makes it not inconceivable that each side saw the other as the Nazis of Yugoslavia. Schindler's List has its heart in the right place, but an audience member does not come away from with a concrete understanding of why the Holocaust happened, only that it happened. Spielberg simply rearranges the facts to craft a moving story. But his simplistic rendering allows the undereducated in his audience to believe such an atrocity could never happen again. Spielberg obviously isn't directly responsible for the rise of Donald Trump or war in Yugoslavia. But the subtle implications and readings of history in his films are certainly part of a wider public conversation about history, and lest we forget, it is his films that frequently reach the widest audiences. Schindler’s List gives the audience a security blanket. In history, a security blanket is the most dangerous thing. Fedor Tot is a Serbian-born, Welsh-raised graduate of history, with a particular interest in Yugoslavia's cultural history. He is currently contemplating a masters degree, whilst also writing about film, making music, and doing stand-up comedy.

After a month of non-stop action, April’s ‘Month of Outrage’ is a wrap! In the past few weeks, thousands of consumers learned of the newly launched Wendy’s Boycott as several hundreds of allies took to the streets and Wendy’s locations across the country to make their voices heard as part of the CIW’s wide-sweeping call for farmworker justice. From coast to coast and from north to south, consumers built on the momentum of the previous month’s Workers’ Voice Tour to march, picket, and chant in nearly 20 cities nationwide throughout April. It all kicked off in the heart of the Fair Food Nation in Southwest Florida, when Immokalee farmworkers and their families joined allies in Naples for a high-spirited picket and manager letter delivery. Fair Food Group strongholds then took up the baton – Tampa Bay Fair Food and DC Fair Food organized letter deliveries to local Wendy’s managers, and Ohio Fair Food allies in Columbus joined forces with groups across the city to do the same. In Westchester and Rockland counties in New York, students joined people of faith to deliver boycott pledges gathered throughout the month, all taped together to show the depth of local support for the Wendy’s Boycott. Over on the other coast, community allies in Seattle heeded the call and engaged supporters in their cities to call on Wendy’s to join the Fair Food Program. Students got creative, organizing not just pickets and letter deliveries but also teach-ins and impromptu presentations to educate fellow students about ongoing campaigns to Boot the Braids off campuses and student meal plans, like at the University of Michigan and Vanderbilt University. At universities in Miami, Denver, Pittsburgh, and Columbus, too, students took it upon themselves to educate fellow students, gather boycott pledges, and take them to local Wendy’s management. Major metropolises Chicago and Los Angeles also felt the heat with dozens-strong actions, engaging not just local allies but also national networks of workers and organizations leading their own struggles for justice, including Freedom Network USA and the Food Chain Workers Alliance. Immigrant and low-wage workers in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas and New York City also marched in solidarity with farmworkers at actions organized in conjunction with consumer allies in both places. Closer to Immokalee, cities in Southwest Florida kept going strong as the month progressed. After a large picket outside a highly-trafficked Ft. Myers Wendy’s, farmworkers concluded the Month of Outrage with an energizing hundred-person protest in sunny Sarasota. Check out this photo report of the lively mosaic of pickets, marches, letter deliveries, and creative action organized by the ever-spirited AFF network throughout the Month of Outrage! And as if mobilizing their communities weren’t enough, allies also took up their pens to author an array of articles and op/eds indicting Wendy’s for its conscious and unacceptable decision to shift purchases away from Florida’s tomato industry – “one of the great human rights success stories of our day” – towards a Mexican tomato producer that in 2013 was the subject of a nightmarish slavery prosecution. Faith leaders and students alike described how “Wendy’s has lost my respect as well as my patronage,” for its callous refusal to join the CIW in partnership for farmworkers' human rights. T’ruah’s tomato rabbis penned insightful pieces (here and here), reflecting on how Jewish struggles for freedom, commemorated during Passover, profoundly connect their community to farmworkers’ fight for dignity and justice in the fields. We could say that the Month of Outrage ended with a bang – with five powerful actions amplifying the Wendy’s Boycott on the same weekend – but the pressure on Wendy’s to come to the table with farmworkers is climbing day by day without any signs of slowing down. As consumer allies of the CIW, we’re committed to continuing to mobilize our communities and expand the scope of support for the Wendy’s Boycott ahead of the next big opportunity to open Wendy’s executives’ ears to our call for farmworker justice: the Wendy’s annual shareholder meeting in Dublin, OH on May 26. Keep an eye out for more updates on how you can take part in building the drumbeat for May 26!

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Filming The Great Dictator In the autumn of 1938, when the Munich Agreement was being signed in Europe, Charles Chapin was putting the finishing touches to the first draft of a script written in the greatest secrecy. Rumour had it that the creator of the Tramp had decided to make his first talking film. Moreover, it was said that he would be playing the part of a character inspired by Adolf Hitler. Finally, after the long and painstaking process of revising and then directing, Chaplin presented The Great Dictator in New York on October 15th 1940. The historical circumstances in which he had found himself during those two years were quite extraordinary. His native country, England, had declared war at the beginning of September 1939, but the United States, where he had been living as a permanent resident – but British citizen – since 1913, had resolved to keep out of the conflict that was to bathe the Old Continent in blood. By waging war against Hitler via the silver screen, Chaplin was making a personal commitment and, albeit with more gravitas, repeating the experience of Shoulder Arms. Even before shooting began, The Great Dictator had enraged German and British diplomats posted in the United States and brought Chaplin to the forefront of celebrities harassed by the House of Un-American Activities. This struggle in favour of a democratic idea of peace is in itself reason enough for the historian’s interest. Chaplin, however, added to the credits of The Great Dictator the following warning; “Any resemblance between Hynkel the Dictator and the Jewish barber is purely coincidental.” This was a playful way of hinting that what was really at stake was not so much Chaplin’s double role but the tension between him and his twin, the Tramp. Up to now the Little Tramp had conveyed an experience of the world through the language of pantomime, and because he embodied no national identity and spoke no mother tongue, he had touched the hearts of spectators everywhere. His immense success rested on popular acclaim but also on the recognition of intellectuals, especially in France in the 1920s, where many artists and authors praised his genius. Getting Charlie to speak also meant putting to death this character that had made his creator famous and taking the risk of exposing himself without a mask. Does the declamatory speech at the end of The Great Dictator betray Chaplin’s inability to sustain the aesthetic and comic register all the way through to the end of the film? Chaplin was well aware of these issues, which is why he wrote the words “First picture in which the story is bigger than the Little Tramp.” Chaplin’s real history was not just the one he was facing up to, but also the one he was recounting by combining the characters of the Tramp and the Jewish barber in the image of the “pariah”. Copyright © Christian Delage, Chaplin Facing History, published by Jean-Michel Place 2005

Grotesque violence and sadistic situations await those who might be interested in sampling “Hunters” based primarily on the advertising and promotion for the show that emphasizes the presence of Al Pacino. He plays a wealthy, socially connected man in New York City who just happens to be Jewish and bent on taking revenge against Nazis guilty of heinous war crimes who have long lived in freedom in America. The time frame for this show, premiering on Amazon Prime Video on Friday (Feb. 21), is 1977. The show posits that fanatical ex-Nazis are living all over the United States, including New York City where an elderly Auschwitz survivor has recently recognized one of her torturers from more than 30 years ago in a Brooklyn grocery store. So, she becomes involved in the amateur pastime of Nazi-hunting, along with the Pacino character, one Meyer Offerman, who is also a holocaust survivor. Through a series of events that it is not our right to reveal, this Jewish granny's grandson, Jonah (played by Logan Lerman, pictured above with Pacino) also joins the fight. And that is the broad outline of the show. But here's the thing: Be prepared for scenes that will make you squirm, and possibly make you look away completely. Inducing this kind of behavior in a viewer of a TV show has always seemed to me to be counterintuitive, since the point of presenting a television show would seem to be to attract, not repel, viewership. I suppose reactions to the material on view in “Hunters” (at least in the 90-minute premiere episode the TV Blog previewed this week) will depend on individual tastes. Among the activities seen in the premiere of “Hunters” is a backyard massacre, a deadly chess game played with real people, a man used as a human dartboard and other such scenes created for our entertainment.While the overall story presented in “Hunters” is a good one that is compelling enough to drive viewing to subsequent episodes, I was also tempted many times while watching the premiere to condemn the show completely for its reliance on sadism that is extreme even by today's standards for TV violence. Basically, there aren’t any -- standards, I mean. As for Pacino, he takes to his role with his usual relish, in this case adopting an accent combining European and New York vocal patterns that the makers of TV shows and movies think is “Jewish.” Some of the “Jewishness” of the characters plays unfortunately like stereotypes, however, such as the Jewish grandmother's insistence that her grandson eat his chicken soup. Really? Chicken soup? On the other hand, how can you knock a show about Nazi hunters? Perhaps the lesson here is: Revenge is a dish best served cold. But chicken soup? Not so much. “Hunters” starts Friday (Feb. 21) on Amazon Prime Video.

There is a 50% chance that at the Tokyo Olympics, we will be adding 24 Jewish medalists in one swoop. Alright, maybe 50% is stretching it a bit. That being said, there are only six teams playing baseball in the Olympics, and Israel got the one bid reserved for Europe and Africa. (Take that, Tanzania!) Israel competes in Europe because the Arab countries of Asia are not exactly fans. It doesn't help in most sports, including soccer, but works out great in baseball! It works out great because Israel is made up of AMERICAN Jewish minor leaguers and ex-major leaguers, who have used the Law of Return to obtain Israeli citizenship. The roster includes familiar names like Ian Kinsler, Danny Valencia, and Ryan Lavarnway. The latter, a journeyman catcher, has spent the last seven seasons on seven different teams... surely, the continuity of Israel will be a welcome change. Of course, with the other five teams being the US, South Korea, Japan, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic, Israel's chances at a medal are a long shot. That being said... crazier things have happened, right? Crazier things then 24 Jews winning a medal in one swoop?

A big thanks to ITalkTravel and The Shane Warne Foundation for their ongoing support. The Shane Warne Foundation were so supportive with my blog, we shall continue to do updates from time to time. Thanks to the Shane Warne Foundation and ITalkTravel for making this trip possible. And to all our wonderful friends, family and many other organisations who have continued to support Maxi through this journey. Below link to Herald Sun Article on Maxi’s remarkable trip to the Undiagnosed Disease Program at the National institute of Health in Bethesda U.S.A. Thanks to The Shane Warne Foundation and I Talk Travel for making this trip possible. And special thanks to all who have supported Maxi past and present. Maxi is undergoing tests at the Undiagnosed Disease Program in U.S.A Follow our daily blog at the Shane Warne Foundation website. Huge thanks to Shane Warne Foundation for all they have done to help us. It’s been a big week for Maximus, first appearing in this weeks New Idea Magazine, then was on Channel Seven news, and in the Herald Sun Newspaper paper, A huge thanks to everyone involved and a special thanks to the Shane Warne Foundation and Tom Manwaring who are sponsoring our trip to the Undiagnosed Disease Program. And huge thanks to all our wonderful supporters. I shall be doing a blog for the duration of the trip and here is the link below.. It has been one year since we launched this website and so many great things have happened since we decided to go public in our plea to find a diagnosis and cure for our son. Hopefully our story and challenges have helped other families in similar situations. Sadly; we do not yet have a diagnosis, but thankfully Maximus was accepted for evaluation at the National Institute of Health’s Undiagnosed Disease Program in USA. A dream come true for us. We’re heading there next month. This trip would not be possible without the amazing help and support of friends and family, social media networks and organisations like the Shane Warne Foundation, The Melbourne Jewish Charitable Fund, Syndromes Without A Name Australia, The Wilhelm Foundation and many more. A wonderful local business where I have been a long term client, have generously offered to raise money for Maxi’s trip, by donating the sales of their organic products for the whole month of April. Thank you Masci Hair and Spa and thank you everyone for sharing our story and supporting our efforts to help our Maxi. This is a journey we are not on alone. So, we know there’s more than one, We know the cure is; none, We know the answers will come But maybe too late for some. We know it’s a road for many, We know it’s a devastating journey, We know it’s not that far away, We know it’s your neighbour, your friend, your Aunt May. But we don’t know what is wrong, We fight to stay strong, We don’t know what to do, The clock is ticking too. We don’t know who can fix this, We don’t know what might be, We lost something the day we learnt this fate was meant to be. Our dreams torn away, in a matter of one day. But our love only grew stronger and more meaningful and sound We play, we love, we live, we party and rarely let it get us down. We have taken this in our stride and we reach for the stars, for no matter what? Where? Who? And when? As long as we’re together, we are happy again. Our lives have meaning and our moments are rich, with two cheeky boys and their funny antics We will never back down, we will keep the flame alight Creating awareness, and, never giving up the fight. There is no turning back; it’s our mission, our goal To save our child, from this deep black hole. By Yael Cohn The Shane Warne Foundation have been a huge support to Maximus along with several other organisations, charities and community services. We are so happy this opportunity came about to thank Shane Warne for the ongoing support for Maximus with equipment and supporting several of his other needs. They are on this journey with us, Helen, Stacie & Jonno from TSWF have been remarkable in helping us get through some of the toughest times. And of course special thanks goes to Molly Meldrum and Ziggy.

By David Espo, AP Special Correspondent AMMAN, Jordan Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama stepped into the thicket of Mideast politics Wednesday, declaring that neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians are strong enough internally to make the bold concessions necessary for peace. Obama said he would work to bring the two sides together "starting from the minute I'm sworn into office." But he cautioned it is "unrealistic to expect that a U.S. president alone can suddenly snap his fingers and bring about peace in this region." He made his comments within a few hours of stepping off a military aircraft -- a presidential contender carrying body armor and wearing orange earplugs -- following a five-day tour of war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq with two fellow senators. Standing alongside ancient mountaintop ruins with the Amman city skyline his memorable backdrop, Obama declined repeatedly to concede that President Bush's decision to dispatch 30,000 troops to Iraq in 2007 had succeeded. Still, he said, "I believe that the situation in Iraq is more secure than it was a year and a half ago." The Illinois Democrat predicted at the time the troop increase was begun that it would not succeed. On Tuesday, he also stood by his call for the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from Iraq over a 16-month period and said the United States, NATO and the Afghanistan government must do more to counter a resurgent Taliban and al-Qaida. Back home, Republican rival John McCain renewed his criticism of Obama's pledge to pull U.S. combat troops out of Iraq by the second year of his administration if he wins the presidency. "Sen. Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign," McCain said at a town hall meeting in Rochester, N.H. Jordan was the initial stop of a second stage of Obama's international trip, this part financed by his presidential campaign after the official congressional visit to the war zones with fellow senators. Obama has been to the Middle East before, but not as the Democratic presidential nominee-in-waiting, and his Jordanian hosts seemed eager to prepare a warm greeting. King Abdullah flew back from Colorado for the visit, and Obama aides said the Jordanians had suggested a one-on-one meeting before the two were joined by a larger group for dinner at the palace. The king later drove his guest to the airport in his Mercedes. Following dinner, Obama was flying aboard his newly refurbished chartered campaign jet to Israel for meetings with Israeli leaders as well as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah on the West Bank. After that: Sderot, an Israeli town under periodic shelling from Palestinian militants in the nearby Gaza strip. Obama said that an ultimate resolution in the region is going to involve "two states standing side-by-side in peace and security and that the Israelis and the Palestinians are going to both have to make compromises in order to arrive at that two-state solution." Yet, he added, "One of the difficulties that we have right now is that in order to make those compromises you have to have strong support from your people. And the Israeli government right now is unsettled. ... "The Palestinians are divided between Fatah and Hamas. And so it's difficult for either side to make the bold move that would bring about peace the way, for example, the peace between Israel and Egypt was brought about. Those leaders were in a much stronger position to initiate that kind of peace." In particular, he said the United States should create "a greater sense of security among the Israelis, a greater sense that economic progress and increased freedom of movement is something that can be accomplished in the Palestinian territories and, with those confidence-building measures, that we get discussions back on track." Jordan's king told Obama that an evenhanded U.S. policy would bolster America's credibility in the Middle East and that achieving Palestinian statehood was essential for ending the Arab-Israeli conflict, according to a royal palace statement summarizing Abdullah's remarks during their private meeting. In Israel, Obama also was expected to stop at Yad Vashem, the memorial to victims of the Holocaust, and possibly the Western Wall, the site of an ancient temple and Judaism's holiest place. At its political core, Obama's trip is designed to reassure skeptical voters about his ability to function as commander in chief and to forge a new foreign policy after eight years of the Bush administration. Jewish voters in the U.S. are among those Obama is seeking to impress. He trailed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton among them during the Democratic primaries, although he has made inroads in recent weeks. He steered well clear of explicitly criticizing President Bush in his Mideast comments, although he said, "What a U.S. president can do is apply sustained energy and focus on the issues of the Israelis and the Palestinians." The administration has been prodding the two sides toward a compromise in its final months in office, but has come under criticism from some for not making it a stronger priority earlier. In comments on his trip to Iraq, Obama acknowledged that Gen. David Petraeus, the overall commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, had concerns about a fixed timetable for withdrawal. He expressed sympathy with that view, though he made it clear his outlook would be a broader one. "I think he wants maximum flexibility to be able to -- to do what he believes needs to be done inside of Iraq," Obama said, "But keep in mind, for example, one of General Petraeus' responsibilities is not to think about how could we be using some of that $10 billion a month to shore up a U.S. economy that is really hurting right now. If I'm president of the United States, that is part of my responsibility." After leaving Israel, Obama flies to Germany, France and England before returning to the United States next weekend. Before Obama arrived in Jerusalem on Tuesday, a Palestinian rammed a construction truck into three cars and a bus near the hotel where he was to stay, injuring five people before an Israeli civilian shot and killed the attacker. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the attack. And Obama, speaking from Jordan before leaving for Israel, called it "a reminder of what Israelis have courageously lived with on a daily basis for far too long." "I will always support Israel in confronting terrorism and pursuing everlasting peace and security," Obama said. Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read more.

Dresden — The February 1945 firebombing of Dresden has long been a rallying point for neo-Nazis. Indeed, prominent Holocaust deniers have been assiduous in symbolically conflating Dresden with Hiroshima as the real crematoria of World War II. Neo-Nazis have swarmed this ancient capital of Saxony for every anniversary of the bombing since the reunification of Germany in 1989. The majority of Dresdeners don’t want their pain to reinforce the monstrous ideology that precipitated the destruction in the first place. It is already difficult enough for descendants of perpetrators to deal with questions of collective or inherited guilt, unfathomable historical reality or relative victimhood. They want to be able to mourn the devastation and mass incineration of the city without having their commemorations co-opted by any politicians, let alone neo-Nazis. One of the loveliest cities in the world, Dresden has been called the “Florence on the Elbe.” It was the first city in Europe to enact urban zoning regulations and is historically a major center of the arts and engineering. Dresden has now largely been rebuilt to resemble what was there before the war. Alongside the re-creation of the physical reality of the old city out of the rubble, efforts almost as massive have been undertaken to heal the spiritual and psychological wounds of the past: education under communist rule layering the disinformation with anti-Western propaganda compounded with lies covering up Nazi history. Dresden cultural institutions, local and federal governments, and the people themselves are now taking multiple steps to confront the neo-Nazi problem and the widespread lack of knowledge about the past. Among the numerous efforts this year, Dresden commissioned a new requiem by a Russian-American Jewish composer for performance in the Frauenkirche and the Semper Opera; opened the huge anti-war Military Museum designed by Daniel Libeskind, and, most dramatic, had a “human chain” — individuals, families, old and young alike — holding hands in the below-freezing weather to create a peaceful barrier. Outnumbering the much-diminished contingent of 1,600 neo-Nazis by at least 4:1, the citizens effectively blocked them at the train station. The Dresden Staatskapelle Orchestra (one of the oldest and finest orchestras in the world) has been performing annual memorial concerts since 1951, when much of the city was still in ruins. This year, for the first time, the orchestra commissioned a new requiem instead of performing an existing work. The program book for the performances confronted the audience with two photographs. The first showed the huge Dresden crowds greeting Hitler on May 1, 1933, in the huge square in front of the Semper Opera. (Hitler had made his appearance in the city conditional on the opera and the Staatskapelle being made completely “Juden-frei” [Jew-free].) The second photo showed the bombed-out city of 1945. For these performances, the orchestra deliberately chose to bring in performers from the Allied countries — Russia, England and America — and to incorporate Jewish elements. New York’s Saint Thomas Choir of Boys and the London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral Choir were imported to sing alongside the men of the Saxon State Opera Chorus. For this highly symbolic and emotional occasion, for the first time,with additional funds from the Frauenkirche Foundation, the orchestra commissioned its prolific Jewish composer-in-residence, Lera Auerbach. She created an 18-movement “Ode to Peace” for male voices and orchestra: four soloists (two boy sopranos, a countertenor and a bass-baritone) plus boys’ and men’s choirs. She also cobbled together an ecumenical assortment of prayers, psalms and other texts in Latin, German and Hebrew. Auerbach’s musical idiom is tonal and largely conservative, with a few modernistic touches, like bowed flexatone (similar to bowed saw, but more delicate sounding) heard at the beginning and end of the piece. In her work, rather than reaching for the tragic, she concentrates on psalms and prayers asking for help or seeking peace with God. A basic theme of the piece is the “Dresden Amen” — a setting of the word “Amen” by one of the 18th century’s directors of this orchestra, J.G. Naumann, made famous by Mendelssohn showcasing it in his Reformation Symphony and subsequently adopted by Wagner to represent the Grail in his “Parsifal.” Here, however, Auerbach transforms it from a cadence in the major key into a melodic transition to the minor. One of the high points was the simplest: the deliberately naive, folkish setting for boy soprano Richard Pittsinger in call-and-response with the boys’ choirs singing in Hebrew, invoking the four archangels and the Shechinah. Pittsinger sang with uncommon beauty and clarity, to say nothing of a remarkable concentration and stamina throughout the 70-minute work. The Russian-born, Dresden-trained Vladimir Jurowski (a major conductor who also happens to be Jewish) conducted authoritatively, though he later revealed he had received the score only two weeks prior to the performances. The most stunning moment, though, came at the end, when the audience observed, by tradition, several minutes of silence — a silence so total that one could hear the high-frequency vibrations of the lighting fixtures. There was no applause, and everyone left, wrapped in that silence. Even the German army is doing what it can: Four months ago, it opened the astonishing new Military Museum in Dresden, designed by Libeskind. The museum confronts the enormity of Germany’s military past with bracing frankness. Originally an armory in the 19th century, across the Elbe in the Neustadt neighborhood, it was built — like almost everything in now trendy Neustadt — with French reparations money from the Franco-Prussian war. Libeskind, who won the commission in a competition, has restored the building and pierced it with an upward-pointing glass-and-steel wedge that dramatically disrupts its neoclassical symmetry. This wedge permanently points the direction the bombers flew when destroying the city. A worthy companion to the Jewish Museum Berlin, which Libeskind also designed, it is impossible to convey in brief terms how powerful the experience of the Military Museum is. When you go to the top floor of this wedge, you are immediately confronted by the lesson of the Golden Rule, embodied in stone: a large square of bombed-out pavement from Wielun, Poland — which suffered the first civilian bombing of the war — followed by a similar square of bombed-out pavement from Dresden. Representative testimonies by surviving perpetrators and victims are placed side by side, along with biographical information of those providing the testimonies. Beyond these, one can go through a door and find oneself outside, in the glass wedge itself, and hovering on a non-solid narrow bridge looking out on the city skyline in an unreal, Piranesi-like structure, suspended in time and space. In addition to vehicles and weapons, the rest of the museum is filled with a breathtaking wealth of diverse exhibitions. Some document how animals were subjected to war (dogs trained as suicide bombers, cats used to test nerve gas, etc.), games used to promote anti-Semitism, militarization of language. A list of exhibits and approaches in this museum would be longer than this whole article. Although the 20th century is given the majority of space, almost a millennium of military history is graphically demonstrated. It is Germany’s largest museum of any kind. In the almost two full days I spent going through the exhibits, I saw a great deal but not everything in it. With all these and other efforts, the story of Dresden is still evolving. As an additional example, in May the Dresden Staatskapelle, led by its new music director, superstar conductor Christian Thielemann, will perform in Tel Aviv for the first time. Raphael Mostel is a New York-based composer whose World War II compositions include music for the atom bomb commemorations in Hiroshima, the liberation of the Netherlands and memorializing Janusz Korczak.

Last time, we looked at questions you shouldn’t ask your kids for fear of embarrassment -- theirs, and since they wouldn’t answer anyway – yours. However, while they’re still young, a small mis-step is bound to happen. Listen, there are worse tragedies than asking your neighbors in front of your 12-year-old: “My poor Rivkaleh just can’t get that broccoli out of her braces no matter what she does.” However, starting in the teen years they will think they’re “grown-ups.” (They also think Uncle Pete, who invented a toilet that lights up is “interesting.”) Yet, we must exercise even greater sensitivity as JYAs have “opinions” and thanks to our constant educational vigilance, eloquent pisks with which to express them. “Don’t you know we were on shpilkes waiting for you?!" So, I now present you with five questions you should never ask your JYAs. 1- “Don’t you know we were on shpilkes waiting for you?!" For 3,000 years Jewish parents have been “Lateness-shpilkesized.” After two minutes: “Maybe she took the long way home.” Five: “... and met a friend.” Six plus minutes: “… then was snatched by a serial killer!” When she saunters in 10 minutes late, resist the urge to tell her you called the ER, the BAU, and other initialed agencies that use radar and a net. She will make the incorrect assumption that you need one, and, believe me, the only empathy you’ll get is “Chill.” Much better to offer up a disinterested shrug: “You were gone? Harvey, did you know she was out?” This will throw her into turmoil as she’ll wonder what you really know, and fear you’ve washed your hands of the 2015 Mustang you promised for graduation! Trust me, mamalas, she’ll be home an hour early! 2- “You want to make acting (singing, accordion playing, watering deserts in 4th world countries) your career?!” This question will cause your college-age kinder to think you doubt their abilities, thereby creating insecurity. True, most young people want to a) save the world; b) be on American Idol. Yes, it’s possible for JYAs to save the world, be creative and even make a living from such pursuits. But good Jewish parents must engage in brutal honesty! Did your “Marvin” (who wants to start a band) quit piano at “Chopsticks?” Did your “Sheila” (who’s talking building a rain forest from a desert) faint when her Manolo Blahniks got dusty? So, should you suspect your JYA may not be entirely “capable,” instead of hysterically asking, “Acting?! You passed out playing Haman in the school play!?” Assume a calm facial expression, and say: “Whatever you want, mamala … as long as you’re happy. We’ll support you 100% --right after you finish law (or medical) school, which, face it, we all know will make you even happier.” 3- “Why do you want to move out, all by yourself, into a dingy apartment?!” There comes a time in every JYAs life when you will hear: “I want a place of my own in ‘the City.’” Instead of geshre-ing, “But that’s the same lousy apartment zayde paid $35 a month for in 1932!” agree that a little more independence is okay! Remember, it is your job to insure continuity, which means that at no time are they to live alone without a loving presence, e.g. you. Better you should spend a fortune bringing in the decorators to re-do her room or the contractors to fix up the attic, then: a) casually make sure she sees the bill; b) tell her that you’ve decided she can now lock her door. If your YA still insists on leaving your safe, luxurious nest for a filthy, over-priced, studio with a goniff landlord in a gang neighborhood where a young person was attacked 22 years ago, you may step in reasonably as follows: a) Get all her contact information: all cell phones, her friends’ and neighbors’ cells, the building phone; the local police, fire, rescue, and hospital numbers. b) Call her at least three times daily: at 8 am to make sure didn’t succumb to SYADS (Sudden Young Adult Death Syndrome); at noon, to check that she made it to work or school unharmed; at 10 pm so you can say, “At least I know where my child is.” c) Should you fail to reach her before your next call shift, start phoning her contacts. d) Happen to be “in the neighborhood” – three times a week. Bring with you your “leftovers” she can freeze, an assortment of cleaning supplies, “reminders” (e.g.: “It’s tax time, mamala. Bring forms and daddy’s accountant will fill them out for you”). 4. “This person you’re keeping company with comes from a nice [read: Jewish] family? This question may appear intrusive to your JYA so much better to say: “Mamala, I trust your judgment.” Then, invite the young man over. When you’re serving cake, ask … “Were you wondering if the cake is Kosher?” His answer will serve as a basis for further inquiry, e.g.: “Do you parents keep Kosher?” and casually: “So what’s the family name?” Then ask your younger kinder to Google them. 5. “Our son! Engaged! But are you … absolutely, positively sure, mamala?” It’s finally happened. Your 20-something-year-old son made a commitment to what’s-her-name. Ah, but is “she” truly capable of providing him with the proper emotional and practical nourishment you’ve given him for 20 years?! Of course not. You know it, I know it. But asking such a question to your “Mr.-Bigshot-in-love” will aggravate him. Switch to a different approach like saying, “Oy the poor thing -- so skinny. But give her five years and she’ll gain 50 pounds. Easy.” Should you feel any of the above about to burst forth, take a glass tea, lie down, and call me when the elephants in your head stop pounding.

Myth-making is not something that Varg Vikernes (aka Count Grishnackh, the one-man band that is/was Burzum) is unfamiliar with. Oh, sure, Vikernes was responsible for a few legends of his own. That happens when you burn down churches, murder a guitarist in another band, get busted with a bunch of dynamite and, while in prison, get your guitar taken away after you get caught in a prison-break plot hatched by your mom. Yeah, that's the kind of stuff that pretty much tacks your name to the community bulletin board that is history. What's typically forgotten in the Burzum myth is the music, and behind that music -- and much of the music of Norway's black metal scene -- is a virulent anti-Christianism that, frankly, is kind of cool. To the Norwegians, mere "devil worship" was just slightly out-of-whack Christianity, and the whole idea of the Christian pantheon -- God, Jesus, Satan, devils, angels, whatever -- was anathema to a worldview that perceived the invasion of the Euro-Christian hordes as ... wait for it ... a massive Jewish plot to dilute the snow-driven purity of Scandinavia. Thus, the thematic thrust of Burzum was about glorifying the pre-Christian mythology that defined the region and what started as a dark, grinding morass of metal morphed over time into the music found on these two CDs: atmospheric and ominous goth paeans to Ansuzgarda and Beldegir. These two discs were recorded in the late '90s between bouts of prison ass-raping and, having had his guitar taken away, Vikernes had to find some way to express his fair-haired angst. Of the two, "Hlidskjalf" (1999) is far more effective, steering away from some of the more ridiculous pretension that weighed down "Daudi Baldrs" (1997). Of course, the later disc is also somewhat full of itself, telling a proto-mythical tale in broad sweeps of synth patterns and doom & gloom samples, but the restraint Vikernes shows (not a typical trait for him) benefits the album's desolate theme.

"Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven" (Matt. 6:10). FOR centuries Christian people have prayed earnestly to God, the Heavenly Father, for His Kingdom to come and His will to be done on earth, as it is in heaven. This is a proper prayer, authorized by His Son Jesus Christ Himself; and the Scriptures give ample assurance that God will answer it in due time. In fact, one of the main purposes of Jesus' second coming to earth is, as God's Representative, to establish His everlasting Kingdom throughout the earth, "under the whole heaven," with its glorious reign of peace, righteousness and truth (Dan. 7:13, 14, 18, 22, 27; 2:35, 44, 45; Acts 3:20, 21; Rev. 11:15; Isa. 9:6, 7; Luke 1:32, 33). The Bible gives much prominence to the Kingdom of God. This expression, and the synonymous expression, Kingdom of Heaven, occur nearly 150 times in the New Testament alone. Nearly all of Jesus' teachings pertain to the Kingdom, either heavenly or earthly, or both. Many hold the unscriptural thought that Messiah's Kingdom consists merely of a sovereignty in the hearts of His followers, in the present life. True, the Church in the suffering condition, in the Gospel Age, is sometimes called the Kingdom in the Scriptures (e.g., Matt. 11:12); but to deny that additionally there is a future Kingdom of God yet to be established worldwide (Psa. 72:8), in which the will of God will be done on earth, as it is in heaven, and in which Jesus and the Church are to reign over the earth (Rev. 5:9, 10), is to make void and meaningless the strongest and most pointed promises set forth by Jesus, the Apostles and the Prophets. In telling us to pray for God's Kingdom to come and His will to be done on earth, even as it is in heaven, Jesus had a special object. He meant that we should have in mind God's glorious promise that Messiah's Kingdom will be set up in power and great glory after His second coming, and that through it ignorance, sin and death will all be overthrown, and the willing and obedient of mankind will be released from these, until every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God (Isa. 25:7-9; 45:22, 23; Rom. 8:19-22; 14:11; Phil. 2:9-11). Jesus evidently meant that we should connect the Kingdom of God with the great promise made to Abraham, "In thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed" (Gen. 12:3; 22:16-18; Gal. 3:8, 16, 29). His teaching, the message which He commissioned His people to give in His name, is the Gospel of the Kingdom (Matt. 24:14)—the message of salvation for the Church and the world (1 John 2:2; John 10:16). THE KINGDOM'S TWO PHASES From this promise to Abraham (and many other Scriptures, some of which will be mentioned later on) we learn that the Kingdom of God, for which we pray, is to have two parts or phases—a heavenly, spiritual phase ("as the stars of the heaven") and an earthly phase ("as the sand which is upon the sea shore"); and in these two phases of God's Kingdom, in Abraham's star seed and in his sand seed, as God promised in His Oath-bound Covenant, "shall all the nations of the earth be blessed" (Gen. 22:16-18; 13:16; 15:5; 26:4; 28:14; 32:12; Heb. 6:13-18). This is indeed the Bible's definition of the "gospel"—the "good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people" (Luke 2:10-14); for "the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed" (Gal. 3:8). JEWISH EXPECTATIONS AS TO THE KINGDOM For many centuries the Jewish nation had been waiting for the fulfillment in them of God's promise to Abraham—that they would become great, and that through them God's blessing would extend to all nations. He had promised that if they would obey Him and keep His covenant, they would be to Him a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Ex. 19:5, 6). Israel as a people, having had instruction and preparation under the Law Covenant, was the most religious and best-instructed nation in the world at the time of Jesus' First Advent. John the Baptist and Jesus and His disciples then preached to them, "the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matt. 3:2; 4:17; 5:10; 10:7; Mark 1:14, 15), thus signifying that the privilege of being of the heavenly, spiritual seed of Abraham, God's "kingdom of priests," the chief favor in the promise, was theirs if they were ready, if they were indeed a holy nation. But they were looking for a great deliverer who would free them from the Roman yoke, and set up again the kingdom in Israel, in power and great glory, to bless all the other nations. They thought of the Kingdom of God as only an earthly kingdom, and therefore Jesus' teaching of a heavenly kingdom was difficult for them to accept, even as many today think of God's Kingdom as being only a heavenly kingdom, and therefore the Scriptural teaching of an earthly phase of the Kingdom is difficult for them to accept. The Jewish nation was not ready. Only a foretold small remnant of them (Isa. 1:9; Rom. 9:27; 11:5), which at the close of Jesus' ministry numbered only about 500 saintly ones (1 Cor. 15:6)—"Israelites indeed" (John 1:47), at heart fully consecrated to God—accepted the gospel message. To the nation as a whole (which did not accept the message), our Lord declared, "The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof" (Matt. 21:43). Accordingly, shortly before His crucifixion He said to them: "Your house is left unto you desolate. … Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the LORD [Jehovah]" (Matt. 23:37-39). A few days later, the multitude of Jews cried, "Crucify him!" while the godless Pilate inquired, "Why, what evil hath he done?" Most evidently, therefore, the Jewish people in general were not ready to become the spiritual seed of Abraham that is to be used of God in the blessing of the other nations. The Kingdom privileges and favors were transferred from "Israel after the flesh" (1 Cor. 10:18) to the fruitful nation—Spiritual Israel, the spiritual Kingdom class, whose existence as such began at Pentecost. All "Israelites indeed" of the fleshly house were privileged to become members of the spiritual house (John 1:12; Rom. 11:7)—to receive the begetting of the holy Spirit and induction into "the church, which is his [Christ's] body" (Rom. 12:5; 1 Cor. 10:17; 12:12-27; Eph. 1:22, 23; 3:6; 4:12; Col. 1:24). Of this church St. Peter writes, "Ye are a royal [kingly] priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people" (1 Pet. 2:9; comp. Ex. 19:5, 6). GENTILES ACCEPTED INTO THE KINGDOM CLASS A remnant of the Jews, the Israelites indeed, was found worthy of being in this holy nation, Spiritual Israel. The other Jews, nominal Israel, were found unworthy, and were broken off as figurative branches in the tame olive tree, the elect nation; and in their places believing and consecrated Gentiles, as figurative wild olive branches, began to be grafted in, and thus were enabled to become parts of the true elect nation, Spiritual Israel, destined to have the highest favors under the Abrahamic Covenant (Rom. 11:16-24). Beginning with Cornelius (Acts 10:1-48) and continuing during the Gospel Age, God "did visit the Gentiles, to take out of the them a people for his name," to be, together with the Israelites indeed, the spiritual seed, "as the stars of the heaven"; and God says that "after this [after visiting the Gentiles and completing the Gentile spiritual elect] I will return [favor to mankind in general], and [in order to exercise it] will build again the tabernacle of David [erect again the family of David to royalty, in the Messiah as King], which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof [Israel has been in ruins as a kingdom since losing its royal family as rulers in Zedekiah's day, in 607 B.C.; but in Messiah's Millennial reign the earthly kingdom will be restored to them], and I will set it up [as the ruling house over the world]" (Acts 15:14-16). Also, Rom. 11:25-27 shows that Fleshly Israel was cast off from Divine favor only until the completion of the spiritual Kingdom class; and v. 20 shows that it was because of their unbelief, their failure to appreciate the Messiah and the offer of entering into the spiritual Kingdom class (Matt. 23:13), that they were cast off. "Blindness [or, hardness] in part is happened to Israel," but not everlastingly. It was to be only "until the fullness of the Gentiles [the full number of the spiritual elect Kingdom class to be selected from among the Gentiles during the Gospel Age] be come in." God promised that then His favor would return to Israel: "And so all Israel shall be saved [from their blindness and from the Adamic condemnation—including those dead as well as the living (Luke 2:34)]: as it is written, There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer [the Christ, Head and Body], and shall turn away ungodliness [their Gospel-Age blindness or hardness] from Jacob [Fleshly Israel] for this is my covenant unto them [the New Covenant will write God's laws into their hearts and minds; comp. Jer. 31:31-34; Ezek. 36:25, 26], when I shall take away their sins [by the application of Christ's Ransom-merit to satisfy Divine justice on their behalf, whereby they will be saved from the Adamic sentence; comp. Ex. 24:8; Heb. 9:19]." Following the Apostle James's statements in Acts 15:14-16, quoted above, he shows (v. 17) that the re-establishment of the earthly kingdom to Israel is for a specific purpose: "That the residue of men [the remainder left after the elect have been taken out, i.e., the non-elect] might seek after the Lord [for salvation, after the earthly phase of the Kingdom is established Millennially], and [even; the Greek word kai may also be so translated] all the Gentiles [Greek, nations; all non-elect people], upon whom my [God's] name is called [not the people for His name, the elect, mentioned in v. 14, who carry His name as their family appellation, but the non-elect, the world of mankind in general, upon whom His name is called by virtue of the Ransom which He provided (John 3:16) and which makes them His property by right of purchase, His name being written on them, even as the owner of a piece of property has his name upon it]." The Apostle Paul explains that the great antitypical High Priest, Christ Jesus, "is not entered into the holy places made with hands [the Holy and the Most Holy of the Tabernacle in the Wilderness], which are figures [types] of the true; but into heaven itself [at the time of His ascension], now to appear in the presence of God [at the antitypical Mercy Seat, to satisfy Divine justice] for us [the Church]" (Heb. 9:24). But He is the propitiation, not only "for our [the Church's] sins" "but also for the sins of the whole world" (1 John 2:2); and at His Second Advent He "shall appear the second time without sin [a sin-offering; Jesus at His First Advent was 'without sin'—Heb. 4:15; 7:26—but He died in the sinner's place; God 'made him to be sin—a sin-offering—for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him'—2 Cor. 5:21; and at His Second Advent He appears the second time, without a sin-offering] unto salvation" (Heb. 9:28). THE GOSPEL-AGE KINGDOM OFFER Thus the offer of salvation in God's Kingdom comes first to the spiritual elect Church, during the Gospel Age. They are the "heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him" (James 2:5). In the early part of Jesus' Second Presence, a 1,000-year period, He first delivers and exalts His Bride, the Lamb's Wife, His "little flock" of 144,000 Body members, to whom He promised the chief place in the heavenly phase of the Kingdom, the privilege of reigning with Him "the thousand years" "on the earth" (Matt. 26:29; Luke 12:32; 22:29, 30; 2 Tim. 2:12; Rev. 3:21; 5:9, 10; 14:1-4; 19:7; 20:4, 6). They obtain salvation in its fullness in "the first resurrection," when they are given immortality, "the divine nature," made like their Lord and Savior, spirit beings, invisible to men's physical eyes (2 Pet. 1:4; 1 John 3:2; John 14:19; 1 Tim. 1:17; 6:16). Next our Lord delivers and exalts the secondary spiritual elect class, the secondary part of the "church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven" (Heb. 12:23). These are "the great multitude" of tribulation saints, those Gospel-Age, Spirit-begotten new creatures who were not faithful enough to be of Christ's Bride but, having "washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb," are found worthy to be "the virgins her companions," who "enter into the king's palace" with "gladness and rejoicing" and are given a place, not in the throne, but "before the throne of God," and are privileged to "serve him day and night in his temple" (Psa. 45:14, 15; Rev. 7:9-17). The Great Company as a class is being prepared for a place in the Kingdom in "the time of the end," when many, as foretold, are running to and fro as never before, and knowledge has been increased very greatly, and when we are in the resultant "great tribulation" (which began in 1914), the present great "time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time"—"no, nor ever shall be" (Rev. 7:14; Dan. 12:4, 1; Matt. 24:21). This class of God's elect is completed, perfected and exalted in this great harvest time with which the Gospel Age and "this present evil world" are ending (Gal. 1:4; Matt. 13:39-43, 49, 50). Additionally, during this same tribulation period our Lord develops, delivers and exalts the Youthful Worthies, the fourth class of God's elect. These are to be associated in nature and reward with the Ancient Worthies—God's faithful servants of Old Testament times, from Abel to John the Baptist, described in Heb. 11, "of whom the world was not worthy." The Ancient and Youthful Worthies together will constitute the main part, the ruling part, of the earthly phase of the Kingdom which is to bless all mankind. Jesus showed that the Ancient Worthies will be in the earthly phase of the Kingdom when He instanced John the Baptist and explained that the "least in the kingdom of heaven [the spiritual phase of the Kingdom] is greater than he" (Matt. 11:11). Also, He spoke of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and all the prophets, as being seen in the Kingdom by other humans (Luke 13:28), hence in its earthly, visible phase. THE KINGDOM'S TWO PHASES PICTURED Jesus and the Little Flock, the 144,000, will be the invisible rulers of the Millennial Kingdom. They will be assisted by the Great Company on a spirit plane of being as subordinate invisible rulers. These two classes will be the invisible, heavenly phase of the Kingdom. It will supplant the invisible kingdom of "this present evil world"—the kingdom of Satan and his angels (Matt. 12:24-28; Luke 4:5-7; John 14:30; 16:11; 18:36; 2 Cor. 4:4; Gal. 1:4; Eph. 2:2; 6:11, 12; Col. 1:13). The King of light and glory supplants the prince of darkness and sin (Rev. 11:15). Jesus showed that the Rulers in the heavenly phase of the Kingdom would in their reign on earth be invisible to men's physical eyes, e.g., when He replied to the Pharisees' demand as to when the kingdom of God would come. He told them, "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation [with outward show, margin]. Neither shall they say [men will be unable to point out these rulers to their fellows, saying], Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you [literally, in your midst]" (Luke 17:20, 21). Thus He showed that when His Kingdom would rule on earth, its Rulers would be present and powerful, yet invisible to men's physical eyes, just as God and Jesus (John 1:18; 14:19; 1 Tim. 1:17; 6:16) and the angels of God are now invisible to men. The Ancient Worthies and the Youthful Worthies will be the visible, earthly representatives of the invisible Kingdom. The two phases of the Kingdom, the heavenly and the earthly phases, are frequently referred to in the Scriptures (e.g., 1 Cor. 15:40) as separate and distinct. In some passages they are represented in Zion and Jerusalem respectively. Isa. 2:2-4, which we will examine in detail later, states: "Out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem." Isa. 62:1, 2 states: "For Zion's sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth. And the Gentiles [the nations; mankind in general] shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory and thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the LORD shall name." Joel 2:32 reads: "And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the LORD hath said, and [even] in the remnant whom the LORD shall call." In other passages the two phases of the Kingdom are pictured in other ways: In Psa. 107:32 we read: "Let them exalt him [God] also in the congregation of the people [primarily the Little Flock, secondarily the Great Company], and praise him in the assembly of the elders [the Ancient and Youthful Worthies]." In Isa. 32:1 we read: "Behold, a king [the Christ, Head and Body—Rev. 20:4, 6] shall reign in righteousness, and princes [the Ancient and Youthful Worthies] shall rule in judgment [in harmony with the doctrinal teachings of the great King]." Psa. 45:16 shows that these princes will be in the earthly, visible phase of the Kingdom, "princes in all the earth." Furthermore, the two phases of the Kingdom are illustrated symbolically and beautifully in Zech. 14:4, 5: "And his [the LORD'S — Jehovah's; see v. 3] feet shall stand [signifying the return of His favor and the re-establishment of His dominion on earth] in that [Millennial] day upon the mount of Olives [the Kingdom of light, peace and Divine blessing], which is before Jerusalem on the east [toward the sunrise], and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west [thus opening the way for the Sun of Righteousness—Mal. 4:2; Matt. 13:43—to shine in between the two cleft parts], and there shall be a very great valley [the Valley of Blessings, God's Kingdom on earth, filled with the light of truth and righteousness, shining upon all mankind, free from all shadows of sin and death]; and half of the mountain [the spiritual phase of the Kingdom—the Little Flock and the Great Company] shall remove [from earthly to heavenly conditions] toward the north [toward the Pleiades, the supposed seat of the Divine empire—Job 38:31; Psa. 48:2; 75:6, 7; Isa. 14:13, 14], and half of it [the earthly phase, the Ancient and Youthful Worthies] toward the south [complete restitution to perfect human life in the earthly phase of the Kingdom]." Then all who become Millennial Israelites indeed, "the people of God," will flee for their lives to this valley of mercy. Thus will Jehovah come in His blessings for the world of mankind at the hands of all His holy ones, who (as Abraham's seed) will be united with Him in blessing all the families of the earth. THE FOUR ELECT CLASSES PICTURED Some Scriptures set forth all of the four elect classes separately. We note just a few: Joel 2:28, 29 shows that "afterward" (after the Gospel Age with its Time of Trouble and its Harvest, described in the context) God will pour out His holy Spirit for all flesh, so that the non-elect world of mankind, the "residue of men," might be given their thousand-year Judgment Day, in which they will be saved from the Adamic condemnation and given their opportunity to learn the Truth, to hear of the name of Jesus, the only name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved (Acts 4:12; 17:31; 2 Pet. 3:7, 8; 1 Tim. 2:4; 2 Tim. 4:1; John 1:9; 12:32; Isa. 11:9). Then, in the Millennial Age, Christ's "sons" (the stronger ones) and "daughters" (the weaker ones; comp. Isa. 60:4) in "the times of restitution of all things" (Acts 3:19-21) will "prophesy" (speak forth the truth—Psa. 107:22), and "your old men [Heb., zekenim; translated 'ancients' in Isa. 24:23, where the same class is indicated] shall dream dreams [receive revelations of the deeper truths in God's Kingdom on earth], your young men [literally, 'youthfuls'—the Youthful Worthies, the other class of the sand seed] shall see visions [receive revelations of the simpler truths]: and also upon the servants [the Little Flock] and upon the handmaids [the Great Company] in those [Gospel-Age] days [wherein the two spiritual classes for the spiritual phase of the Kingdom, the star seed, are perfected] will I pour out my spirit." Here, in addition to the non-elect sons and daughters of restitution, are mentioned separately the four elect classes: two (the Ancient Worthies and the Youthful Worthies) for the earthly phase of the Kingdom and two (the Little Flock and the Great Company) for the heavenly phase of the Kingdom. NOAH AND SONS; PRIESTS AND LEVITES The four elect classes are indicated also in the four couples saved through the waters of Noah's Flood (a type of the curse upon the earth) in the Ark (a type of the Abrahamic Covenant). Noah and his wife represent Jesus (Heb. 11:7) and the Little Flock, who as the Second Adam and Eve will regenerate the world of mankind "in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory" (Matt. 19:28; 1 Cor. 15:45). Noah's three sons (Shem, Ham and Japheth) and their wives, represent the Ancient and Youthful Worthies and the Great Company in their leaders and followers (Gen. 7:13; 1 Pet. 3:20). The Priests, encamped to the east of the Tabernacle, type the Royal Priesthood, the Christ, Head and Body; and the three groups of Levites—the Kohathites, Gershonites and Merarites—encamped on the other three sides of the Tabernacle, type respectively the other three classes of God's elect (just mentioned in the preceding paragraph) as a part of Abraham's seed in its larger sense. They will assist the Royal Priesthood in blessing all the families of the earth, pictured in the twelve tribes of Israel, encamped about the Tabernacle at a greater distance. PSA. 72:3 AND ISA. 60:13 The four elect classes are pictured also in the two mountains and the two hills that will bring peace to the world of mankind by righteousness (Psa. 72:3; Isa. 55:12). Literal Jerusalem was built upon two mountains, Zion and Moriah, and upon two hills, Akra and Bezetha. Zion and Moriah represent the heavenly and the earthly phases of the Kingdom respectively — i.e., the Christ, Head and Body, and the Ancient Worthies, as the two higher powers of the Kingdom (see Psa. 72:16; Isa. 2:2—"the top of the mountains"). Akra and Bezetha represent the tributary (subordinate) powers of the Kingdom, i.e., the Great Company and the Youthful Worthies. As Moriah was the first height of literal Jerusalem to be built by the Israelites, so the Ancient Worthies were the first part of the Kingdom to be developed. And as Zion was the second height of this city to be built by the Israelites, so the Little Flock was the second part of the Kingdom to be developed. As the hill Akra was the third height of Jerusalem to be built by the Israelites, so the Great Company is the third class among the powers (a subordinate power) of the Kingdom to be developed (Rev. 7:9-17). And as the hill Bezetha was the fourth and last height of Jerusalem to be built by the Israelites, so the Youthful Worthies are the last one of the powers (the other subordinate power) of the Kingdom to be developed. The world of mankind to be blessed by these two symbolic mountains and their tributary hills are symbolized by the valley sections of literal Jerusalem. Isa. 60:13 also shows the four classes of Abraham's elect seed, that are to bless the world of mankind in the coming Kingdom: "The glory of Lebanon [Lebanon means white, and its evergreen trees, the glory of Lebanon, represent the righteous as antitypical Levites; Psa. 92:12, 13] shall come unto thee [the antitypical Levites will be brought to the Priesthood, the Christ, Head and Body; Num. 3:6-9], the fir tree [the Ancient Worthies], the pine tree [the Great Company], and the box [box tree; the Youthful Worthies] together [rendering a co-operative service], to beautify the place of my sanctuary [a Levitical work; Num. 3:6-9; 8:19]; and I will make the place of my feet ['earth is my footstool'; Acts 7:49] glorious ['all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD'—Num. 14:21]." DAN. 3; 2 TIM. 2:20 AND PSA. 45 Dan. 3:1-30 presents the three of the four elect classes that live here in the end of the Gospel Age, namely, the Little Flock (Shadrach, royal, suggesting the Royal Priesthood; 1 Pet. 2:9), the Great Company (Meshach, guest, suggesting the guests invited to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, which call or invitation goes out here in the end of the Gospel Age; Rev. 19:5-9) and the Youthful Worthies (Abed-nego, servant of the prophet; they are faithful servants of the Little Flock and Great Company in the end of the Gospel Age and will be the special assistants of the Ancient Worthies in the Millennial Kingdom on earth). God's faithful people in these three elect classes refuse to bow down to or worship the antitypical golden image of Militarism and also of Papalism and Federationism—the Beast and its Image (Rev. 13:4-17). 2 Tim. 2:20 shows that "in a great house [the great house of the typical high priest Aaron—Lev. 16:6; Num. 17:2, 3; 3:6-9, 17-20—consisted of his sons and the three typical classes of Levites, mentioned above; accordingly, in the great house of our Great High Priest, there are four classes antitypical of these] there are not only vessels of gold and of silver [representing respectively the Little Flock and the Great Company, the two elect classes in the heavenly, spiritual phase of the Kingdom; comp. Mal. 3:3], but also of wood and of earth [representing respectively the Ancient Worthies and the Youthful Worthies, the two elect classes in the visible, earthly phase of the Kingdom]; and [in addition to these four elect classes, there will be] some [of the world of mankind] to honor [in the times of restitution], and some to dishonor [the 'goats' of Matt. 25:31-46]." Psalm 45:1-17 gives a beautiful picture, showing, among other things, three of the four elect classes. Jehovah is introduced in v. 1 as the speaker, and Jesus as "the king." Jesus is then described in vs. 2-9, and the Little Flock, His Bride and Joint-heir, in vs. 9-14. The Great Company as the Bridesmaids, "the virgins her companions that follow her," are set forth in vs. 14, 15; and the Ancient Worthies ("thy fathers") as the children of the Christ in the Millennial Age, and as "princes in all the earth," over the restitution class, are mentioned in v. 16. The restitution class, "the people," are introduced in v. 17, separate from all other classes. The four elect classes of God's loyal people, who have walked by faith rather than by sight, constitute Abraham's elect seed, through whom all the families of the earth shall be blessed in the coming Kingdom on earth soon to be established; for "they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham," and "they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham" (Gal. 3:7-9). THE MOUNTAIN (KINGDOM) OF THE LORD Christ's reign of peace on earth is soon to begin. As God foretold through His Prophets (e.g., Isa. 2:2-4; Micah 4:1-4), "In the last days [in which we are living], the mountain [kingdom; Dan. 2:34, 35, 44, 45] of the LORD'S house shall be established in the top of the mountains [overtopping or overruling all absolute monarchies and similar governments], and shall be exalted above the hills [limited monarchies, republics, democracies, etc.]; and all nations shall flow unto it [every nation or people will become subject to it—comp. Rev. 11:15; Zech. 14:16-19]. "And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD [become subject to God's Kingdom], to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways [of truth and righteousness—1 Tim. 2:4; Isa. 26:9; 28:17; Psa. 67:4; 96:1-13; 98:1-9], and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion [the heavenly, spiritual phase of the Kingdom; Christ and His 'little flock' of saints—Luke 12:32; Isa. 33:5; Dan. 7:13, 14, 18, 22, 27; Obad. 1:21; Rev. 14:1] shall go forth the law and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem [the earthly phase of the Kingdom]. "And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people [during the great Time of Trouble (which broke out in 1914) and throughout the thousand-year Judgment Day, when 'the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness'—2 Pet. 3:7, 8; Isa. 26:9]: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks [they will divert their resources, discoveries, inventions, etc., including nuclear power, from channels of human destruction into channels of blessing their fellowmen]: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more ['they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea'—Isa. 11:9]." "TIME OF TROUBLE" PREPARES THE WAY The great, unprecedented Time of Trouble, which has been upon the world ever since 1914, is but preparing the way (Zeph. 3:8, 9; 2 Pet. 3:7, 10-13) for the ushering in of Christ's glorious reign of peace. God declares (Haggai 2:6, 7) that in this great Time of Trouble He will "yet once" "shake all nations," after which "the desire of all nations shall come"; and in Heb. 12:27 He explains that "this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are [can be] shaken, as of things that are made [fabricated, false, not founded upon the principles of truth and righteousness], that those things which cannot be shaken [those things which are based upon right principles—particularly God's Kingdom, 'which cannot be moved'—v. 28] may remain." In Hosea 2:18 and Psa. 46:8-10, God foretells the destruction of the weapons of war and the eventual outcome of the Time of Trouble. He declares: "I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them [mankind] to lie down safely." "Come, behold the works of the LORD, what desolations he hath made in the earth. He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire. Be still [cease clamoring and fighting], and know that I am God [the Supreme Being]: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth [after the Time of Trouble mankind will be so humbled through the failure of their own schemes for bringing about disarmament, peace and security, that they will be ready to listen to God's voice (1 Kings 19:12), to learn of Him and to hear His Son (Matt. 17:5)]." But in this Time of Trouble, "their soul is melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits' end"; but soon, and more and more, will "they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses. He maketh the storm [the Time of Trouble] a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth them unto their desired haven [i.e., the Kingdom of God on earth]" (Psa. 107:26-30). Ezek. 38 and 39 (comp. Zech. 12) give a description of the final phase of the Time of Trouble, called "Jacob's trouble" (Jer. 30:4-8), in which various surrounding nations will seek to destroy the regathered nation of Israel. Ezek. 39:9 describes the resulting destruction of weapons: "And they that dwell in the cities of Israel shall go forth, and shall set on fire and burn the weapons, both the shields and the bucklers, the bows and the arrows, and the handstaves, and the spears, and they shall burn them with fire." Note also Zech. 9:10: "And I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem, and the battle bow shall be cut off: and he [Messiah, the Prince of Peace—Isa. 9:6, 7] shall speak peace unto the heathen: and his dominion [Dan. 7:13, 14, 27] shall be from sea even to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the earth" (comp. Psa. 72:1-20). BLESSINGS OF CHRIST'S REIGN DESCRIBED Complete disarmament, peace and security, which mankind's plans and schemes have not brought about, and which they cannot bring about, will be realized during Christ's glorious thousand-year reign. Then the people will no longer learn to fight and destroy one another, as they are now doing and have done in the past, ever since the time of Cain, "who was of [the spirit or disposition of] that wicked one [Satan], and slew his brother" (1 John 3:12). Then they will live peaceably together, each seeking the other's welfare. Then "they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree [everyone will have his own home and property and the fruit of his labors]; and none shall make them afraid" (Micah 4:4; Isa. 65:21-25); for then "the Prince of Peace" shall reign, and "of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end" (Isa. 9:6, 7). "The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now … waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God" (Rom. 8:22, 19). At the end of the present Time of Trouble, which will overthrow Satan's empire, with its symbolic heavens and earth (its false religious and secular powers), which will "pass away with a great noise" (2 Pet. 3:7, 10-12; Matt. 24:35; Rev. 6:14; 20:11), the "sons of God," Abraham's seed, will be manifested and will begin to bless all the families of the earth, both the living and the dead, for "many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake," when "all that are in the graves shall hear his [Jesus'] voice, and shall come forth" (Dan. 12:2; John 5:28, 29; Rev. 20:12—21:5). The literal heavens and earth abide forever (2 Cor. 5:1; Eccles. 1:4), but the symbolic heavens and earth of "this present evil world" are passing away. "We, according to his promise, look for new heavens [the spiritual phase of the Kingdom and its subordinate order of religious affairs] and a new earth [the earthly phase of the Kingdom and its subordinate order of social affairs], wherein dwelleth righteousness" (2 Pet. 3:13; Isa. 65:17; 66:22, 23; Rev. 21:1, 24-27; Zeph. 3:8, 9). Then "all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God"; "and the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together" (Psa. 67:7; Isa. 40:5; 52:10). Christ will continue His Millennial mediatorial reign, "till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is [Adamic] death" (1 Cor. 15:24-26; Hosea 13:14; Rev. 20:14). "And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive [through Christ] their iniquity, and I will remember [against them] their sin no more"; "I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people" (Jer. 31:34, 33). "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit [disposition] will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God" (Ezek. 36:26-28). Then shall be declared the message (the "great voice out of heaven") saying (Rev. 21:3, 4) "Behold, the tabernacle of God [the Christ as God's meeting, dwelling and blessing place] is with men, and he will dwell with them [fellowship will be restored between God and the human race, as it existed between Adam and God before Adam's fall] and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God [they will be in covenant relationship with Him as Adam was before he sinned]. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things [all the effects of the curse upon the race as a result of father Adam's sin] are passed away [by the end of the thousand-year Kingdom reign of righteousness]." "And there shall be no more curse [the Adamic curse will have been fully removed]" (Rev. 22:3). During Christ's thousand-year Kingdom reign Satan will be bound, so that he can deceive the nations no more, until the thousand years are fulfilled. Then he will be loosed "a little season" for the final testing of all mankind, to demonstrate whether or not they have a proper heart loyalty to God and His principles of truth and righteousness. Those found unworthy of everlasting life will be destroyed, along with Satan and his evil angels, in the Second Death—eternal annihilation. But those found worthy, the righteous, will hear the great King Jesus say to them, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom [the earthly dominion] prepared for you from the foundation of the world" (Rev. 20:1-15; Matt. 25:31-46). Thereafter will follow "the ages to come" (Eph. 2:7), eons of great peace and happiness for restored mankind in the everlasting Kingdom of God on earth. Then the prayer of Matt. 6:10 will have been fully answered! Praise God for this eventual outcome KINGDOM WORK BEGINNING TOWARD ISRAEL The Scriptures, the Bible chronology, the fulfillments of Bible prophecy concerning Israel and the signs of the times abundantly and combinedly testify: (1) That Israel's symbolic "seven times" of punishment at the hands of the nations (Gentiles), among whom they were to be scattered (Lev. 26:18, 21, 24, 28, 33-45), are ended. (2) That during the Gospel Age Jerusalem (Israel) was "led away captive into all nations" and was "trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled" (Luke 21:24), which fulfillment has been completed, this definite period of time having ended. (3) That the appointed time of Israel's "double for all her sins" (Isa. 40:1, 2; Jer. 16:14-18; Zech. 9:12) "is accomplished." (4) That as "the fullness of the Gentiles" comes in, the "blindness in part" that happened to Israel is gradually being removed and favor is gradually being restored to them (Rom. 11:25). (5) That God is now regathering Israel to their promised land, and favoring them, preliminary to the establishment of His Kingdom on earth, even as He had promised (Lev. 26:40-45; Psa. 22:23-31; 102:13-28; Isa. 2:2, 3; 14:1; Jer. 23:5-8; 24:6, 7; 30:7-11, 18-24; 31:8-12; 33:7, 10, 11; Ezek. 16:53-55, 60-63; 36:1-15, 24-38; 37:1-28; Hosea 3:4, 5; Joel 3:1, 2, 17-21; Amos 9:14, 15; Zeph. 3:10-20; Zech. 8:1-23). (6) That Israel would return to their promised land nationally before they would recognize their Messiah, before His Kingdom on earth is set up and the New Covenant is made with them (Ezek. 37:21-28; Zech. 12:10; Jer. 31:23-34). (7) That the time has come when "the fig tree" (Israel) and "all the trees" (the great and unprecedented number of nations that are now gaining independence) "now shoot forth" (prosper as independent nations) and that "when ye see these things [together with many other signs of the times in fulfillment of prophecy] come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand"; "then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption [deliverance] draweth nigh" (Luke 21:28-33). Thank God for His glorious Kingdom on earth, now so soon to come, and for which we still pray, "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." Would you like more information on this subject? Contact us for more details.

The Practice of Fixed Prayer In the morning, while it was still very dark, Jesus got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. Jesus prayed. Those simple words point to an established practice and routine in the life of Jesus. Fixed times of prayer and fixed prayers were an established part of the Jewish faith tradition. For example Daniel 6:10 reads: Although Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he continued to go to his house, which had windows in its upper room open towards Jerusalem, and to get down on his knees three times a day to pray to his God and praise him, just as he had done previously. Daniel’s prayer ritual and routine may be related to Psalm 55:17: Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice. Other references to fixed times of prayer are Psalm 119:62 (at midnight) and Psalm 119:164 (seven times a day). Jesus would have inherited and observed these practices and routines. It is not surprising that the gospels portray Jesus at prayer on numerous occasions. In Luke, the ministry of Jesus begins in prayer at the Jordan (Luke 3:21), ends in prayer on the cross (Luke 23:34,46), and is punctuated with prayer throughout (Luke 5:16; 6:12; 9:16,18,28; 10:21; 11:1; 22:31-32; 22:39-46). The earliest disciples continued to practice fixed hours of prayer - Acts 2:15; 3:1; 10:3,9; 16:25. As a spiritual discipline, the ritual and routine of fixed prayer keeps us grounded in our deepest calling – to be God’s children, to become God’s friends, and to live as God’s people. Prayer is not really about information but formation – the process of shaping our life in accordance with the life, will, work, wisdom, and way of God in Jesus Christ. A great temptation is to define ourselves by the work we perform or the roles we occupy. Fixed prayer orients us to our true identity as those who bear the image of God and are called into communion with our Creator. Establishing a Practice of Fixed Prayer 1. Establish some fixed times of prayer in your life. Suggestions include: Morning (waking), beginning of the daily routine, midday, mid-afternoon, early evening, end of day. 2. Commit to a pattern of fixed prayers for your established times of prayer. Suggested prayers: The Lord’s Prayer: At waking, midday, early evening Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us; And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, for ever. Amen. Prayer for the Beginning of Daily Routine Lord Jesus Christ, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you. Amen. The Aaronic Benediction (Numbers 6:24-26) Prayer at close of the day & before sleep Lord Jesus Christ, bless me and keep me. Lord may your face shine upon me and be gracious to me. Lord lift up your countenance upon me and give me peace. Amen. The Jesus Prayer (Luke 18:13) Breath (short) prayer repeated at times throughout the day Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner 3. Start Small and Build 4. Keep it brief 5. Purchase a prayer book or guide for fixed prayers Books by Phyllis Tickle - In Constant Prayer by Robert Benson Saint Benedictine on the Freeway by Corinne Ware 6. Explore Online Options 7. Get Started and stay engaged 8. Remember: Jesus prayed

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October 21, 2016 Life, a never ending struggle to reach higher and higher.....Tevye, the eternal Jew. I remember the day I received my black belt. Yes, it was a turning point in my life, a great achievement for which I had worked and labored and sacrificed a great deal. As my teacher would always say, "Your day of glory will come." Since then I have earned more black belts and I have mingled in the Black Belt world. I have experienced great moments but also great hurt and disappointment. I have seen the ugly and corrupt side of black belts. I have learned that most black belts are nothing but a cheap piece of material worn by lowly immoral individuals. However I have also met black belts of the highest moral character such as my dear friend and mentor, Prof. Arthur Cohen, I am humbled by his friendship and kindness towards me. Sadly I feel he is in the minority. These are the real life Black Belts I have met, and these are not necessarily martial artists. One that comes to mind is rather overweight, not much of an athlete at all, I doubt if he has ever thrown a punch or hit the heavy bag, but in my mind he is a black belt. He lives in Jerusalem, I used to work with him and now I run into him now and then, always a great pleasure to see this role model. Yes, he is a true black belt of life. A conversation took place, thirty years ago. I was in my parents' home using a regular phone, my father was still alive. I was a young man but felt I was already middle aged. I said, "I thought by now I would be on automatic pilot, be married, have children, have a steady job, go to work every day, routine, receive a raise and promotion every couple of years.." He said, "Moshe, I am more than twice your age and I have not reached that yet." Only later I learned: I learned that he started several businesses, saw great success only to see failure later on. He was among the founders of one of the best companies in the Jerusalem area, and then one day the entire thing collapsed. He was married, lost a child to cancer, and then lost his wife to the same disease. He picked up the pieces and moved on. I worked with him. I recall his letters. People tell me I write well. I am told I am a good "diplomat" but he is a master. He is the kind who can "tell someone to go to hell in such as a way as to make one look forward to the journey." He is a master of words and life. When I see him he is all smiles. The smiles hide the many painful events of his life. I have told him how much I admire him and he lets out a little laugh and makes a joke at his own expense. But he is a true Black Belt of life. I have seen many great "Masters" who are nothing more than petty ego maniacs. I have seen how little belts and titles are worth. Life is a struggle and now and then I see a true black belt who has risen above it all and mastered the art of life. The rest of struggle daily with our faults and imperfections. Life is, or should be, a constant pursuit of our better selves, our Higher Selves, the people we would like to be, the people we imagine ourselves to be. As another year begins, according to the ancient Jewish calendar, we pledge again to work for self improvement, for ourselves, for the world. We are here for a limited time only, we are just passing through. Let us never stop striving to be Black Belts of life. On Amazon and Createspace. The story of a nation that never gives up. $9.99 on Kindle This is required reading for all IKI instructors!

Republicans in Congress Demand Answers About Military Chaplain Disciplined for Referencing the Bible A group of 24 Republican lawmakers are demanding an explanation about why the Army disciplined a military chaplain for making references to the Bible during a suicide-prevention seminar. In a letter addressed to Army Secretary John McHugh, lawmakers wrote: We believe this administrative action sets a dangerous precedent for Army suicide prevention initiatives, the role of Army chaplains, and most importantly, the ability for service members to exercise and express religious beliefs, as protected under the First Amendment and reinforced by current law and [Department of Defense] regulations. In addition to 17 U.S. Representatives, Senators Mike Lee, R-Utah, Ted Cruz, R-Texas, James Inhofe, R-Okla., Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and David Vitter, R-La., Roy Blunt, R-Mo., and James Lankford, R-Okla. co-signed the letter. The lawmakers called the disciplinary action "unwarranted," and said it "sends the wrong message not only to chaplains of all faith traditions throughout the Army, but also to soldiers as well, that spirituality and religion are not welcome in the Army as viable methods for coping with suicidal thoughts or other personal issues more broadly." The chaplain, Capt. Joe Lawhorn, was punished last November after conducting a training session on suicide prevention at the University of North Georgia. During the suicide prevention session, Lawhorn shared his personal struggles with depression while serving as an Army Ranger and explained how he learned to conquer adversity by following the example of Israel's warrior king, David, one of the great heroes of the Old Testament. >>> Military Punishes Chaplain for Referring to the Bible in Suicide-Prevention Seminar Lawhorn also passed out a handout that drew from the Bible's Book of Psalms and referenced its central Jewish figure, David, as an example of how to manage thoughts of depression and suicide. A serviceman alerted an atheist group, Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, about the chaplain's comments. The atheist group complained about it. "This chaplain violated the privilege and responsibility he had and he exploited that opportunity to push his personal religious beliefs on the captive audience of military personnel," Jason Torpy, president of the organization that filed the complaint told The Daily Signal in an earlier interview. Lawhorn then received a letter of concern from Col. David Fivecoat, commander of the Airborne and Ranger Training Brigade at Fort Benning, Ga., faulting him for "using Christian scriptures and solutions." The disciplinary letter said: During this training, you advocated, or were perceived to advocate for Christianity and used Christian scripture and solutions. This is in direct contrast with Army Regulation 600-20 and violates the Army's Equal Opportunity Policy. It will remain in the chaplain's file for up to three years. In their letter to Secretary McHugh, the 24 lawmakers requested that the Army review the incident as it relates to federal law-in specific the First Amendment right to free speech-and demanded an explanation of a chaplain's role in conducting Army training. "We fully expect Army to take the steps necessary in protecting the religious freedom of all soldiers while affirming the vital role of chaplains in ensuring the well-being of our soldiers," they wrote. Read the full letter here: Kelsey Harkness is a news producer at The Daily Signal. Send an email to Kelsey. originally posted at The Daily Signal

Recovering a Lost Materpiece: A Conversation with Bill Chamberlain by R. Whittaker, Nov 26, 2018 Bill Chamberlin got involved in the world of computers early on, in 1969. He learned coding, programming, hardware design, but also, as an entrepreneur, he learned how to run a business. Twenty some years later, through an unpredictable series of events, his expertise came to the attention of the British film director, Terence Young, best known for his work on the James Bond films, Dr. No, From Russia with Love and Thunderball. Young commissioned Chamberlain to design a financial model for his film production and the two became friends. It turned out to be the beginning of an adventure Chamberlain could never have imagined... Richard Whittaker: I’d like to hear something about your life as a businessman to begin with. Bill Chamberlain: Most of my career has been in high tech. I majored in civil engineering and electrical engineering, but went directly into the computer business after graduation. I was interested how computers could be used in civil engineering and ended up getting hooked on computers. RW: This is in the early days of computers? BC: Very early, 1969. It was exciting. I spent the next twenty years or so in various aspects of the computer business—selling them, designing them, building them, programming them. In the early 1970s, some other fellows and I started our own company. I did a lot of coding. At one time, I was working with the actual designers of the BASIC language. Then around 1989-90, I transitioned into taking care of other people’s databases, networks and computers. One of the projects I ran across involved a very large and sophisticated medical billing claims service company in Palos Verdes. Through it, I met some interesting people including a motion picture director named Terence Young, who was an investor and board member of the company in Palos Verdes. He directed the first three James Bond movies. We got along well, and we became good friends. In 1994, he asked me to accompany one of Terence’s associates, Tommy Ivering, to Dublin where we were working on financial models for acquiring a studio there. Later, in that trip, he introduced me to a gentleman in old Stockholm, Uno Vallman. I was a native Californian from day one and had never traveled much. I had an office in New York, which I enjoyed thoroughly, but it was high-tech, computers and all that stuff. So, there I was over in old Stockholm—I mean, this is Europe with buildings many hundreds of years old, cobblestone streets closed off for walking, and so on. It just fascinated me. Tommy introduced me to Uno Vallman. I had no idea who he was. I knew nothing about the fine arts world. I was a computer geek building financial models for motion pictures, looking at scripts and trying to understand how to calculate film runs, budgets, and things like that. Tommy and I, and a friend of his, sat down and talked with Uno, who turns out to be a famous Swedish painter. Even ex-President, Lyndon Johnson, went over there to buy some paintings from him. In fact, the two of them got quite drunk in President Johnson’s suite, but that’s another story. Anyway, by then, Uno was probably in his early 80s. I was in my early 50s, and we got along well. He’d come from abject poverty to great success in the fine arts world. He’d traveled all over the place, back and forth to France a lot, and had palled around with Picasso and other artists of the time. So, we’re chatting, and finally it boiled down to why was I there? It was a good question. RW: Right. Why were you there? BC: Well, it turned out that Uno, in the late 1930s and early 40s was a member of a Swedish underground group involved in protecting and moving young Jewish girls out of France into safe places in Sweden and other countries. Later I found out that, my goodness, Norway had sent 8,000 Jews over to Sweden, where they were absorbed by this group and protected from the Nazis. RW: There was a connection between Terence, Tommy, and Uno, I take it? BC: Yes. The connection was that Terence and a couple of his partners in the movie business, were intent on acquiring an animation studio in Dublin. It turned out that Tommy, one of their partners, knew Uno. Now Terence, and his partner Tommy, were impressed with my design and marketing abilities so they wanted me to meet him. I couldn’t figure it out at first. Well, Uno, after the war, had traveled back and forth to France and met several of the families whose daughters had been saved by this Swedish Underground network. They had no money, but they wanted to pay him back somehow. Some of them had collectibles, and every now and then, someone would give him something. It turned out that one of them—I think she was a granddaughter of Alfred Nobel’s brother (of the Nobel Prize family)—she had a wooden, sculpted box by Paul Gauguin, which she gave to Uno. Now I remember, I met Uno in about 1994. And they wanted me to see what I could do to help in selling Gauguin’s carved, wooden box. RW: That’s wild. BC: So that’s how I met Uno, and Terence was excited. Six or seven years later he contracted pneumonia shooting a film and died. I really miss him. So, I'm in Uno’s little studio in old Stockholm with Tommy, and Uno’s cousin; Leif, who later became my partner, is there, too. Uno pulls this wooden box out and says, “Well, my friend from California, I’d like to show you this.” He sets it down in front of me. It’s called, Boy in a Coffin. Now, bear in mind, I knew nothing about Paul Gauguin then. Nothing! Uno gave me a package of documents, which I read that evening in the hotel. They showed that the sculpture had been on a Gauguin tour from Chicago to New York, London and Paris in 1986. In the documents I noticed a gentleman’s name, Charles Stuckey. All Uno said was, “Do you think you can follow-up on this and find out if I can sell it?” He needed money. So, I said, “Yes. I'll make some phone calls. I mean, you guys paid for my trip over here, and this is exciting. Maybe I can pay you back.” RW: A whole new adventure. BC: Brand new. And They gave me a catalog of Paul Gauguin’s work they’d copied. [Paul Gauguin Catalog Raisonné, Daniel Wildenstein 1964]. I didn’t know who Wildenstein was. So, I began reading and following-up; I run across Paul Gauguin, Vincent Van Gogh, many of the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists—and then there’s this guy named Émile Bernard. I knew nothing about him, either. I went back to the US and made a few phone calls. Well, it turns out that this Charles Stuckey oversaw a retrospective exhibit of Gauguin’s work. He was the curator for the Kimbell Art Museum in Dallas, Fort Worth. So, I called him and asked if he could tell me anything about the Gauguin box. He was interested, but wanted more information. So I flew back to Stockholm and made a video of the box. Then I returned to the U.S. (There’s a little side story. For thirty years, Uno had this Gauguin sculpted, wooden box in the trunk of his Volvo where he kept his paintbrushes and tools, and was driving all over with it.) Anyway, I pursued this with Stuckey and started getting into the fine arts world then. I was going to San Francisco feeling like an idiot, because I didn’t know anything about anybody. I was just a guy off the street going to galleries. I believe that eventually the box was sold to some shipping magnate for maybe three million and wound up in a private collection in Los Angeles. The sale was based upon the material and everything I did. RW: I imagine Uno would have been happy about that. BC: I went back over to see Uno in his studio one last time in late1996 and he welcomes me with: “My son from California is here!” I brought a bottle of red wine, so we’re sitting there celebrating the fact that the piece was sold—and his cousin Leif is there, too. Leif was younger than Uno by 25 to 30 years; he was a former Swedish Royal Marine and Stockholm police officer. For fifteen years of his career, he’d been assigned by NATO as a dignitary bodyguard, and he was part of a team that investigated crimes against humanity by police and military forces. He’d been all over the Gaza Strip, Israel, Cambodia, Egypt, Greece, etc. —a well-traveled, well-educated man. We hooked up and, literally overnight, became a couple of brothers. Eventually we traveled everywhere together on the Bernard project, which I can get into later—in and out of France five or six times, Sweden, Germany. He also came over here to the Bay Area. I really loved the man. Anyway, we were all sitting there having some wine. (Another side note: at that point, Uno was partially blind, and Leif had created a board with little open boxes you could put colors in. He helped Uno understand what the colors were, so Uno could continue to paint— literally, by numbers, without seeing. Uno knew the canvas and could feel his way.) So, we’re celebrating and then Uno says, “I have something else I want to show you!” He and Leif drag out this big, rolled-up painting, and open it on the floor. I looked at the painting and said, “Well, excuse my ignorance, but this looks like a masterpiece or something!” Uno says, “It is! It was done by a Post-Impressionist painter named Émile Bernard.” It must have been sequestered out of Bernard’s studio in 1941 when he died, because the Nazis were taking art left and right. It wound up going to one of Uno’s dealer friends in Stockholm who showed it to Uno. Uno recognized it immediately as a Bernard. It was probably rolled up to hide from the Nazis, but it was too big to be rolled intact, so they sliced it down the middle and cut it across the top into four pieces. I looked at it and said, “I'm out of my league. What are we going to do with this?” Uno said, “I just want to see if it can be authenticated, and then maybe we find out if it can be restored.” RW: Let me interrupt for a second. From the moment Uno showed you the little box by Gauguin in 1994 to this moment where he’s showing you the big painting by Bernard, how many years have passed? BC: I saw the Bernard painting late in 1996— about two years. RW: And during that time, you’d started to learn about the art history surrounding all this. RW: How did that work for you? BC: It was all a discovery. When Uno said, “Émile Bernard,” I remembered reading about Paul Gauguin’s history and his battle with Émile Bernard over who gets recognition for Symbolism. They had a fight. RW: So, Bernard was responsible for some innovations? BC: Yes. He did the black outlines, a style that became called Cloisonnism, and he also transitioned into Symbolism-type painting with Gauguin. Gauguin liked Bernard’s style. There are letters from Gauguin to Van Gogh saying how fantastic Bernard’s painting was, and so on. And he was a fantastic artist. He just didn’t get the recognition Gauguin did. He was twenty years younger than Gauguin. RW: So, Gauguin, in the art history books, gets recognition for some things that maybe Bernard was doing. BC: Actually had done, yes. RW: That’s all quite interesting. But let’s get back to the moment with Uno where he presents you with this large painting and wants you to see if you could authenticate it. BC: Yes. I took it on because I thought it would be interesting, and I was already somewhat familiar with the name Émile Barnard. So, I returned home and started to work on the project. I had all this material on the Gaugin sculpture, so I could talk a little bit like I knew something. But I didn’t know any of the other players in the game like Toulouse-Lautrec, Cezanne, Renoir, and Serusier. RW: You’re a computer guy. BC: [laughs] I was a geek, and now I’m in the fine arts business! RW: This is great stuff. BC: I knew I was out of my league, but I started anyway. I just began studying. It was intriguing. So, I started researching Bernard, but I couldn’t find anything that was close to Uno’s painting, in style or symbolism. I did find religious paintings in history books and art catalogs that were done by Bernard, but I didn’t know where to find his actual work. I knew he had style changes. Then a friend of mine, whose wife sat on the board of the Triton Museum in Santa Clara, introduced me to a fellow who had a bunch of religious icons. He asked me if I could do something with them. I wondered where he got that idea, but I decided to get involved. I thought, “What the heck. I might learn something.” I told him I would see what I could do. He had a slew of religious icons, and they were kind of interesting. I was very good at photography at that time, so I visited the guy at his big palatial estate and took some photos. I was working on a direct mail project and the guy who was designing my direct mail pieces helped me make a little catalog that I sent it off to Sotheby’s on a lark. They called me right away and I flew to New York. While I was back there, I decided to go to Christie’s, too. They immediately made an appointment and took copies of everything I had. They shipped the copies off to a woman in London, where they were organizing an auction with a section for religious icons. Right away, the woman called me with a list of the icons I had that they wanted to include in a fall auction in 2007 and a spring auction in 2008. The owner was willing to pay my expenses, so I went over to London for this auction of religious icons. At that time, I knew nothing about auction houses. But it turned out they really wanted these icons. So, we had a meeting and I was introduced to a guy named Temple at Temple Galleries. RW: You mean Dick Temple? BC: Right. Richard Temple, expert. We had a wonderful time. He looked at my inventory and said, “Yeah, this is good.” And how does that happen? I’m sitting there talking with Richard Temple in London—and I also met a Russian guy named André Ruzhnikov who sold the Fabergé eggs to an oligarch over there that were owned by Malcolm Forbes. BC: Anyway, Temple helped me. He evaluated the icons, and they were all done in the late-1700s and 1800s—none of them in the 1400 and1500s where some might have been done by Rublev, or somebody like that. RW: Andrei Rublev? BC: Yes. His stuff is priceless. Anyway, I had two reasonably successful auctions of the icons. On the first one, the lady running it arranged for a luncheon to talk to me. I took a friend to the luncheon, an artist out of Manchester interested in Gaelic art. Well, this lunch went on for three hours. My friend told me later that nobody has lunch with her for three hours. At one point, I’d brought out all my material on the Bernard painting. I carried it with me; I was working on it. RW: Her name again? BC: Maria Paphiti, the auction curator/manager, a charming young lady. The next night, I went to what Christie’s calls “Russian Night,” and I'm going crazy because I’ve never seen tapestries as big or as beautiful as they had on display there. Anyway, I go in and there’s Ruzhnikov. We talked for a while. The auction went well. But getting back to this lunch. Maria is looking at the Bernard painting and studying the symbolism. She said it was really different and nice. It would probably be a private client sale product, she said, because it’s so big. As I recall, she said if I could get the painting professionally restored, authenticated, and framed it could be worth millions of dollars. Based on what I had seen in the auction catalogs I estimated 5 million dollars. We discussed that was a possibility. That was my first time a price range was estimated on it. So, I left thinking, “Okay. I've got to go to work on this.” Now, this was November 2007. Okay? Fast-forward to about 2010. By this time, I’d been in France and had met Bernard’s granddaughter. It gets kind of complicated to go through all the steps. RW: Okay. In terms of the computer business, that’s been left behind altogether? BC: No. I continued as an independent consultant and my company, Data Support, continued doing projects and I’d pick and choose as I needed. I had to make some money to pay for all this because now, I was on my own. RW: What do you mean you were on your own? BC: I was paying for all the bills myself, so that’s why it was kind of slow. RW: You mean slow in the process of getting the authentication? BC: Yes. I was working on it regularly, and the Internet was becoming an extremely useful tool. Then the weirdest thing happened. Back around 2000, I got a call from a gentleman in London, James Norton. He was working for a company called ZCZ Films and he was involved in doing a special on Paul Gauguin for BBC. He’d heard from a woman in Los Angeles, Debora Silverman, that I had a lot of material on the Gauguin Boy In a Coffin. She was a director of art history at UCLA. He wanted to know whether he could borrow the material. I said, “Sure.” And I just put everything in a box and mailed it to him. Five to six weeks later, he calls me and says, “I'm just mailing this stuff back to you and I want to thank you very much. It was extremely helpful. I understand that Debora Silverman is using your material in her book and she’s going to give you recognition for it.”—which she did. On the phone with him I said, “By the way, James, I've got a problem here. I'm trying to authenticate a painting and I'm trying to find some religious paintings done by Émile Bernard,” and I described the painting to him. He said, “You know, I think I saw something like that in a church in Pont-Aven. It’s in Northwestern France, and it’s where Bernard and Gauguin and a whole host of people hung out in the 1890s, painting together. There’s even a street named after Bernard, and another street named after Gauguin. So, I said, “That’s really great, but I've got to know something specific.” He said, “I'll tell you what. Why don’t you go and see if you can find a copy of a Catalogue Raisonné, written by Jean-Jacques Luthi, published in 1986. It’s in French, and all the pictures of Émile Bernard’s paintings are cataloged in it. So, I go on the Internet and discover that the only place that catalog exists is in the Bancroft Library over at UC Berkeley! Okay!! I trundle over there and I'm looking at it. I don’t really know what I’m looking for, so I’m looking at every single page. Bernard made 2200-plus paintings in his lifetime. And he did a lot of other stuff, too, as you saw in the material I sent. RW: I saw that. This guy was prolific. BC: Yes. So, I'm going through this catalog, looking carefully and thinking it was going nowhere. Then I turn a page and, in the lower right-hand corner, is a little picture—black and white—and I go crazy! It looks exactly like my painting! I think, “My God!” So there it was in this catalog in the Bancroft Library [shows me the page with the image]. RW: Oh, my gosh. It’s virtually identical! BC: Right. And Bernard signed it! Wow. I go crazy! And it says it’s at the Musee des Beaux-Arts in Brest. (I've been there four times now.) Anyway, I call the curator, Francoise Danielle up and explain myself. Then I say, “Oh, by the way, you know, I like this Bernard painting, but it’s kind of dark.” She says, “We’ve got a color negative. We’ll send it to you.” They send the color negative to me. I could hardly believe it when I received it! I made copies of it. It’s beautiful, and there’s his signature; there’s a date [points as I’m looking at the photo]. This is the proof that he painted it! Later, on my trips to Pont Aven I got confirmation of the painting being done in 1925 and donated in 1991. So, I called the curator back and thanked her profusely. I explained that I have this big, unsigned painting that looks just like it, and that I’ve been trying to get it authenticated. During this conversation with the curator in Brest, she floors me. She says, “Why don’t you call his (Bernard’s) granddaughter?” And I say, “Excuse me?” “Call his granddaughter. She lives about an hour away from the museum.” I said, “You’ve got to be kidding me!” She says, “No,” and gives me the phone number and address. It’s in a little town called Tonnerre, which is where Bernard moved after he came back from Cairo and there’s a bust of him in the city park. His granddaughter was a well-known doctor there. She was in her late 70s and was living there in a chateau that had been the summer home of Louis the XIV built in the 1600s. I couldn’t believe it. It was like we hit the authentication lottery. So, I called Leif and said, “Leif, roll the painting up and drive down here!” This was in 2009. RW: Good heavens. BC: Her place was full of Bernard’s paintings and illustrations and letters and notes and books, etc. And she was in the process of completing a book of 430 of his letters to other artists and people throughout his lifetime—a fascinating story. We took the painting to Tonnerre and rolled it out. She immediately confirmed that it was done by her grandfather, and she also introduced us to a lady named France Bonnimond-Dumont, who was a French-certified restoration artist, and a curator and expert on Bernard for the Louvre. When she saw the painting, she was very excited about it and was going to do the restoration work. But she became ill and then she passed away. Later I was able to get a restoration artist here in San Francisco. We started restoration on it in 2010. It was finished in 2012, after waiting six months to let the oil dry, and varnishing it. Then we had it expertly framed. During that period of time, so many things were done to make sure the restoration was right, X-raying the painting and completing the authentication. We just kept building. I even met Bernard’s grandniece just this year. I discovered that the art dealer Ambroise Vollard had purchased eight-plus of Bernard’s paintings when Bernard came back from Cairo. But Bernard’s paintings were so good in the eyes of Vollard, that they were threatening his inventory of Gauguin paintings that he wanted to sell first. So, he didn’t show Bernard paintings to anybody for years. BC: In the corner of Vollard’s studio in those days, were paintings by another young artist; his name was Pablo Picasso. I mean, there are all these connections—and Bernard was prolific in other areas. He was happy to make money doing illustrations for Vollard’s books; he started a couple of publications; he wrote poetry; he tried to organize an art society where all the artwork was unsigned—the Anonymous Art Society—where you would buy the painting only because you liked it. He also was prolific in his affairs! Talking to his granddaughter was very revealing, because she knew all kinds of family secrets. RW: What an amazing story, the Bernard story—but yours, too. So, let me get a timeline from the moment that Uno brought out this big, rolled-up canvas… BC: That was in 1996. And I took a trip to Paris this year. I went to Christie’s, Sotheby’s, Drouot, Artcurial, and I gave them presentations. Every single one of them was absolutely floored by the material. This painting hasn’t been seen for 73 years. I have it stored at an art storage facility in Paris. RW: So, what is your relationship with the painting right now? BC: Uno transferred ownership of it to his cousin, Leif, way back when we were doing the Gauguin sculpture thing. Leif had taken care of Uno for a long time and was like the son Uno never had. I was the brother that Leif never had. So, Leif and I worked on this project together as a 50-50 partnership. When Leif died in 2017, I got together with his widow and Leif’s lawyer, who was also Uno’s lawyer and knew all about the painting and my work. So, they structured a transfer of ownership to me. When I sell it, I have several commitments. RW: I was going to say, you must feel some obligation to a lot of people. BC: I do. I have a list of people whom I want to see given significant bonuses. And I want the painting to be put into the marketplace in a way that contributes to the history and the reputation of Bernard. This painting is quite unique. It doesn’t have a face on it, but if you look at the symbolism, you realize that this is Bernard’s life-painting of his spirituality. It’s significantly different from any other painting you’ve seen of Christ. The guy was a unique painter. RW: You’ve invested so much work in this. BC: A lot of money and a lot of work. RW: And you’ve had great adventures; you’ve gotten a lot. BC: I think that’s been the addictive part of it. RW: This is a journey of how many years? BC: Twenty-plus years. It’s included working on the painting at a deep level, not only for the authentication, which means fully understanding the artist and things about his life, but then the restoration that meant understanding his style, and trying to bring it back as best we could. Then there’s the question of the symbolism that you don’t see in any other painting. Is it the Gospel of John? We don’t know. The guy in the lower left, who is he? What’s this, what’s that? The process of all that taught me things about spirituality that I would never have encountered. You don’t get it reading a self-help book, but perhaps when you study a person’s life. I saw it in Bernard’s work, in the frescoes he did in different churches, and other places. And looking through catalogs, you see all these other renditions of Bernard’s spirituality. Every time Leif and I looked at it, we saw something different. An experienced art dealer came to look at the painting in Paris. I said, “I’ll give you forty-five minutes. Look at it and tell me what you think.” He spent about two hours, and then he cancelled all of his appointments, and we had a three-hour lunch. Twenty years ago, I would have thought, “Fine. Big painting, sell it, whatever.” The icons were an example. What did I know about icons? They were nice. They had their own religious symbolism. So, now, I’d like to have this painting seen by as many people as possible in today’s world with today’s position around theology. I don’t think we know where we’re going anymore with some of it. The Catholic church is under attack because of all its problems. The Jewish faith is under great stress. There’s a split going on among the Muslim community. And there are other fringe groups. I did talk to a fellow at Grace Cathedral before I started the restoration. I can’t remember his name. RW: Alan Jones? BC: Yes! We talked about it. He was a great guy. You know, he was pretty good about looking at the symbolism. But his approach was, “Think about what it means to you, not what you want someone else to tell you it means.” And he was right. I never forgot that. Anyway, Leif and I agreed that we just want the world to see the painting. RW: Would it be fair to guess that you’ve come to have a feeling about an important function can perform in a culture? BC: Yes, and I know where my concepts have changed because of working on this painting. I now have a fantastic relationship with a professor at Duke University named Neil McWilliam, probably one of the world experts on Bernard. Then I have a relationship with an art historian lady named Carolyn Boyle-Turner, who’s going to be here giving a lecture in February at the de Young on Gauguin. She knows a lot about the whole back story of this era. And now, I've read a lot of their papers including one fantastic write-up on the spirituality of Bernard and his paintings. I now look at a painting and appreciate the structure, the style, the colors and so on, but I wonder what the artist is trying to communicate. I want to learn that myself by maybe studying the history. This painting is a period piece. Bernard studied with van Gogh. They worked together. They fought, they argued; you should see their letters. The painters of this era and place fell in love and then had divorces because they were sharing this whole discovery period. From the mid-1800s, into the early 1900s, there were a lot of changes. I look at paintings now, differently than I would have twenty years ago. I form my own opinions, and then I go out to find if it matches something. RW: If I asked you to sum up in one sentence—what do you think the importance or meaning of this painting is?—what would you say? BC: That’s a very good question. You could be looking at it and say, “Oh, a crucifixion picture.” To some people, that’s all it is. But if you stand there and stare at it for a while, you think, “Wait a minute,” and you start asking questions. In an interview, the granddaughter said, “He was probably doing penance for the way he lived his life.” He had affairs, he fought with people, he was a human being with flaws. I think that at the end, he was always a spiritual person. And I think this painting took a long time to complete. The little black and white study was done in 1925. The large, finished painting was spirited out of his studio in 1941. But what I pieced together, to answer your question, it’s an artist’s representation of humanity.

JERUSALEM: Israeli police were in a standoff on Monday with a Palestinian family that threatened self-immolation on the roof of their home in a Jerusalem flashpoint district as they faced eviction. Several members of the Salhiya family remained on the roof of their house with a gas cannister into the evening, with security forces heavily deployed on the street in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem. “The family climbed onto the roof of the house and has threatened to set fire to themselves and the house if the occupation (Israeli) forces take control of it,” Muna ElKurd, an activist from the neighbourhood, said. “The family has lived in this house for decades,” added ElKurd, who was among the dozens of supporters and diplomats who arrived at the house that was surrounded by Israeli security forces. The Salhiya family has been facing the threat of eviction since 2017, when the land where their home sits was allocated for school construction. Police and the Jerusalem municipality said in a joint statement that delegates went to the home to carry out the eviction after the Salhiyas ignored “countless opportunities” to vacate the land as ordered. “We’ve been in this home since the 1950s,” said Salhiya family member Abdallah Ikermawi from the roof. “We don’t have anywhere to go,” he said in quotes provided by the Sheikh Jarrah Committee organisation, adding that the family was made up of 15 people, including children. Among the onlookers was a delegation of European diplomats led by Sven Kuhn von Burgsorff, the head of the European Union’s mission to the West Bank and Gaza Strip. “The EU is very clear - in occupied territory, evictions are a violation of international humanitarian law, and that is true for any eviction or any demolition being ordered, including this one,” he said. An 11-day war between Israel and armed Palestinian factions in Gaza erupted last year, fuelled by anger in Sheikh Jarrah where families battled eviction orders. Witnesses said that clashes between security forces and locals erupted after the police arrived, but later eased. Hundreds of Palestinians are facing evictions from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah and other east Jerusalem neighbourhoods. Circumstances surrounding the evictions threats vary. In some cases, Jewish Israelis have mounted legal challenges to claim the land they say was illegally taken during the war that coincided with Israel’s founding in 1948. Palestinians have rejected these claims, saying their homes were legally purchased from Jordanian authorities who controlled east Jerusalem between 1948 and 1967. Seven Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah have taken their legal challenges against their eviction threats to Israel’s Supreme Court. The Salhiyas are not in that group. Jerusalem City councillor Laura Wharton, who was at the scene, criticised the municipality’s actions. “They could have built the schools in the same plot without moving the families. There is plenty of space,” she said. “The sad thing is this is the municipality itself doing this, it’s not some right wing settlers.” Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed it, in a move not recognised by the international community. More than 200,000 Jewish settlers have since moved into the area, fuelling tensions with Palestinians, who claim east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state. Published in Dawn, January 18th, 2022

It would be the same with the words "water" and "waiter" which would appear as "WTR" in the Hebrew. Bible : N.T. A Psalm of David. Six doctrinal passages reviewed between Nestle-Aland and Westcott & Hort Greek text, and the Received Greek Text which underlies the KJT. The Codex Washingtonianus or Codex Washingtonensis, designated by W or 032 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), ε 014 (), also called the Washington Manuscript of the Gospels, and The Freer Gospel, contains the four biblical gospels and was written in Greek on vellum in the 4th or 5th century. But this author felt that in order to show how the critical signs worked, he needed to use an English translation of the Bible, so he used the text of the Revised Standard Version and created a mock-up as to how these signs work. The Horror of the Great White Throne Judgment – Michael Bowen, The Personal Evangelism Handbook – Dr. A. Ray Stanford, Heritage Radio Bible Class Online – Archive 1, Heritage Radio Bible Class Online – Archive 2, HRBC – Archive 3 – More Classics from the Radio Archives, Heritage Radio Bible Class Online – The Book of Revelation, Heritage Radio Bible Class Online – Guest Speakers, Hymns from the Heart by Pianist – Ed Cummins. The Catholic Epistles have been modified in more than 30 places to bring them into alignment with the Editio Critica Maior. e. It has vowel points and accents above the line, according to the Babylonian system. to talk with about your Care to do serious study and ask hard questions ?? The theme is based on the "Time Poem" of Ecclesiastes 3:1-8. The Greek New Testament (4th edition revised; United Bible Societies) has an Greek text identical to the Nestle-Aland. ( Will millions of people be Snatched away) ], [ What do the Prophets Say ? The 26th came out in 1979. How to understand the symbols in the text and apparatus of Nestle Aland 28. Is it competent? None of the many revisions have commended themselves to the people at large. This text is called the "Masoretic Text" or, abbreviated, "M.T. 4. M de Semlyen ], [ Translators of the King James Bible Version of 1611 ], http://archive.org/details/GenevaBible-GenewaBiblii-GenfBibel-GinebraBiblia, [ The True and accurate Koine ancient Greek New Testament ], [[(( # 23 - # 24 - # 25 ))]] (I John, II John, III John), [ Arabic New Testament 1867 Van Dyck Original - COMPLETE EDITION ], [ Prophecy and history Messiah by Edersheim (1885) ], [[[ The 1602 Reina Valera NT version - nuevo (novo) testamento (original text) ]]], [ New Testament, in plain Wenli (1898) [Litterary mandarin Chinese] Schereschewsky], [ plain Wenli (1898) [Litterary mandarin Chinese], [ New Testament – Chinese Cantonese- English and Canton colloquial (1908) ], [ The New Testament in the Hindustani language (1842)], The Holy bible in the Sanscrit language (1848) Vol 1, The Holy bible in the Sanscrit language (1848) Vol 2, The Holy bible in the Sanscrit language (1848) Vol 3, The Holy bible in the Sanscrit language (1848) Vol 4, (El Salterio (Psalms - Spanish and Hebrew) ), [ La Biblia- Que Es Los Sacros Libros Del Vieio ], [ The life and times of Jesus the Messiah (1886) 01) ], [ The life and times of Jesus the Messiah (1886) 02) ], [ 1875 Chinese Mandarin Easy Wenli [Chinois ] Old Testament of Schereschewsky ], [ Old and New Testaments - Chinese literary language Schereschewsky ], [ The 1524-25 Second Rabbinic Bible – Vol 01 ], [ The 1524-25 Second Rabbinic Bible – Vol 02 ], [ The 1524-25 Second Rabbinic Bible – Vol 03 ], [ The 1524-25 Second Rabbinic Bible – Vol 04 ], ( Introduction to the Massoretico-critical edition of the Hebrew Bible - Vol # 1 ), [ Prophecy and history in relation to the Messiah by Edersheim (1885)], ( The Temple - its ministry and services as they were at the time of Jesus Christ by Edersheim ), [ History of the Jewish nation - after the destruction of Jerusalem under Titus by Edersheim ], [ The old paths, or The Talmud tested by Scripture ], [ HEBREW EDITION of The old paths, or The Talmud tested by Scripture ---- Netivot olam = Di Ali shegin (1876) ], [ The Tabernacle; its history and structure (1904) ], [ The second temple in Jerusalem - history and its structure ], [[[ Pentateuch - Historic accuracy of ]]], [ The remnant found, or, The place of Israel's hiding discovered ... (1841)], [ Dr. Grant and the Mountain Nestorians By Thomas Laurie], [ Missionary Researches in Armenia- Including a Journey Through Asia Minor - 1834], [ The Nestorians - or, The lost tribes: containing evidence of their identity(1841)], [ An appeal on behalf of the Jews scattered in India, Persia, and Arabia (1840)], [ The history of the ten lost tribes; Anglo-Israelism examined (1915)], [ The Story of the Lemba People - Rudo Mathivha - ], [ The Lemba, a black southern African tribe- Jewish ancestry- PBS Nova], [ Commentary - The book of the prophet Jeremiah and that of the Lamentations - Henderson], [ Commentary - The book of the prophet Isaiah - Henderson], [ Commentary - book of the prophet Ezekiel - translated from the original Hebrew- Henderson], [ Commentary - The book of the twelve Minor prophets - translated from the original Hebrew- Henderson], [ Memoir of the Rev E Henderson including his labours in Denmark, Iceland, Russia, etc], [ Jesus is coming = What is the Rapture ? These men do not know what the Greek New Testament is. The text is Nestle-Aland, the 26-th edition. μνηστευθείσης τῆς μητρὸς αὐτοῦ Μαρίας τῷ Ἰωσήφ, πρὶν ἢ συνελθεῖν αὐτοὺς εὑρέθη ἐν γαστρὶ ἔχουσα ἐκ πνεύματος ἁγίου. The New American Standard Version of 1960. The struc… 'read Download Nestle Aland 28th Edition Greek English Pdf May 27th, 2020 - Bining Greek With The English Standard Version Text The Greek English New Testament Is … Complete text of Nestle-Aland, 28th Edition Greek New Testament with complete morphological tags, and accompanying combined NA28 Apparatus/Crossrefs. Then everyone got into the act and many versions came out. Secondly, the text-critical in-sights and decisions […] in his Amyntor], [ A vindication of 1 John, 5. This same deception is used in selling all of your new versions and paraphrased Bibles, so-called. Nestle Aland. It uses headings and is a little more generous with white space in terms of its typesetting, which makes it easier for me to read. In answer to Amyntor (1700), [ The Canon of the New Testament vindicated in answer to the objections of J.T. He began his Greek edition in 1898 which followed the Westcott & Hart and 3 other editions of his day. 2. These were the editors of the 26th edition. The Latter Rain Legacy by Charles Graves], [ Latter Rain (and other Branham inspired charismatic ) movement by Jewel van der Merwe) ], [ A Planned Deception, the staging of a New Age Messiah) ], [ Who is the Messiah proved from the Ancient Scriptures) ], [ The Affiliation of New Evangelicals with Apostasy], [ A LITTLE HISTORY - [ Truth about ] The Shepherding Movement], [ Problems with the Sacred Name movement ], [ The difficulties of infidelity (1835) – GSF- George Stanley Faber ], [ peculiarities of the Latin church evinced to be untenable – GSF ], [ A practical treatise on the ordinary operations of the Holy Spirit (1814) – GSF ], [ A Treatise On The Origin Of Expiatory Sacrifice (1827) – GSF], [ The Temple, its ministry and services as they were at the time of Jesus Christ], [ The hope of Israel [microform] what is it (MAURO)], [ The English Revisers' [Wescott - Hort] Greek Text - Shown to be Unauthorized, Except by false [errant] Egyptian Copies Discarded], [ The traditional text of the Holy Gospels vindicated and established], [ The books of the Old and New Testaments proved to be true, accurate and canonical, and their verbal inspiration maintained], [ The evidence and authority of divine revelation – 01 – Haldane ], [ The evidence and authority of divine revelation - 02 – Haldane], [ A Plea for the [Inspiration and] Canon of Scripture ( Bible) by the Bible Society], [ Secret History of the Oxford Movement [Evangelicals in England induced to defect to Rome] [, [ The revision revised - Westcott and Hort's new textual theory], [ Divine inspiration; or, The supernatural influence exerted in the communication of divine truth-HENDERSON], [ The question discussed, Shall the whole word of God be given to the heathen -HENDERSON], [ Hidden history of the Greek New Testament], [ The Authorised Bible and Modern Versions – by M De Semlyen ], [ History of the Oxford Movement toward Rome – by Daubigne, Merle D'Aubigne], [ Pope and Political Activities Worldwide], [ The number of man, the climax of civilization], [ The Authorised Bible and Modern Versions by M De Semlyen], [ How the [false] higher criticism [almost] wrecked a Christian-and how he came back ], [ Luther - Watchwords for the warfare of life ], [ Luther and Tyndale – The untold Story ], [ Luther - The ninety-five theses and the 3 primary works], [ Vindications (about BFBS) of the Proceedings of the Bible Society Concerning the Apocrypha], [ Revealed: the conduct of the directors of the British and Foreign Bible Society [ BFBS ] concerning the Apocrypha], [ A Plea for the [Inspiration and] Canon of Scripture], [ Statement of the Bible Society concerning the Apocrypha], [ Evidence of Holy Scripture and the Eary Church, Against the Invocation of Saints, Angels, and Mary], [ Hidden Dangers [to your body and actual soul] of the New Age movement], [ Rome and the European Union - M de Semlyen ], [ Biblical Unity or Conformity to Rome?

Tuesday, February 26, 2008 Wednesday, February 20, 2008 And on a slightly different note, I'm very excited, because one of my dear friends has been offered a fellowship by my department from the fall. I really hope she accepts. Tuesday, February 12, 2008 Saturday, February 09, 2008 I remembered seeing this ad, and not paying much attention to it at the time. It is long, and rather boring. The flood of objections on the New York Times site, however, are much more interesting. Notice, in particular, no. 8 "Once one puts an "ethnic" accent on an animated character, one raises the spectre of stereotyping and beyond. Ever watched "Finding Nemo"? I got the same queasy feeling - why does this fish talk like, in my opinion, an inner city "African American"?" no. 13 "I was offended by the ad using Cavemen. I have many Cavemen friends myself, and I find them very intelligent, well-spoken people. Hey, they invented the wheel. Sure they can be a little bit on the hairy side, and they don't take advantage of the dental plan offered at work, but media's constant protrayal of these men as perpetual abusive grunters goes way over the line. I'm surprised Neanderthal-Americans have not spoken up on this issue." no. 14 "I thought sales genie made a nod to acknowledging the real world when they made a fellow named Chakrabarty the successful salesman in the ad. He did have a south Asian accent, but a real one rather than a caricature." no. 15 "Had they given the Pandas accents that were non-stereotypical, say British, or California Valley Girl dialects, the commercial would have been more memorable, funnier, and offended far fewer people." So it's good to represent diversity in ads, so long as everyone sounds alike? British or California Valley Girl accents are less offensive than Chinese or African American? Nemo sounds African American? I admit I can see how these things could be offensive. The broken English is not good. But sometimes I miss South African senses of humour. on the other hand, SA banned this priceless gem Thursday, February 07, 2008 Wednesday, February 06, 2008 Below is list number 2 for my comps. This one focuses on issues of voice and race. There is a huge amount of material on race and music, but in the interests of producing a list I can actually get through by April 11, I am focusing explicitly on singing voices. The anomaly, then, occurs at the final two entries on the list, which deal with speaking voices, but in such a literalist, hard-science way, that I couldn't resist adding them. I did a vaguely tongue-in-cheek experiment with my students last semester, playing them the same piece of music sung by a counter tenor, a female soprano, a treble and a digitally constructed combination voice, and asking them to guess which was which. I once joked that a similar experiment with singers of various races would be interesting. And now I find someone has done it! And written a PhD thesis on it!! And just because I think it is worth saying, the article by Grant Olwage called "The Class and Colour of Tone" is, in my opinion, the strongest writing on this topic available at present. Well worth a read. Racialized voices bibliography Antelyes, Peter. “Red Hot Mamas: Bessie Smith, Sophie Tucker and the Ethnic Maternal Voice in American Popular Song.” In Embodied Voices: Representing Female Vocality in Western Culture, ed. Leslie C. Dunn and Nancy A. Jones, 212–29. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Averill, Gage. Four Parts No Waiting: A Social History of American Barbershop Harmony. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Hardy, Sarah Madsen, and Kelly Thomas. “Listening to Race: Voice, Mixing, and Technological ‘Miscegenation’ in Early Sound Film.” In ClassicHollywood, Classic Whiteness, ed. Daniel Bernardi, 415–41. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001. Lavitt, Pamela Brown. “First of the Red Hot Mamas: ‘Coon Shouting’ and the Jewish Ziegfeld Girl.” American Jewish History 87/4 (December 1999): 253–90. Leonard, Neil. Jazz and the White Americans: The Acceptance of a New Art Form. London: Jazz Book Club, 1964. Lhamon, W. T. Raising Cain: Blackface Performance from Jim Crow to Hip-Hop. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998. Mann, Geoff. 2008. “Why does country music sound white? Race and the voice of nostalgia” in Ethnic and Racial Studies Vol. 31 No. 1 January 2008 pp. 73_100 Olwage, Grant. 2002. “Scriptions of the choral : the historiography of black South African choralism” in SAMUS: The South African Journal of Musicology Vol. 22, pp. 29-45. ___. 2004a. Music and (post)colonialism : the dialectics of choral culture on a South African frontier. PhD Thesis, Rhodes University. Grahamstown: South Africa. ___. 2004b. “The Class and Colour of Tone: An Essay on the Social History of Vocal Timbre” in Ethnomusicology Forum Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 203-226. Michael Rogin. 2002. “Blackface, White Noise: The Jewish Jazz Singer Finds His Voice” in Critical Inquiry, Vol. 18, No. 3. (Spring, 1992), pp. 417-453. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0093-1896%28199221%2918%3A3%3C417%3ABWNTJJ%3E2.0.CO%3B2-5 Rubio, Phil. “Crossover Dreams: The ‘Exceptional White’ in Popular Culture.” In Race Traitor, ed. Noel Ignatiev and John Garvey, 148–61. New York: Routledge, 1996. Stras, Laurie. 2007. “White Face, Black Voice: Race, Gender, and Region in the Music of the Boswell Sisters” in Journal of the Society for American Music Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 207–255 Walton, Julie H. 1992. Speaker race identification from acoustic cues in the vocal signal. Ph. D. Thesis, Memphis State University. Walton, Julie H. and Robert F. Orlikoff. 1994. “Speaker Race Identification From Acoustic Cues in the Vocal Signal” in Journal of Speech and Hearing Research Vol.37 738-745 August 1994.

"The Queer Mashgiach" We've met this guy a bunch at gigs and mentioned him before. This convo was too good to pass up... QM: "I see you know all the pretty Jewish songs. Do you know standards too? Starts singing "Summertime". DM: [starts comping] We can't make this stuff up! This peep won't just do the slow song he's been asked to sing, because "I'm not just the slow song guy". So, after plowing through a slow song, he sings a medley of the choruses of Balbeli Oto and Yalili, switching back and forth between the two as though they were the A and B of one song. "The Sheet Music Helper" This peep comes over during the dance set, and decides to helpfully pick up the discarded piece of sheet music on the bandstand floor and hand it to us. (It was the fanfare, which we've already played.) Never mind the fact that we're reading another chart, and have not indicated in any way that we want to be handed this music. When we say that we do not need it and that it's ok for him to just leave it on the floor, he simply can't accept this, continuing to attempt to get our attention, and show us where he's putting it down on a chair near the bandstand. "The Attendance Monitor" This peep monitors the bandstand, noting and commenting if any musician is not on the bandstand while the band is playing. This self-appointed peep wants to know "where the 2nd guitar player went", for instance. (Actual question). We're tempted to tell him exactly which stall in the bathroom he's in. This peep is special. They meet with you before the event, discuss repertoire, requests, etc. and all is cool. Then, at the event, they change everything on you. When the "mind-changer" is the mother (in-law) and these last minute changes conflict with the bride's plans, look for some sparks to fly.

Albert Maysles could have rested on his laurels decades ago. He and his late brother, David, pioneered documentary feature filmmaking with their American take on cinema verite, evident in such classic portraits as 1968’s “Salesman,” about four door-to-door Bible salesmen, and 1976’s “Grey Gardens,” which showed the squalid lives of two secluded relatives of Jacqueline Kennedy (and was recently turned into an unlikely musical). But the 80-year-old filmmaker seems as busy as ever. He has founded the Maysles Institute, a philanthropic enterprise that teaches documentary filmmaking to 8- to 12-year-olds whose parents are in prison. He’s planning to open a movie theater, the Harlem Cinematheque, to screen films that speak to that community. And he seems to make a happy interviewee, genially and generously talking about his work. “There’s so much more to do. I’m at a stage now where I know exactly how to use my camera,” he says by telephone from his New York office. “With that instrument in my hands, I can do so much good. Every time I go into a film, it’s an adventure, a serendipitous adventure, and it never ceases to amaze me.” He even took time out from directing his own work to serve as one of the shooters and cinematographers on a friend’s film. Jasmine Dellal’s “Gypsy Caravan,” opening at Landmark’s E Street Cinema today, is a life-affirming chronicle of the North American tour of five bands of Roma musicians. Interspersed with live performances, “Gypsy” is filled with compelling characters who take filmmakers into their homes in four countries to talk about the centuries of persecution their people have faced and how they kept their spirits alive through music. The son of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, Mr. Maysles feels a kinship with the Gypsy artists he followed. “I shot a film, it’s not finished yet, on klezmer music in Krakow, Poland,” he says. “It’s a very heartfelt kind of music that tears away at your heart. I find that both in the klezmer Jewish music and in the Gypsy music.” “Gypsy Caravan,” of course, is not the first time Mr. Maysles has caught music on film. “Gimme Shelter,” which he directed with his brother and Charlotte Zwerin, captured the murder and mayhem at a Rolling Stones concert at Altamont Speedway in northern California. He has also filmed classical artists Vladimir Horowitz and Mstislav Rostropovich and jazz musician Wynton Marsalis. Does he enjoy the music of all the disparate artists he’s filmed? “Yes, especially once I get into it,” he responds. “In 1964, when I got a call from Granada Television asking me if I’d be interested in filming the Beatles, I didn’t know who they were.” His brother did, however, and they quickly agreed to do the film, which captured the Fab Four’s arrival in America. John Lennon and Yoko Ono later moved into the Dakota, where Mr. Maysles was then living, and the two remained friends. Their sons went to school together, and the director is going to Montreal later this month to film a concert by Sean Lennon. “My life is just one coincidence after another,” he laughs. The increasing popularity of documentary film today doesn’t surprise Mr. Maysles. He says the shift was inevitable, “just the way it’s happened in literature, which has moved from fiction to nonfiction.” Still, many of these newer films eschew the “direct cinema” that Mr. Maysles helped found, instead relying on voiceovers, interviews and, often, a distinct agenda. “It’s somewhat unfortunate that so many films are dedicated to a point of view rather than allowing the viewer to exercise his or her own judgment,” he argues. “I think that’s a higher form.” A documentary, he believes, should give the viewer “an insight into what’s going on in the world” rather than a two-hour editorial. And he prefers films about real people — like those Bible salesmen or the Bouvier Beales — to those featuring yet more Hollywood celebrities.View Entire Story By Rand Paul Obama acts as though we no longer have a Constitution Independent voices from the TWT Communities First over-the-counter column approved for fast and effective relief from even your worst media-induced headache. Contributions to the Communities Sports desk from readers. Happiness is attainable. Morning to night. I love to teach, deal with folks that have an issue and really wish to tackle it and write. Benghazi: The anatomy of a scandal Vietnam Memorial adds four names Cinco de Mayo on the Mall NRA kicks off annual convention California wildfires wreak havoc

For days now, the twittersphere and even the mainstream media have been agog at the anti-Semitism spewing in a now-viral video by Mohammed Morsi in 2010 when he was head of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. He called President Obama a liar as well, but the administration will do its best not to let it matter. It's not as if they didn't know. The Muslim Brotherhood is more than 80 years old and is organized around anti-Israel, anti-Christian and anti-Semitic claptrap. It also does not hide its anti-Western, anti-imperialist rhetoric that shares the stage with an interpretation of Islam that is homophobic and misogynistic. Last summer, the Brotherhood's leader, Mohammed Badie, accused Jews of corrupting the world and slaughtering Palestinians. Essem al Erian, Vice President of the Brotherhood's political party, last month invited Jews to return to Egypt -- not because he likes them, but, as he said, "Why stay in a racist entity, an occupation, and be tainted with war crimes that will be punished? All occupation leaders will be punished." The "Zionist project," he added, will end. It is unimaginable that President Obama thought Morsi would dump the Brotherhood and become a small-d democrat at precisely the moment his party took power in Egypt and he had the opportunity to implement the agenda to which he has devoted his entire adult life: the Muslim Brotherhood. Just as President Obama did not win the American presidency with the intention of governing the way George W. Bush did before him, Morsi did not win to govern as a liberal democrat. His goal, like that of any electoral victor, is to enshrine his views in law and ensure their continuance. The Obama administration placed a very heavy bet on its ability to manage relations with Morsi, and the world's discovery of his virulent anti-Semitism will not change it. Key to "managing relations" with Morsi is ignoring almost everything related to the Muslim Brotherhood and everything Morsi does that defies democratic norms. This includes ignoring the Brotherhood's lie that it would not run candidates for all the seats in Parliament and would not run a presidential candidate. It includes ignoring massacres against the Coptic Christian community; the hasty construction of the constitution; the dismissal of judges; the quick-and-dirty "referendum" that claims 63% of the vote without noting that less than 25% of Egyptians voted; and the December protests. It requires, then, allowing Morsi to run roughshod over the Egyptian people, much as his predecessor did. The White House stepped gingerly at first. In an interview with Telemundo in September, President Obama hedged: "I don't think that we would consider (Egypt) an ally, but we don't consider them an enemy. They are a new government that's trying to find its way." But by November, Morsi was a star. National Public Radio (NPR) reported, "Analysts say Morsi has proved himself and his organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, to be major political players on the world stage, and if the cease-fire agreement between Hamas and Israel holds, it will be a shining achievement." According to The New York Times, "Mr. Obama told aides he was impressed with the Egyptian leader's pragmatic confidence. He sensed an engineer's precision with surprisingly little ideology." "Surprisingly little ideology" is a strange turn of phrase for an organization that is defined by little else, and a man defined by his organization. Following the video, Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center denounced Islamic anti-Semitism. "The mainstreaming of Jew hatred in the Arab and Muslim world will not only end hopes for any Middle East peace deal, but puts Jews in jeopardy around the world." He added, "America must not signal that it will be business as usual with the government of the Arab world's largest and most powerful nation." That last bit will fall on deaf ears. Between "business as usual" with Egypt and words coming out of Morsi's mouth, the words take a distant back seat. The administration has simply returned language for language. Morsi's words were met by words from White House press secretary Jay Carney and the State Department's Victoria Neuland. Carney called the language "deeply offensive." Neuland said the Egyptian President's first attempt at an apology wasn't quite good enough, adding, "(We expect) President Morsi and Egyptian leaders to demonstrate in both word and in deed their commitment to religious tolerance and to upholding all of Egypt's international obligations." But the F-16s will be delivered and aid will go forward. Discussing the recently finalized U.S. decision to deliver the advanced aircraft to the Egyptian military, retired Brigadier General Safwat Al-Zayat told Al-Ahram Weekly, "It is obvious that the finalisation of the deal on 11 December, which happened to be at the height of the mass demonstrations in Tahrir Square against Morsi, conveyed a political message. Between the lines, Washington was sending a message to three parties. The first was to Morsi and it stated, 'We support you. Move ahead.' The second was to the army and it said, 'We are encouraging this man,' meaning Morsi. The third was to the opposition forces and it said the same thing." In this you have President Obama indeed governing as George W. Bush -- and Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, in fact. Domestic Egyptian politics -- including Morsi's anti-Semitism, which President Obama has no reason to believe is in the past -- have been and will remain a distant second priority, to the chagrin of those who thought change in Cairo and change in Washington would produce something better for the Egyptian people. Shoshana Bryen is Senior Director of The Jewish Policy Center.

US President Donald Trump has begun his first address to a joint session of Congress by condemning anti-Semitism and racism following a series of attacks in recent weeks. "Recent threats targeting Jewish Community Centres and vandalism of Jewish cemeteries, as well as last week's shooting in Kansas City, remind us that while we may be a nation divided on policies, we are a country that stands united in condemning hate and evil in all its forms," he said on Tuesday night. He has sought to strike an optimistic tone in remarks to Congress, declaring the "renewal of the American spirit" under his new administration and pointing to the US role on the world stage. "Our allies will find that America is once again ready to lead," Trump said. "All the nations of the world - friend or foe - will find that America is strong, America is proud, and America is free." © DPA 2017

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Think you know about fish and chips? Think again. I used to think I knew about fish and chips, that wonderful institution of the British diet, until I visited Uganda that was. “This is good, I mean really good”, said my partner glancing up from the massive plate of fish and chips that sat between us. I however was not wasting crucial seconds with peripheral tasks such as talking; after taking another swig of my ice cold beer I was straight back in, my fingers pushing together the crumbling bits of perfectly cooked Taliapia. As we scoffed down our freshly cooked food, the smoke from other barbecued fish drifted through the packed restaurant and out into evening sun. We were sat with views out onto the very northern tip of Lake Victoria just outside of Kampala. The restaurant in which we were sat was lined with charcoal barbeques cooking that day’s intake from the lake. All around us small groups of local guys were huddled around old rickety wooden tables on which large shared platters of fresh fish rested. We had been lucky, when we arrived after a day’s walking, all the tables were taken. Within seconds of entering into the shade of the restaurant though, what looked like a full table had been rearranged and we had been squeezed onto the end. We shared our table with three Ugandans, two locals from Kampala and another just visiting from the Karamoja region in the east. All three of the men sat with that happy contented look on their faces that gave away the culinary experience they had just enjoyed. Looking around I could see this same look on faces of men all around me. Each sat leaning back on their plastic chairs, one hand on their belly and the other around a cold beer bottle. I struggle to think of an image that better embodies the Ugandan understanding of contentment. As I ate, I listened to the guys sat at our table chat about how Ggaba had the best fish and chips, not just in Kampala or even Uganda but, so their beer induced conversation went, in the world. As they spoke I found myself thinking though, “What about British fish and chips – our national dish?” Then it dawned on me, these fish and chips were, by far, the best fish and chips I have ever had in my life. No country pub, inner city chippy or homemade meal from the UK had ever come close. They were simply delicious and they were supported by the most wonderful of ambiences. In a conciliatory backlash to my own thoughts, I joined in the conversation with the comment, “these fish and chips are even better than in the UK you know.” The guy on my left responded, “Really?” I half joked, “yeah, and we invented the dish.” My new Ugandan friend from Karamoja, a restaurant worker himself it would turn out, swiftly responded, “ahh, I am afraid that is a common misconception my friend. Fish and Chips were bought to the UK by a Jewish immigrant in the late 19th century.” I responded dumbly, “oh”. A later Google search would tell me that there is at least an element of truth in his assertion. Who would have thought that it would take a Ugandan to educate this Brit on his supposed national dish? I left the restaurant that evening with the sun slipping behind the hills. The air was light and there was a low level of noise in the fruit and veg market that surrounds the harbour. I don’t think I could imagine a nicer place for a wee Ugandan style culinary master class.

Berlin (Jul. 7) All goes well in Naziland, at least, so we are told. Problems, Propaganda Minister Goebbels recently declared in a widely circulated speech, are here to be solved, and, so he said, God be blessed that there are men now who can solve all problems. Whether the government has found a panacea for all national diseases your correspondent has not been able to find out. At least there are skeptics. But for one “disease” the government seems to have found the right remedy. That much your correspondent can substantiate. The problem referred to is, of course, the very well-known “Jewish problem.” For this problem the government certainly has hit upon an efficacious solution. Slow starvation! And it works, believe me. With great joy and pride the Nuernberger Acht-Uhr Abendblatt tells of the panacea discovered by the Nazi “scientists.” Economic boycotting,—in other words, slow starvation—works. It does! Of that there can be no doubt. Those that can get out, get out; those who cannot afford such a luxury leave no children behind them. Less births, no new generation, the old generation slowly—or hurriedly, if convenient—passes away, and the problem is solved. BIRTHS ON DECLINE In Berlin, the paper tells, there have been 10.6 per cent less births this year, compared with last year; in Hamburg 13.7; in Frankfurt 10.2; and in Pforzheim more than 13 per cent. And this, it must not be forgotten, is the situation in large cities where the boycott by no means reaches the intensity and the completeness of small towns. There, undoubtedly, the situation is much worse. What the economic boycott has done, and how effective it is, is evident from another set of figures. Last winter no less than 11,287 Jews in Berlin had to approach the government for support! More than 13 per cent, in other words of the Berlin Jewish population has been economically ruined to the extent that it had to depend upon the meagre governmental aid to keep body and soul not too far apart. Goebbels was right, then. The government seems to be able to solve problems—if not all… at least it has solved one. The law seems to be a very flexible thing, even in Naziland. Theoretically, of course, a law once passed should be applicable to all, but practically flexibility is essential—especially when the law hurts the interests of the big capitalists. In such a case, the existing government knows, playing the ostrich is the major part of wisdom. TELLS OF BOOK SITUATION Thus, a law was passed about two weeks ago prohibiting department stores and Jewish bookstores from selling Nazi literature—in case a purchaser appears that is. The works of Goebbels of Goering, Hitler’s masterpiece of autobiography, and the whole host of pamphlets must not be sold, said the law, either in Jewish bookstores or in the large department stores. Such was the law. Clear-cut and definite, whatever else it be. But in practice what happens? The old story, of course, repeats itself: The large department stores continue displaying, if not selling—for there are mighty few customers for such books—the prohibited books just as before, but the small Jewish bookstore has had to comply with the letter of the law. What to do with the books the store owners do not know, nor does the law tell them. A few of the more recent books were taken back by the publishers, but the vast majority they have been forced to take down in the cellar. Display them they cannot, not to speak of selling them. The famous Adler automobile concern of Frankfurt has now been made kosher, and pureblooded Teutons will now be able to drive an Adler car without the least scruple. Jews have been eliminated from the directorship. The president of the board of trustees, Jacob Goldschmidt, the Councillor of Commerce (a title conferred on distinguished financiers), Dr. Walter Sobernheim, and the General-Director, Dr. William Meinhard, have all ben pushed out of active participation in the management, and unblemished directors have been appointed in their place.

- Rated: Not Rated - Run Time: 1 hours, 43 minutes - Video: Black & White - Released: May 3, 2012 - Originally Released: 1948 - Label: Warner Archives - Encoding: Region 0 (Worldwide) - Aspect Ratio: Full Frame - 1.37 - Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo - English Performers, Cast and Crew: Description by OLDIES.com: Midge (Margaret O'Brien) is the luckiest girl in New York. Found abandoned as an infant, she's adopted by a cantor (Danny Thomas), a reverend (Robert Preston) and a Catholic cop (George Murphy), who raise her together as only three loving fathers can. But when the police officer marries a saloon singer (Betty Garrett) and insists on sole custody, the trio winds up in court, where Midge, with the help of a kind-hearted judge (Edward Arnold), must decide what's best for her fathers as well as herself. Highlighted by opera legend Lotte Lehmann in her only American film appearance and featuring Broadway star Betty Garrett in her big-screen debut. MGM's all-purpose title THE BIG CITY was deployed once more for this treacly 1948 drama. To prevent orphaned Midge (Margaret O'Brien) from being sent to an institution, Protestant minister Andrews (Robert Preston), Jewish cantor Feldman (Danny Thomas) and Catholic cop Patrick O'Donnell (George Murphy) jointly "adopt" the girl. Midge grows up in Feldman's home, and all is rosy until O'Donnell, on the verge of marrying funloving "Shoe-Shoe" Bailey (Betty Garrett in her film debut), announces that he wants to take full custody of the child. It's up to Midge herself, with the help of kindly Judge Abercrombie (Edward Arnold), to sort things out. Meanwhile, the Reverend Andrews finds romance in the shapely form of Florence Bartlett (Karin Booth). Though it's hard to forget that Danny Thomas was one of show business' most prominent Catholics, he delivers a convincing performance as the tune-happy Cantor Feldman, at one point foregoing his usual Kol Nidres in favor of a rousing cowboy song! Romantic Comedy |

(Are you looking for our Twebrew School Treats about the Hebrew alphabet or our Hebrew Instructional videos? Click here for a directory!) Click here to hear Sah'rah pronounced Few Biblical names are as common, popular and unchanged through time as Sarah. While most people could probably identify Sarah as the matriarch of the Jewish people, the fact is that this was not her given name. For the vast majority of her life, Sarah’s name was Sarai. One might think: Sarah, Sarai, no big difference--no big deal. But, in Sarah’s life this made a tremendous difference. Sarai bat (the daughter of) Haran was not destined to have a child. The course set out for Sarai on the Divine map did not include motherhood. When Sarai and her husband, Abram, chose to dedicate their lives to sharing God with a world that had fallen into idolatry, the Divine map of her life was given the opportunity to be rewritten. And so God changed the name of both Sarai and Abram. At age 89, Sarai became Sarah. Abram, age 99, became Abraham. Shortly thereafter their son Isaac (Yitzchak) was conceived. There are numerous discussions among the sages regarding the significance of the name changes. Most commonly, it is pointed out that they both received an additional Hebrew letter hey in their names. “Hey” is one of the letters of God’s name. In the construct of Hebrew grammar, possessive form is often indicated by a suffix. A yud suffix is the possessive ending for first person singular. The hey suffix is the possessive ending for the third person singular ending. In becoming a mother, and fulfilling God’s announcement that Abraham (and Sarah) would be the ancestors of a great nation, Sarah gave herself to the future generations whom she knew would follow in her (and her husband’s) ways. Copyright © 2011 National Jewish Outreach Program. All rights reserved.

Since Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines on Nov. 8, the Jewish community has stepped up to help out the devastated country. UJA Federation of Greater Toronto reports that as of Nov. 15, it has raised more than $85,000 since establishing the UJA Philippines Typhoon Relief Fund, with 100 per cent of the money going to support the efforts of IsraAID, the Israel Forum for International Humanitarian Aid, UJA’s partner agency. Steven Shulman, UJA Federation’s campaign director, said that in the past, federation has qualified for a program whereby the government matches funds raised for emergency aid, and he expects it will qualify again. On Nov. 11, a seven-person IsraAID team of Israeli professionals including medical, trauma and relief specialists landed in the Philippines and travelled to Tacloban, a coastal city of 220,000 that was almost destroyed by the typhoon. Shulman said a second IsraAID team, comprising 15 to 20 medical and trauma personnel, was set to join their colleagues and travel north where a hospital is set up. “We’re looking to send a third team. IsraAID works with local government officials and the United Nations to provide emergency services to those affected. [Our] community has a great reason to be proud. It tells you something about Jewish values,” he said. Shachar Zahavi, founding director of IsraAID, said in a statement that “people are rioting due to the lack of food, clean water and access to health facilities and accommodation. Without health facilities, our first goal is health intervention. After the immediate medical issues are addressed, the next concerns are issues like the influx of people who have become homeless.” Robin Segall, director of programs and marketing for Ve’ahavta – The Canadian Jewish Humanitarian and Relief Committee, said the agency has raised about $15,000 for its Philippines fund. “Ve’ahavta will be directing funds raised through the Jewish Coalition for Disaster Relief [JCDR], and its response will focus on immediate as well as mid-term needs of the local population. “As an executive member of the JCDR, Ve’ahavta is able to leverage the funds we raise by pooling our resources with those raised by up to 44 other coalition members across the United States and United Kingdom for maximum collective impact. Jewish organizations work in unison to allocate desperately needed financial resources to trusted, reputable partners engaging in immediate first response on the ground,” she said. In times of crisis, she said, “there is a need for short-term aid delivery as well as a need to manage the long-term painful aftermath. Ve’ahavta has worked closely with the Israel Trauma Coalition [ITC] on previous crises and is in close communication with ITC to determine how we might support their response to Typhoon Haiyan.” Terri Boldman, director of marketing and communications for Jewish Federations of Canada-UIA (JFC-UIA), said that the organization is accepting donations on behalf of the federations in London and Windsor and individual donations from non-federated regional communities. She said that as of Nov. 15 Montreal, has raised $38,000, and Edmonton, Vancouver, Hamilton and JFC-UIA have raised about $60,500. Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Centre said that it’s been called on to send a team of medical personnel to join IDF medical and rescue response team that was dispatched to the Philippines. The selected members all have extensive training in rescue-and-recovery missions within the IDF Medical Corp and were extensively briefed prior to departure for what they can expect upon arrival in the disaster zone. David Smith, president of Canadian Shaare Zedek Hospital Foundation, said in the release that the money it raises in Canada is being sent to support Shaare Zedek’s IDF clinic and to help train and prepare the medical personnel. In a more local response, at a Toronto bagel restaurant, Bagel World on Wilson Avenue, a group of employees, many of whom are Filipinos, have decided to donate all their tips to the relief fund. Bagel World’s owners were touched by the gesture and agreed to match all the proceeds.

The United States and the European Union say that the Israel-Palestinian peace talks will fail if Israel does not stop building in Biblical lands by Jimmy DeYoung September 30, 2010 The United States has requested that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu extend the construction moratorium in Jerusalem and the area of Judea and Samaria, referred to as the West Bank, in order to keep the Palestinians from walking out of the peace talk negotiations as they have threatened to do. Meanwhile, Catherine Ashton, the Chief of Foreign Policy for the European Union, while in Israel has both the Israeli and the Palestinian leaders the peace process will fail if Israel continues to build in the Jewish settlements and Ashton has applied pressure on Israel to continue the moratorium on building. Jimmy’s Prophetic Prospective on the News US and European pressure on Israel to stop building in Biblical lands, their promised land, is a precursor to the end of times scenario that can be found in Bible prophecy. The United States and the European Union are both guilty of applying pressure on the Jewish state of Israel to stop building in a portion of the state that dates back 4000 years ago in Jewish heritage. Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria referred to by world leaders as the West Bank, this real estate is the center focus of the United States and the European Union as they endeavor to manipulate the peace process between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Pressure to stop construction in these Jewish areas applied by the United States and the European Union has undermined the entire peace process by giving the Palestinians an issue to hold over the Israelis and hinder any honest approach to this peace process. This scenario is exactly what Jesus said would happen in the last days. In His Olivet Discourse, as recorded in Luke 21:24, the Lord told the Jewish people that Jerusalem would be trodden down controlled by the Gentiles until He returned to the Earth. Daniel, and ancient Jewish prophet, wrote this same scenario in Daniel chapters 2 and 9 as he foretold that the Gentiles would have control of the Jewish people until Jesus Christ comes back to resolve this conflict. By the way, the United States and the European Union are Gentile world powers. John, who wrote the book of Revelation, reveals the plan of God to bring Gentile world powers to defeat (Revelation 6-19). United States and European Union pressure on the Jewish state of Israel is indeed setting the stage for Bible prophecy to be fulfilled.

There is no denying Palestinian history The Israeli government and settler mentality of “What is mine is mine and what is yours is mine, too” has always been a problem. Their conquest of most of Palestine in 1948 was because they were “regaining their biblical homeland”; consequently, this included the West Bank and Gaza, which it only managed to occupy 19 years later. To Israel, this was not the occupation of someone else’s land; this was part of the land of Israel, which was only now being restored to its owners. The Palestinians were nothing but – and still are – bothersome collateral damage. For some reason, perhaps because this jungle-like mentality remained unchecked for all of these years, the sense of “everything is mine” has risen to dangerous heights. One of the most visible manifestations of this mentality is in my own back yard: the Aqsa Mosque. Although this site is the third holiest place in Islam, where Prophet Mohammed is said to have ascended to heaven on his winged horse, the conflict over the site goes far beyond religious interpretations. In the heart of the Old City of Jerusalem, it is technically in the eastern sector of the city, under Israeli occupation. The entire world recognizes its occupation and has not recognized – at least at the official level – Israel’s unilateral annexation of the city. That has not deterred this self-righteous mentality from impinging on places where others reside and hold sacred and dear to them. With each passing day, more and more right-wing extremist settlers and Israelis insist on entering the Aqsa Mosque Compound. They walk the grounds, try to conduct Jewish prayers and always do so under the protection of the Israeli army and police. Muslims meanwhile either bite the bullet and hope the unnatural visits end quickly or, more often than not, they protest. Hundreds of Palestinians have been arrested and injured in clashes with Israeli troops and settlers on the holy premises and others have been banned entry to it altogether. The fact of the matter is that Israel’s official narrative – that this is the exact place where the second temple was built and where the third one will eventually be reconstructed, has become a given for so many. The premise is that Jews have every right to enter and pray in Al Aqsa because the temples came first and this is ostensibly the holiest site in Judaism. The thousands of years of history and religious significance for Muslims around the world are made completely irrelevant not to mention that the Israeli narrative can always trump anyone else’s, especially the Palestinians. The seemingly religious aspect of the argument is actually entirely political at its core. This mentality plays out just as viciously when it comes to land and property. In Jerusalem it is about homes, in the West Bank about land. Palestinians find themselves served with papers somehow claiming that Jews had ownership rights to their house years ago, even before Israel was created. The same, it might be added, does not apply to Palestinians who lost their homes in 1948 and have the real deeds to the houses, which were stolen from them not even 70 years ago. But again, Israel’s claim over west Jerusalem is uncontested by the world and now places within east Jerusalem are as well. It is a scary thing to see the denial of one’s history and attempts to erase it right before one’s eyes. Some extremist Jewish groups have even called for the destruction of the Dome of the Rock so that the Third Temple could be built in its place. If there is no authority to rein in this madness, it is reasonable to say that it will continue unabated. That has been the case for years. The world, Arab, Muslim, Christian and everyone that falls in between, has a duty to preserve, not just buildings, but the history of a people that have fought long and hard to do it one their own. Palestine will never be erased in our hearts, including the Aqsa and Jerusalem. The fear is that it will be erased on the ground because no one was brave enough to challenge Israel’s belief that everything in this tiny country is exclusively theirs. Joharah Baker is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at firstname.lastname@example.org.

By Arelya J. Mitchell, Publisher/Editor-in-Chief The Mid-South Tribune and the Black Information Highway Adam Silver. Need we say more? This is the power of real leadership. We were in the process of releasing what might border on extreme to some, but when one is caught between tornado warnings and stuck with no electricity, Mother Nature rules even technology. Perhaps the tornado was symbolic of what was to come. But never would we have thought the NBA Commissioner would have the guts to do what he did to this billionaire racist a.k.a. Donald Sterling. Silver’s denouncement along with his “personal outrage” called for a rewrite in some instances. We, too, had written that the L.A. Clippers should be taken from Sterling. We didn’t know about the wherefores and therefores of what constituted ownership of an NBA team to be taken away. But that wouldn’t have been our point, because this was not only about sports but the politics of sports. And in politics, there is the power of ‘force’ just like a tornado which doesn’t care about your bank account or what you own. Silver’s NBA Lifetime Ban should dovetail nicely with Sterling’s NAACP Lifetime Achievement Award. Maybe he can use them as book ends. In contrast to Silver, one saw a further weakened NAACP, especially when the L.A. NAACP president sat at a press conference on Tuesday before Silver’s denouncement and said that there “was room for forgiveness” for Sterling. Would someone tell this Black ‘boy’ that there is a profound difference between being a fool and a Christian? Today’s NAACP has already become a semi-joke in the Black community because everyone knows that a white can buy such awards as the Lifetime Achievement with the purchase of an annual banquet table and a cockroach in a glass jar. After which, quite miraculously the white perpetrators are forgiven of their sins! They’ve seen the light! Glory Hallelujah! Praise de Lawd! Everybody knows that you can promise the Black community everything and deliver nothing. Furthermore, you can go back and keep doing this. If you don’t believe this, ask worshippers of the Church of the Democratic Party as they bow before the Golden Donkey while the Elephant stomps on them. The Jewish community says, “Never again.” The Black community says, “There’s room for forgiveness.” And we wonder why there’s a crisis in Black leadership, especially in Black economic leadership (which is nil)? It’s time to Black man-up. Now that Silver has stated that it is his intention to force Sterling to sell the L.A. Clippers, Blacks should back him with action. A Black group should take ownership. If Sterling fights it legally, so what? Declare war and Black man-up. Get your Black lawyers and go after him in court. That’s what Black lawyers did during the Civil Rights Movement. In this ‘war’, one flank (group) should be ready to take on the owners. Get ready to march (and this is where marching can be effective) at stadiums and if that means taking up funds to pay—or rather ‘employ’ out-of-work people to keep that line strong and going, then do it. There’s nothing unethical about that seeing that white plantation owners got poor whites to take their place during the Civil War. A second flank should consist of a group of Blacks to march on the sidewalks (public property) in these owners’ upstanding zillionaire neighborhoods and at their places of business. This should include Sterling’s neighborhood and his place(s) of business. To reiterate, there should be a specific group formed to get this done. Since Sterling declared ‘war’ on Black people and Black Jews he should be made an example of just as Blacks have historically been made examples of with worse such as with lynching, castration, slavery, and Jim Crow. Sterling would be getting off easy considering he has not had to suffer these! This group should next head for the NFL. Goal: Black ownership of some NFL teams. About a year or two ago, Advertising Age had an article in which there was speculation that the NFL would be expanding in China. You can bet your bottom dollar Black ownership is nowhere on the agenda, but worse yet, you can bet that same bottom dollar Blacks are not looking at these expansion efforts of the NFL and NBA into Europe, Africa, and China or Mars for that matter. They’re too busy being employees rather than employers when the community needs both! Sit your Black ass down with your strawberry drink and pull your straw chair up to the table. Don’t ask. Just do it. Make demands. You don’t have to be rich to demand to be treated like a Black human being, and you don’t have to be rich to win the economic war. This is the reason why most monarchies don’t have power. It has been the Black players who have fed white owners, clothed white owners, kept white owners in limousines, gave white owners fatter bank accounts. We don’t see any white owners out there making baskets. We don’t see them running up and down the floor bringing in crowds. We don’t see any white owners as white Magic Johnsons, white LeBron Jameses, or white Michael Jordans. White owners need to realize this is a two-way street. This should be about mutual capitalism. And mutual respect. Also, what is interesting to note in Sterling’s tirade is the fact that he brought in a dialogue on ‘white Jews’ and “Black Jews”. He said that even ‘white Jews’ don’t want Black Jews in Israel. What makes this situation even sadder is that Sterling is of Jewish heritage, and of all people he should know better. He probably changed his name (unlike Blacks who cannot change their skin color) from Donald Tokowitz to Donald Sterling because he was discriminated against because of his Jewish roots. Has he been ‘passing’ as an American WASP as much as he could get away with? Changing his name might have been one way of Donald Tokowitz sneaking into the country club. We wonder what the Anti-Defamation League has to say about Sterling’s assertion in his hatred of ‘Black Jews’? Or of his derision of African Americans, one of the Jewish community’s closest allies? Many Black soldiers helped to free Jews from Hitler’s Holocaust only to come home to live under the Jim Crow Holocaust. So where is the Jewish community on this matter? We don’t see the Hispanic community coming out on this matter. Where are the women groups? We don’t see any Oriental Americans coming out? We don’t see the Gay community coming out (pun not intended)? We don’t see groups who advocate for the Disabled or Seniors coming out? All these groups benefited from the 1964 Black Civil Rights Movement. Ironically, it has been the advertising community which has acted as a quasi-civil rights group by pulling ads (money!). How strange is that? Most of these little ethnic leeches have sucked the blood out of Black skin and gotten what they wanted, and Blacks have often found themselves in the same position as God (no blaspheme intended) that other ethnic groups don’t come to them unless they’re the ones in trouble. (And that includes the Democratic Party). To the Black community, stop giving away the store. Get off de-fense! It’s time for a proud Zulu Warrior spirit to emerge. Force Donald Sterling to sell. By any means necessary. If that sounds radical, then it is no more radical than the Civil Rights Movement itself! Than King and Malcolm X! Ironically, it is no more radical than when the federal government aided and abetted white-owned banks in stealing Black farmland. Like his alleged mistress or not, it took a woman to take down Sterling; just as it took Rosa Parks to stand her ground. It’s time to Black man-up.

A privately built four-lane divided highway in Houston? Things like that aren't supposed to happen. After all, who would fork over bucks for a road that anyone and everyone can motor along without paying a cent? Well, yes, but…things like that do happen in Houston. Several years ago the West Houston Association—a group of businesses—saw that a whopping traffic problem on the booming west side of town could be cut down to size by the addition of a four-lane roadway. So they planned its route and they got it built—not by the city (a.k.a. the taxpayers), but by landowners with properties adjacent to the planned road. Now the association has on the drawing board a 10,000-acre privately financed park called Cullen Park. The Cullen Foundation has pledged an initial $6 million for developing it, and the project is to benefit from another $50 million over the next several years from nearby developers—their beneficence coordinated by the West Houston Association. These are the sorts of things I discovered when I ventured to Houston recently. My journalistic assignment: to find out why zoning was coming to Houston, the one major American village without it or very much else in the way of government land-use regulation. For there had appeared in the summer of '82 a spate of news reports saying that Houstonians were fed up with "unbridled growth" (the New York Times) and "untrammeled development" (Britain's Economist) and that "stringent" controls on developers were finally being considered—and passed—by a city council that was "turning over a new leaf" in order to bring some measure of planning sanity to Houston's helter and skelter of land-use anarchy. But when I visited the Land of Chaos to dig beneath those reports from the international press corps, I found no articulate support for zoning there: not in the mayor's office, not on the city council, not in the planning and development community—not anywhere outside of the ritziest suburban neighborhoods. I did find that Houston developers, who are doing more planning and building than their counterparts in any other three American cities put together, consider themselves far ahead of the zoners in solving urban problems; that whatever Houston's current difficulties, they are uniformly byproducts of its success as the growth phenomenon of urban America; and that the people in Houston don't have any explanation for why outsiders keep writing nasty things about life without zoning in their sweet little town by Buffalo Bayou. It was a setback ordinance passed by Houston's city council in June 1982 that sparked last year's articles trumpeting the victory over rapacious, unzoned development. Yet the assertion that Houston had never had anything of the sort is pure mendacity. The Houston Planning Department, in existence since 1940, has for four decades coordinated private development with public facilities such as roads, sewers, and schools. It was already enforcing a setback provision for subdivision development, which is the name of the game in at least 80 percent of the city's building area. The radical reform enacted by the 1982 revolutionaries meekly imposed setback requirements for industrial and commercial property (10 feet on local roads, 25 feet on commercial thoroughfares) and provided for the connection of stub streets (streets whose continuity is impeded by undeveloped lots). And these provisions had been widely effective in practice, if not in policy, for several decades. No surprise, then, that setback-ordinance proponents could cite only one instance in this 3-million-person metropolis where a street widening to relieve traffic congestion had been thwarted by buildings that were too close to the roadway. And the glory of a people's victory over "development interests"? Houston's assistant planning director, Kerry Gilbert, informs: "The development industry didn't oppose the ordinance—in fact, it endorsed it—because it was already aware of the problem and had already begun setting back buildings. The emphasis is now on large industrial or commercial parks with lots of open land space." In Houston, the private sector is always six strides ahead. As for nonzoned Houston's failed experiment in free-market land-use allocation, we may turn to zoning "advocate" Eleanor Tinsley, the council member who sponsored the ordinance: "I don't see a referendum on zoning passing in the future," she told me. "Houston has done well without zoning, so I'm not a proponent of zoning." In some quarters, Houstonians are thought to be so unsophisticated as to have avoided even discussing zoning—for if they had, wouldn't they have embraced its obvious merits? But as Roscoe Jones, Houston's planning director from 1964 to 1983, wrote in a recent monograph: "The subject of zoning was seriously considered in the 1920's and it was determined by the City officials at that time that this exercise of municipal police power was not necessary or desirable to impose upon the citizens. The subject of zoning was again given serious deliberation in 1938 by the Houston City Planning Commission, resulting from studies and recommendations by nationally recognized planning consultants.… "Another zoning ordinance and map were prepared and presented to the citizens of Houston in the form of a 'straw-vote' election in 1948. The proposed zoning ordinance was soundly defeated at the polls. Again in 1962, as part of a comprehensive planning effort, another zoning ordinance and map were prepared, submitted to the citizens in another 'straw-vote' election and again zoning was decisively defeated at the polls." For the record, Houston is the only major American city to hold a popular referendum on zoning—a tricky way to "avoid" the issue. In fact, in the municipal sprint to zone land use in the two decades following New York City's landmark adoption of controls in 1916, Houston was the one big city to resist the stampede and consider the issue. If the truth be known, it is the zoning impulse that has proven a rush to judgment and made a botch of rational land usage. Jerry Wood, the mayor's assistant for such matters in Houston, used to work as an urban planner in (zoned) Tulsa, Oklahoma. He points out that the "vogue in city planning in the 1970s" in places like New York City was to push "urban plazas"—and to rid the city of the sleazy mumbo-jumbo of little shops and unrelated stores that dot the older, less-"planned" sections of the city. "Today, those plazas are hotbeds of crime and a big zoning failure," Wood says of the modern planners' wizardry. Public officials failed to see the merits in the hustle and bustle of small, informal enterprise breeding an urban vitality from the clutter of little storefronts, and they failed to see also the devastating impact of marble-pillared sterility. Now the lone, after-dark activity in many of the architecturally superb urban plazas is the gentle sound of a drug deal—or dealer—going down. It is Houston's "unplanned" flexibility that so impresses its patrons. "Our older areas tend to revitalize themselves," observes city planner Kerry Gilbert. "You get conflicting land uses, where you see residential uses alongside multiple-family [apartments and condos] or commercial development. Revitalization happens here quickly in the private sector, as opposed to waiting for the public sector to get the government involved." In fact, the city has cut itself out of all federal urban-renewal subsidies, because the Department of Housing and Urban Development insists on the citywide zoning ordinance that Houstonians keep trashing. Unplanned flexibility or planned subsidies—they seem to have made the smart choice in Houston. About one house out of 15 built in the entire country last year was built in Texas's Harris County—that is, metropolitan Houston. The city abounds with billboards touting "Luxury Townhomes Starting in the Thirties"—the purchase price, not the required down. All through a recession, with interest rates stuck in the upper stratosphere, nonzoned Houston went right on constructing. It did so by "downsizing" its product. Mike Marix, president of a large Texas construction firm, believes there is an important reason why Houston continued to hammer away: "We've shown in Houston that the market can respond to the financial needs of the consumers in the marketplace. When interest rates go to 15, 16, 17 percent, the payments run amok if you're dealing with a fixed-size house. You have to go to a smaller unit. You can't do that in Dallas, where the zoning authority sets 1,600-foot minimums." Yet, if flexibility flows from freedom, freedom begets fear: the fear of nonzoning. "If you live in a city with zoning, you feel you're protected," cautioned Gilbert in his office in the city's planning agency. Confronted with the idea of living without such controls, people "fear that they'll be living next door to a gas station. But I've never seen a gas station at the end of a cul-de-sac. The economics of the situation just don't allow it." (And when one oil company mistakenly believed the economics justified a gas station in a nice Houston neighborhood, the hundreds of angry residents who mailed back their oil-company credit cards quickly convinced the company otherwise. The gas station was not built.) "Even" without government-imposed land-use planning, Houstonians do not end up with anarchy. How they "control" development is an interesting testament to freedom and the human ingenuity that thrives under its wing. "All the things I thought would be missing were done differently and called something else," concedes recent Minnesota transplant Patty Reeker. Reeker, who came to Houston from St. Cloud last year, believes "it's a good experience for a person to come from a place with zoning and experience a city like this." It's been a particularly good experience for her, because she was the city planning and zoning coordinator in St. Cloud and now works as a planner in Houston's Planning Department. Reeker was well prepared by graduate-school planning courses to know precisely what to expect in Houston—screaming chaos and an urban-planning house of horrors. "I thought I would see rampant commercial development on every residential corner," she recounts. "In St. Cloud, everyone seemed to want commercialism everywhere but next door to them. I thought, without zoning, Houston would have a million commercial developments." What she found, however, were 10,000 private deed restrictions governing land use via the private market. Often ridiculed by academic analysts as ghastly expensive, clumsy, and impossible to create or enforce, these agreements web the city of Houston into a complex labyrinth of private zoning "ordinances" covering some 10,000 residential and commercial developments. Also called "restrictive covenants," private deed restrictions are legally binding agreements among property owners to restrict the uses of land in their development for a certain period of time (normally 25 to 30 years). Originally, deed restrictions were common only to residential subdivisions in the city, but more and more, developers of commercial properties too are putting restrictions into their deeds. (When modern covenants expire, their provisions continue to hold unless a large majority of deed holders—the requirement varies—votes to cancel or amend the covenants.) The covenants, for example, for the Courtyard-Woodland Trails West Homeowners Association (filed in September 1980) run 32 single-spaced pages and flatly preclude individual property owners from, among other offenses: using their lot for anything other than "single family residential purposes"; erecting a "sign of any kind"; engaging in "any noxious or offensive activity"; wiring up "any outside lighting or loudspeakers or other sound producing devices" that "may be or become an unreasonable annoyance or nuisance to the other Owners"; or erecting "buildings or exterior additions or alterations to any building" without—for any of this stuff—explicit permission of the resident-elected board. Such private zoning has given Houston some of the country's most luxurious ghettos of wealth: River Oaks and Sharpstown, for instance, are the anarchistic land-use analogues to the plushest publicly planned Grosse Pointe, Michigan, or Scarsdale, New York. "You'll see the same type of development in Houston as in zoned cities," says Reeker, "but it isn't done by a zoning map." (No matter how it's done, observed this investigator, you still cannot find a Union 76 station or a 7-11 store when you really need one.) The theoretical dilemma that zoning purports to solve is the problem of "externalities." If you want to consume a good that has a clear owner—a cheeseburger, say—you pay the owner and wolf down the burger, and everybody involved is happy. Some resources, however, are less tangible than a burger and hence more difficult to analyze in terms of ownership. When you crank up your car tomorrow morning, you will neither calculate, nor compensate for, the airborne flotsam you churn into your neighbor's lung-space. While you pay for the double-cheese-with-onions, you use up the clean air for nothing, because nobody owns it and nobody's charging for it. This "spillover," or externality, is therefore not taken into account when you rev up the V-8. When you consume for free, you fail to "internalize" the cost you inflict on others, whereas you unfailingly remember that you should not consume the burger unless it's worth to you at least $2.19—what Burger Heaven will sell it for, to cover costs. When a proposed development does not fit its neighbors' conception of a pleasant neighborhood, zoning alleges to solve this third-party effect by allowing the adversely affected property owners redress before city authorities. Suppose, for instance, that a retirement community learns that the church next door is planning to construct a day school for boys and girls. The residents of the old-folks enclave will immediately rush to protest this assault on their neighborhood. And with all the clout the organized seniors are likely to have down at city hall, the church day school is just liable to find its land rezoned for a mortuary (something that keeps to itself while providing a neighborhood convenience). Not only is this an example of what generally takes place in a zoned locale, it demonstrates how distant from the theory of externalities is the zoning solution. The retirement community could always have purchased the church's land or purchased the church's right to build the school (that is, have paid them off—or made a heartfelt donation, rather—to entice the church to place the school elsewhere). At minimum, it could have made an issue of any bona fide spillover: traffic, noise, or stray kids (soluble by additional off-street parking, thicker walls and higher fences, and adequate supervision, respectively). But such solutions are rarely what the zoning process aims for. In St. Cloud, for example, Patty Reeker found zoning theory shipwrecked on the shoals of zoning-board reality: "My professors taught me how to lay out a city with compatible land uses; no one ever told me you'd become a politician yourself." The nitty-gritty of public zoning is assigning and reassigning, carving up and dishing out, shuffling up and dealing out…property rights. The right to build, or to have your neighboring lot left empty, is valuable to the winner and costly to the loser. And so zoning is a game of pressure, of favors, of personalities, of arbitrary awards and personal friends and bureaucratic preference—in short, a game of politics. Everyone wants a piece of the cross-subsidy cake—the one who loses pays a "tax"; the one who wins lands a subsidy—and Reeker soon found that "politicians on different boards all tried to get in on the action by expanding their jurisdiction over zoning matters." But where politicians have no jurisdiction over zoning matters—as in Houston—actual solutions to the externalities problem have blossomed and are innovatingly nursed by the profit sector. The key is the private developer, who in a town without the protection of government-imposed zoning, must cater to a wary consumer. Here, the buyer can shop for a private zoning compact, and competition among rival builders centers not on the simple task of throwing up slick stuccos and shingles but largely on the creation of nice neighborhoods. This is hardly ingenious and not the least little bit altruistic: banks won't even advance the working capital to a builder whose development lacks a set of deed restrictions. (And, as Dick Bjornseth reported in REASON in July, the unincorporated area of Harris County—the area outside of the city proper—has no government-mandated building code, but bankers are equally stingy with their loans to builders whose construction is not guided by private building standards.) As eyewitness Houston planner Reeker finds, "In this town, there is a lot of pride, and every developer has a signature. People have a cooperative spirit, and the developers all have land-use planners working for them." "If a developer does a poor job in Houston," notes city planner Gilbert, "his development is a flop." The fattest construction firms in Houston, in fact, are the ones that pave the way for the nicest neighborhoods, not the ones that grease the way for the slickest zoning variance. The commercial sector of Houston is as vibrant, expansive, and progressive a testament to American brains and brawn as this forlorn Republic can currently boast. "No one can say what Houston would look like if the city had adopted zoning and strict building regulations in the beginning," surmised local television personality and Houstonologist Ray Miller in his 1982 book, Ray Miller's Houston. "But there is a good chance that Smith Street will soon be the best-looking thoroughfare in America. Smith will be lined with mostly new and good-looking buildings for 17 blocks." And the industrial parks of tomorrow are on display today in this Texas-style Disney World: "The large energy corporations and other commercial tenants," reports Houston Living magazine, "are doing more than constructing skyscrapers in the recently vacant rice fields. Employing nationally recognized architects, the corporations are building campus-like, low-rise buildings that extend into park style acres of man-made lakes and landscaped lawns." Yet 20th-century commercialism breeds something more when mated with 18th-century political economy: state-of-the-art social planning. At once one of the most progressive and most conservative experiments in the land, Houston is leading the world in private land-use planning. The laboratory for this societal test-tube baby is the tranquil suburban office of the West Houston Association. Charles Savino directs the association, a sort of chamber of commerce bent on "keeping track of Houston from a planning standpoint." "Community planning" without the government? "Our members believe that planning makes sense for the long run because in the final analysis, they believe it's going to make more money for them," says Savino. "But zoning is too restrictive, too subject to whim. If you look at the professional planners who have worked in this city—I can't speak for all of them, but I was a director of the Houston chapter of the American Planning Association—I would guess the over-whelming majority would be against zoning." The association oversees planning and development activities in an area exceeding 100,000 acres, an area whose population has soared from 50,000 in 1972 to 200,000 in 1982. Its list of members reads like a high-class club of movers and shakers. Of about 100 backers, 60 are developers, with the remaining firms mostly banks or planning/engineering firms. The banks are especially fond of Savino and his association—they are the boys who keep the banks' turf protected (and their 30-year mortgages solvent). "Planning in Houston is different, because it's planning that makes business sense," says Savino. "Look at all the big developments here, such as West Chase, a 1,000-acre master-plan development, or Park Ten, a 550-acre master-plan development, or West Lake Park [all office-building complexes]. They will impose such stringent deed restrictions that typically will go far beyond what any kind of public planning agency would impose—sign control, setbacks, landscaping, height limitations, floor-area ratios—very, very severe restrictions." When I talked to him, Savino was musing over a local bank that was fuming about not being able to erect a big, fat sign over the premises—the development's owners said no. The economics of restrictions are clear. "They want to make sure that their development is attractive," explained Savino. "They don't want adult-book stores and tacky architecture and no landscaping and so much density that the traffic is too bad." In the jargon of the theorists, they're internalizing the externalities. But West Houston Association members go far beyond planning single, large developments. As a group, the association plans for an entire community. An example is Park Row, that privately planned and financed highway on Houston's west side. After the association had calculated that an additional four lanes would improve the west side's traffic flow, it decided that the best place for such a structure was paralleling the jammed Katy Freeway (Interstate 10). When Park Row is completed in 1985, 10 of its 12 miles will have been privately financed, with the county government kicking in the remaining two miles of roadway on privately donated land. (About eight miles of it have been laid so far.) Essentially, the West Houston Association persuaded landowners with properties adjacent to the proposed road to finance the portion of the highway fronting their property. The association acted as a conduit among landowners to coordinate the line. The investment is a good deal for the propertied interests: improved traffic flow outside adds up to increased business traffic inside, thus pushing up rents and capital values. Obviously, these guys in Houston never went to graduate school to study these kinds of solutions, because then they'd know what the experts know: they're not supposed to happen. You can't build a privately financed roadway because of the dreaded "free rider" problem. The free-rider problem goes like this: even if it is in the broad self-interest of all parties collectively to fund an enterprise—building a roadway, say—it still is not in the narrow self-interest of any one property owner to ante up, because the new highway is a nonexcludable, public good—once built, it serves all comers equally, even those who do not pay. The idea of a tax, government boosters will tell you, is to force everyone to pay his "fair share" and eliminate the profit of those who benefit but don't pay. (Of course, what is not mentioned is that this solution also forces payment from those who do not benefit—those who would choose not to accept the trade-off at its full cost. Now these paying nonbeneficiaries end up the butt of the solution. We have merely substituted one class of victims for another.) But the West Houston Association never took a Ph.D. in economic theory, so they built the road. And this is not unique. In fact, the members of the West Houston Association—and those of its half-dozen clones now popping up all over the city—make a fat living (and a fatter contribution to society) doing all manner of the theoretically impossible. When one of the city's largest developers, Gerald Hines, started to plan Westlake Park, a commercial complex sprouting three multistoried office boxes on 58 acres, nearby residents became upset as word of the development spread. But, in a city without zoning, what's a poor city planner to do? In Houston, city planners and residents alike go right up to the developer and tell him how to solve problems. The traffic snarls the neighbors feared were a source of concern to the developer, as well: his sales and rents would reflect the relative inconvenience of a poorly situated office complex. So, to make his development accessible from the major nearby thoroughfares, Hines, in consultation with the West Houston Association, built two new roads: Westlake Blvd., a four-lane road connecting the Memorial Parkway to the Katy Freeway (about one-third mile) and Grisby Road, a four-laner linking Highway 6 to Westlake Park (about one-half mile). Traffic, when the complex is complete, will be no worse for $150 million in added economic value and 4,000 to 5,000 new jobs (not to mention the generous windfalls to nearby homeowners who must suffer through significantly higher home values when all those office-building execs begin scouring local streets in search of bedrooms next to their desks). The West Houston Association has encountered free riders, like the one businessman who held out on a repaving and widening project on a 2½-mile stretch of the popular Memorial Drive. The association proposed that owners of land contiguous to the road pay for the project on the basis of square footage, but two held out. One was converted through moral suasion. The other hold-out's contribution was chipped in by an adjacent property owner whose business wanted the local road improved. The money was raised in 1981, the work contracted to the county, and, for a cost of about $1.2 million, is just now being completed. (Savino claims there is little ostracism of the lone nonpayer—his business is thought to be in great financial difficulty, and "people feel sorry for him.") For Savino's money, the most exciting aspect of the West Houston Association is the innovative nature of its solutions to problems. The traditional zoning approach is to snuff out the problem's symptoms by simply foreclosing economic growth—and opportunity. "Under zoning, the plans are arbitrary," Savino comments. "What's the difference between C-3 and C-4 [two of the many zoning categories]?" Government planners "are really trying to control the impact of development on the surrounding community," says Savino. "But they do it by controlling the use. "It's always been my approach that, if you could set some sort of criteria for the way a development performed, there would be no reason to control use. An impact could be anything from traffic, noise, dust, air pollution, or aesthetics to the burden on sewage, water, flood-control, and school facilities. So I ask a planner, 'What about an 80-story building in the middle of a residential neighborhood?' He says, 'That's horrible!' And I say, 'Well, wait a minute. What if there were no traffic coming in and out of it? Suppose there were a subway into the building so there was no added traffic in the neighborhood?' That's kind of a ridiculous example, but if it's traffic you're worried about, then traffic ought to be the thing you control—not the type of development or the height of the building." In fact, says Savino, the literature of the zoning profession now "abounds with ideas on performance zoning." So why haven't government planners changed their ways? "Because it's a very difficult thing to do. Zoning is a cop-out. We say, 'Look, Mr. Big Developer, if you want to build something here, why don't you build another thoroughfare to help move those people in?" So who's complaining? Houston's got jobs—86,800 new ones every year. Houston has home building—about 60,000 new units every year. Houston's got a robust middle-class lifestyle at a price even the middle-class can afford. And Houston's got a private sector that plans and improves and repaves and lays out. Yet all is not happy in nonzoningland. There is a grumbling in Houston. It is the steam of bumper-to-bumper anxieties brought to a boil on Houston's crowded thoroughfares in the sweltering summer Gulf Stream air. In recent polls, about two-thirds of Houstonians say they favor zoning (although polls showed the same presumption for controls before the last two referenda, as well). The undisputed reason is traffic. Kay Crooker, a homeowner activist who is a sort of closet zoning advocate, represents a wealthy neighborhood association. Ask Crooker about zoning, and she'll tell you about traffic: "My neighbors in this area have suffered from the onslaught of commercial development, and the street work is always done after the building. There is a lack of planning as far as traffic is concerned." A Texas transportation agency rates five of Houston's expressways among the six most heavily traveled in the nation, and many claim that Houston's surface streets are even worse. The Chamber of Commerce, concerned about traffic snafus, was pushing a "regional mobility plan" calling for a sales-tax-financed mass-transit rail system, which the voters bounced in June 1983 (see Trends, Sept.). The use of helicopters by time-valuing executives to sail through the less-crowded sky lanes has been highly publicized. And reference to "Texas-size traffic jams" now comes close to displacing "according to an undisclosed source" as southwestern journalists' favorite cliche. There is fact lurking behind Houston's legendary traffic—but also some puff. Random personal observation: immersed in morning and afternoon drive times downtown and around, I found that Monday morning rush was dissipated by 9:15 A.M., evening drive was light by 5:30 P.M., and no traffic approached the oppression of that in my hometown Los Angeles. Moreover, for all its "sprawlingness," Houston's congestion is contained pretty much within the "610 Loop"—a 6½-mile radius from downtown. In Los Angeles, by contrast, rush-hour motorists can enjoy the thrills of thy neighbor's bumper 50 miles from City Hall. Nonetheless, Houston's freeway system does stink. The fourth-largest city in America has only about the same limited-access-roadway mileage as San Antonio, a city half the size. Dallas-Fort Worth, with a population equal to the Houston metropolitan area (just under 3 million) and an identical land mass (2,400 square miles), has nearly twice the expressway mileage (445 to Houston's 230). Houston's unexpected explosive growth in the '60s and '70s (population up 71 percent from 1960 to 1980) explains much of the lag in the city's infrastructure development. But politics in Austin—the state capital—explains the rest. "You'll find a beautiful six-lane rural highway going nowhere to nowhere," says Savino of the lovely Texas plains. Country folks, of course, dominate the legislature. So the 62 percent of Houston residents who now say they would vote for zoning in the abstract gripe about traffic congestion on the concrete. City council member Eleanor Tinsley, who sponsored the 1982 setback ordinance, is aware of the formidable success of nonzoning in promoting the city's growth. Yet when asked about any problems created by Houston's lack of zoning, she instantly lashes into the city's traffic jams. But, asks this observer from the heavily zoned freeway parking lots of Southern California, where is the correlation? "When you don't have zoning," explains Jerry Wood, the mayor's planning aide, "all the problems you do have are blamed on not having zoning." Wood recalls one civic dispute where the city was contemplating running a dead-end street through to a major thoroughfare. "Residents were afraid of increased traffic," he says. "In the controversy, one resident pointed out that if Houston had zoning we wouldn't have this problem. But the decision was one of where to put city streets and didn't have anything to do with zoning." Successful expansion in the housing and job markets has severely challenged Houston's transportation market, and here nonzoning may be an indictable accomplice. "I guess growth creates chaos," offers city planner Kerry Gilbert. "And a significant factor in our growth is our lack of zoning. Growth creates problems. It burdens the infrastructure and traffic. But those are the good kinds of problems to have. It's better than having zero economic growth and unemployment." Moreover, given Houston's overactive-glandular growth, the city's lack of zoning has helped to alleviate traffic. "Builders and developers can react to changes in conditions in our city virtually overnight," notes Gilbert. The traffic problem grabbed the city only in the mid-'70s. Early in the decade, travel times were very swift relative to other major cities. The congestion problems descended very quickly, which is one reason why Houstonians are apt to grumble about them (sizzling summer weather is another). But the construction-market flexibility under zoning has made a bad situation manageable. "The thing that sets Houston apart from other cities is the number of office centers away from downtown," says Gilbert. "Multinucleic" is what urbanologists call this dispersion of business centers—and Houston is multinucleating like mad. Already, one suburban area known as Post Oaks-Galleria contains more office space than the entire city of San Antonio. Currently being erected there is a 65-story skyscraper—the Transco Tower—reputedly the world's largest building not located in a downtown area. Conoco is constructing a behemoth office building (1.2 million square feet) for 4,000 workers out in West Houston. And within a 15-minute drive, there are residential neighborhoods offering single-family detached homes in every price range from $40,000 to $500,000. "Houston is solving its traffic problems—we're not waiting for the government to solve the problem," claims builder Mike Marix. "We're building satellite employment centers where employees live and don't have to drive to work." Ironically, the typical zoning plan of the 1960s and '70s would have harshly segregated land uses, splitting downtown business districts from suburban residential neighborhoods. The result, a "sprawling" layout, aggravates traffic congestion and negates the time and energy efficiencies created by an "unplanned" land market. Popular impressions aside, zoning is not a solution to but a cause of metropolitan traffic problems. Yet, for those who seek to dismiss the glaring success story called Houston—as the media, by and large, have done—the problems of urban growth such as traffic offer a handy, if fundamentally irrelevant, target. In writing up a story on Houston, a journalist may choose to discuss the (public-sector) difficulties or its (private-sector) opportunities, or both. By focusing almost exclusively on the former, writers who trash Houston expose themselves: they identify with the copings of bureaucrats and the disappointments of the elite. For instance, it seems like every Northerner's commentary on this city must include the information that Houston is gauche to the max. In a major feature on Houston for the Chicago Tribune in 1980, Pulitzer Prize–winner Paul Gapp concluded that "this is a city that seems to be stuck with a mindset of municipal adolescence." On the way to this conclusion, we are treated to the news that Houston "still engages in such gaucheries as giving standing ovations to mediocre concert performances." And there's the inevitable comparison with "real class": "In New York, for example, a five-star restaurant might quietly supply you with a $1,200 bottle of Chateau Lafite Rothschild, but only if you request it of the sommelier. In Houston, such a wine is more likely to be on display in a spotlighted glass case." This reveals much more than simple pettiness and much less than simple good reporting. It reveals a preoccupation with the welfare of "adolescent" Houston's elite, the only class of individual (other than the public-sector bureaucrat) that rates much attention. But the plain fact is, public employees and rich people aren't the ones flocking to Houston: the former aren't wanted, and the latter generally resent having to put up with the nuisance of so much upward mobility. "A large percentage of Houston's population, black and white," notes urban historian Barry Kaplan of the University of Houston, "has moved to the city in the expectation of improving their economic condition. As a city built by entrepreneurs, the culture and the values of the city support the concept of unlimited economic opportunity provided by the business community." Conversely, the affluent tilt of zoning boards and public planners has long been noted. In his 1973 book, Opening Up the Suburbs, Brookings Institution housing specialist Anthony Downs detailed the great extent to which vacant residential land is zoned for lots of one- or two-acre minimum size. Moreover, Downs reported that much undeveloped suburban land is zoned only for single-family dwellings, rather than for apartments or condominiums. Such regulations severely limit the housing supply and raise prices. And to what end? "All minimum size requirements," Downs observed, "are based almost entirely upon cultural and even political considerations, not upon health or safety requirements." Noting that "all legal minimum housing standards are direct interferences with free markets," Downs concluded that they "interfere with the rights of low- and moderate-income households both to choose freely where to live and to have reasonable access to job opportunities in the most dynamic portion of the economy." In the '60s, in fact, it was common parlance for black militants to refer to suburban communities' "racist zoning" practices. Is it any wonder that in Houston's 1962 referendum on zoning, 75 percent of black voters rejected the idea, or that the measure's only solid support came from the wealthy southwest Houston precincts? "There is no doubt," writes former Houston planning director Jones, "that the accessibility to all types of housing throughout the community by low-income and minority groups has been facilitated by the city's lack of zoning." Of those who characterized last year's setback ordinance as a step forward on public zoning, Jones calmly states, "I think that's a misinterpretation entirely of the situation in Houston. In no way does the ordinance regulate the use of property. It certainly cannot be interpreted as a move towards zoning." But last year's stream of reports concerning Houston's setback ordinance has fossilized into received wisdom. "In her first year in office," Newsweek reported in August 1983, Houston mayor Kathy Whitmire "imposed order on the city's unruly development." Thus, tens of millions of "news" readers have been treated to the revelation that Houstonians are lined up (amidst heavy traffic congestion) to dump their antiquated 19th-century experiment with zero government. (Bernard Siegan, whose 1972 analysis of Houston, Land Use Without Zoning, is the classic academic treatment of the subject, reports receiving "I told you so's" from zoning proponents across the country.) It isn't Houstonians who are interested in zoning for Houston. It is reporters from elsewhere who are interested in zoning for Houston. The real story about zoning concerns the people who must live under zoning, without the protection of the critical eye of journalists and beyond the classroom outlines for "rational urban planning," "traffic control," and "community integrity." These are what zoning proponents hold out to the citizens of a city in the abstract. In the flesh, they give them only the zoning board. One man who has thought a lot about what happens in reality to folks under those zoning boards is the well-known Houston architect Howard Barnstone, designer of the Rothco Chapel and other famous buildings. "For me it's not a political issue," says the former Connecticut Yankee of the zoning controversy. "My feelings against zoning have nothing to do with rightist politics or any kind of conservative political feeling regarding the rights of cities or counties to govern. I feel that zoning is an inequitable device used to cheat poor people out of their homes or small businesses." By contrast, Barnstone describes the experience of residents displaced by a Houston downtown development called Allen Center 1, 2, 3, 4. "These are four huge, new buildings ranging up to 50 stories tall, which sit on land that just 15 years ago was covered with little white clapboard houses in which black people lived. It was a little business and residential neighborhood called Fourth Ward." "In a zoned society," recounts Barnstone in a dramatic, soft-spoken directness that is stunning, "that land would have been gathered by a Zeckendorf [a developer] who would have used state and federal statutes to get condemnation rights, and take them. What's a little cottage that sits on a 30-by-100-foot lot worth to a condemnation court—$5,000?" But residents in the unzoned Fourth Ward made many multiples of that, according to Barnstone. In a zoned city, the Allen Center developer would have begun his project with an eight-course French dinner and a midnight cruise with a council member. In Houston, the Allen Center people began by buying up houses at prices that looked good to the sellers. "There were certainly some [white speculators] who moved in, and some [residents] did sell out too early," recalls Barnstone, "but the word got around pretty quick that their property was hot and, in the end, their land was selling for appreciable amounts of money." Some of the poor landowners, Barnstone might have mentioned, decided not to sell—and so they stayed. The Antioch Baptist Church, the long-time home of the Fourth Ward's black congregation, today sits as a next-door neighbor to the Allen Center high-rises. The elders refused a sizeable offer to make way for "progress" and thereby purchased their own piece of the past. The zoning story is a familiar one to Barnstone, who places great value on the morality of the issue. He points, with horror, to the flip side of nonzoning: a recent Miami Beach development that "fizzled after nine years, after they gave a private developer the right of eminent domain to destroy all the old hotels that had been developed by poor Jewish people from New York City—small, little hotels down on the south tip of Miami Beach. The plan was to build a 2,000-room hotel, 40 stories tall, and two 500-room hotels and a convention center and all that, and just destroy this retirement matrix for very poor people—first-generation immigrants many of them, and many, also, who had run away from Hitler. And here they were being 'master planned' again—in fact, that's the term they used: 'master development.' That didn't go down so well." Against the "need" for orderly growth, for government planning, Barnstone concludes: "Putting out vast numbers of people for private developers' convenience is so vicious it borders on the criminal." The classic redevelopment scheme in nonzoned Houston is the famous Greenway Plaza. Developer Ken Schnitzer, Barnstone recalls, had to lure people out of their homes, on the site he wanted, "with cash—there was no government to take people's homes." Schnitzer offered each of the owners of 271 modest three-bedroom, two-bathroom homes—with a market value of about $18,000 apiece—a deal worth more than $40,000. Homeowners adjacent to the site petitioned Schnitzer to extend the development to include their properties, as well. "I see no reason why Schnitzer should not have paid the going rate as he did," Barnstone says. "He's built an enormous success of that thing without government extending its arm of eminent domain. And why shouldn't the person whose house he happened to have wanted, get the supply-and-demand rate? Nobody thinks there's anything wrong with Rockefeller getting it. It's just that there's something wrong with poor people getting it." Not in Houston. This massive megalopolis, plopped onto a dreary, barren, flat flood plain and pitted against the steamy shroud of the oppressive Gulf summer, flexes its "unbridled" muscles in daily defiance of pop wisdom: it works, it builds, it grows. While joblessness haunts the land and yet another congressional pork barrel—this year's "jobs bill"—extracts $4.6 billion from taxpayers for the illusion of 300,000 make-believe jobs, one city creates nearly 90,000 real ones every year. While millions of young families find themselves wallflowers in the dance of the American Dream, Houston is building three-bedroom suburban castles for under $50,000. While government planners in all the sophisticated places scurry from zoning-board meeting to commission hearing to advisory council to solve the problems springing from last year's planners, private-sector cooperation is constructing four-lane highways, downsizing homes (and mortgage payments), building parks, repaving roads, deed-restricting commercial developments and residential communities, revitalizing inner-city areas, and invigorating grass-roots neighborhood associations. Does it work? A thousand new faces show up in Houston betting their Bekins money it does—every week. The verdict on Houston is rendered by the station-wagon train arriving from New York, Cleveland, Detroit…Americans have voted with their radials their preference for "untrammeled growth." This is the long line of American pioneers that out-of-town reporters must cut in on when they come to file their dispatches on the nonzoned carnage. Houston is capitalist America's forward-most urban frontier. And this just may be its greatest burden, after all. Thomas Hazlett teaches economics at California State University at Fullerton. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Reader's Digest, and other publications. This article is a project of the Reason Foundation Investigative Journalism Fund. The Conversion of a Yankee Expert Barry Kaplan, urban historian, came to the University of Houston in 1975 as an assistant professor, bright-eyed and academic-minded. Achieving expert status in the instantaneous fashion of those who say what reporters want to hear, Kaplan quickly found a knack for quotable commentary. Visiting journalists were especially adoring. The Chicago Tribune found Kaplan titillating enough to lead off Paul Gapp's 1980 feature piece on Houston thus: You are about to get a 60-second crash course on the pros and cons of living in a city that can only be hated or loved. First, listen to Barry J. Kaplan, an urban historian at the University of Houston: "This is a city where government is a joke, the problems of poverty are incredible, and cohesion and a sense of belonging are non-existent. "It's a monument to all the values that ended everywhere else with the Depression. Herbert Hoover would have fit in well here. "This town is incredibly materialistic. All it has to offer is jobs. The public school system stinks. We're raping our land, and when we get to be an old city there won't be anything left. Houston is going to hell in a handbasket." While in Houston earlier this year, I ventured out to talk to Kaplan, to see if his quotables had changed. Now 33 years old, Kaplan moved to Texas from New York City, where he grew up, at age 25. He came to Houston, he says, "with all the traditional baggage" of "every good student" of urban history: "Zoning was good, planning was excellent, academics should run the world (because we were dispassionate and above it all), businessmen were crass—the usual." Today, Kaplan describes Houston as a "private city" that favors the "private system." "We have low taxes, a suspicion of government, and the old frontier mentality," he explains. "I'm not saying it's perfect—you can't have low taxes and expect to have an incredibly elaborate system of public services." (For this reason, Kaplan calls Houston "public-deficient.") But "to judge us only on our public sector," he contends, "is to miss the entire vitality of what makes this city work." As a concrete example of that vitality, Kaplan details some specifics of his own life as a Houston resident: "I built this house in an area I picked, with a park over there, an area where there is no way someone is going to put a Taco Bell on this street. We have deed restrictions. "This house was an incredible buy. I couldn't afford anything like it any place else in the country. My wife flew for Braniff for 14 years. She's now retraining at the University of Houston to be an accountant, because of the job opportunities in this city. "We drop our little boy off at a day-care center—we have three at the entrance to this subdivision. Why are they here? Because this is a very young area. Private service is excellent." Of one highly visible group providing private planning and development services—the West Houston Association—Kaplan says: "When we talk about planning we always assume that the public sector is going to do it. How would Californians react if they were told that planning in Houston is done by private developers in cooperation with the public sector?" Houston's developers "are paying for roads, for public improvements. Why?" asks Kaplan rhetorically. "Because they're nice guys? No. Only because they're going to improve the value of their land." Kaplan has come to appreciate the flexibility that private planning allows: "Houston has pioneered the multiple-land-use concept, where you have shopping facilities, office complexes, retail, wholesale—all in the same area. You can't do that with zoning. Articles claiming zoning is coming to Houston demonstrate a lack of knowledge about the city. If zoning were to come to a referendum today, I'd vote against it." It is the issue of zoning that Kaplan offers up as the "best example" of his intellectual "metamorphosis." "People asked me," Kaplan recalls, "'Why don't we have zoning? You're the expert.' I didn't know. I did a study to see. I came in saying zoning is good. I came out saying I don't think zoning would fit this city. I've changed." Indeed. "I've become a Houstonian," Kaplan now declares. "I'm proud of this city. I'm aware of its deficiencies. But like anybody else, I don't like a person coming down here just to do a knock job. If you come down to write about this city, say it like it is: this is a growing city, a positive city. We have our problems. But if I had a chance to move back to New York City, I wouldn't—you'd have to be crazy." This article originally appeared in print under the headline "They Built Their Own Highway…".

Places to visit in three days in Rome Of course, we’ve had to leave out a lot of great spots in the city in order to keep things brief – if you really want to know Rome you’ll just need to move here. However, this is a good start if you’re short on time… Day One: Historic Centre tart your day in the historic centre, where you can wander down cobblestone alleyways, through romantic piazzas, shop, eat and take in the heart of the city all on foot. Let’s start at Metro stop Spagna. You walk out and you’re in Piazza di Spagna, often referred to as the Spanish Steps. Head to the right up Via del Babuino towards Piazza del Popolo. Stop for a caffe’ at the famous cafe/bar Canova, where you can people-watch in the seats facing the piazza or pay less and drink your coffee at the bar Italian-style. From here wander up the path that winds from Piazza del Popolo to the lookout in Rome’s most beautiful park Villa Borghese. This spot is called Pincio and allows a panoramic view over the entire city. You can stroll through the gardens to the lake where you can hire a rowboat or to the opulent Galleria Borghese, for classic art in a breathtaking palazzo. But if your time is limited, head back down to Piazza del Popolo. You might be hungry at this point. Walking back down Via del Babuino, turn left down a little side street called Via Margutta. At number 1 you will find Babette (06.3211559), where you can enjoy a delicious but gourmet buffet either inside or out in their courtyard in amongst chic locals and stylish visitors from the nearby Hotel de Russie. Don’t forget to try their secret recipe ‘Torta di Babette’ – this lighter version of cheesecake made with ricotta is scrumptious. After a lazy lunch wander down the length of Via Margutta and you’ll find one of the prettiest streets in Rome, filled with art galleries and a serenity that contrasts with the rush of people in nearby Piazza di Spagna. Head down the luxurious Via dei Condotti for some mandatory window-shopping until you see the grand Fendi store. Take a left here and you’ll be on your way to the Trevi Fountain. If you’re not keen on mass tourists or you’ve seen the famous ‘Dolce Vita Fountain’ before, in this same direction at the end of Via del Corso is the magnificent Palazzo Doria Pamphilij. This privately owned palace hosts one of the most incredible collections of art and sculptures in Rome. Aside from the art, it is worth the entrance fee, just to enter this palazzo and see how Roman aristocracy lived once upon a time. From here you can head back up Via del Corso, cross the elegant Piazza San Lorenzo in Lucina(stop for an expensive coffee at the cafe/bar Ciampini if you want to gaze at some truly elegant men and women of Rome) and up Via Campo Marzio on your way to what I believe is the best monument in Rome (and also without entrance fee or queues): the awe-inspiring Pantheon in Piazza della Rotonda. To take the beauty overload even further, from here cross to Piazza Navona, with its spectacular fountains and atmosphere; however, eating in this piazza is strictly for tourists. Slip down the little alleyway near Caffe Bernini and wind your way through to Via dei Coronari. Here you will find what I believe to be the best gelateria in Rome: Gelateria del Teatro. Rest your feet a while in this picturesque setting while licking white chocolate and basil or fig, ricotta and almond gelato. You might be ready for an aperitivo. Head back down Via dei Coronari taking a left on Via della Vetrina and following it through to the bar loved by locals and foreigners: Bar/Caffè della Pace. If you’re lucky, you can enjoy an aperitif at one of the tables outside. After this, it’s just a one-minute walk to either Da Francesco in Piazza del Fico (06.6864009)or Il Corallo around the corner in Via del Corallo (06.68307703), where you can find great Roman pasta dishes and pizza. After dinner the bar Bar del Fico in the square Piazza del Fico is always great for drinking and socialising, although it only attracts a local crowd well after midnight. Day Two: Vatican-Trastevere tart your day nice and early and take in the world-famous Vatican City. Tour companies like What a Life Tours (www.whatalifetours.com) give you exclusive access and start one hour before the general public. See the Vatican Museums, the Sistine Chapel and St Peter’s and after all that art and majesty, you’ll be out just in time for lunch. Walk into the charming Borgo Pio and head over to the little cafe Antichi Sapori in Piazza delle Vaschette for a cheap and cheerful bite to eat. After lunch, catch a bus or taxi to Trastevere and spend the afternoon getting lost in its rambling laneways, perhaps indulging in yet another gelato in the main square of Piazza di Santa Maria in Trastevere. Around sunset you can head up to the nearby bar Freni e Frizioni on Via del Politeama for a great aperitif, including a generous buffet. After which, just around the corner in Piazza della Malva, you can devour a plate of traditional carbonara at Ristorante Zi’ Mberto (06.5816646). Day Three: Monti-Testaccio tart your morning in the cool and charactertistic neighborhood of Monti (Metro Cavour). Have breakfast or morning tea out at the Antico Forno ai Serpenti on the corner of Via dei Serpenti and Via Panisperna, a bakery filled with delicious pastries and sweets. Take a stroll around this quaint but trendy quarter and pick up some vintage finds and pick up a piece of pizza or a panino-to-go from one of the little pizzerie al taglio (pizza by the slice) before heading to a tour of the Colosseum, just down the road. You may want to visit the Imperial Forums while you’re in this area. And just a bit further on, in Piazza Venezia, it’s worth venturing up to Il Vittoriano, or the big white wedding cake monument, for the frescoes, the views of the city and the sheer grandeur of the building. From here it’s just a short walk down to the Jewish Ghetto, which is filled with old palazzi and the cute little square Piazza Mattei with its famous turtle fountain. Jump in a taxi from here and for about €10 you can get to Testaccio, the working class neighborhood with some rustic spots for serious foodies. Try Pecorino on Via Galvani 64 (06.57250539) or Fraschetta di Mastro Giorgio on Via Mastro Giorgio 19 (06.5741369).

(JTA) — A New York City Corrections Department official and a prison chaplain have resigned in the wake of a lavish bar mitzvah held in prison. The department’s bureau chief for facility operations, Peter Curcio, who allegedly approved the bar mitzvah for inmate Tuvia Stern’s son, submitted his resignation Monday, The New York Times reported. Curcio told the New York Post Tuesday, the day after his resignation, that head chaplain Imam Umar Abdul-Jalil signed off on the bar mitzvah. On Tuesday, Rabbi Leib Glanz, a chaplain for city jails who arranged the bar mitzvah, also resigned over the scandal, the New York Post reported. Glanz was in the middle of a two-week suspension over the scandal when he announced his resignation. New York City’s Department of Investigation is working to ascertain whether the rabbi misused his position as prison chaplain to arrange the bar mitzvah, The New York Times reported. Glanz is a prominent member of the Satmar Chasidic community who has ties to law enforcement and city and state political figures, according to the Times. The catered event for 60 non-prisoners, including several prominent rabbis, was held Dec. 30 and included a band, china and a performance by Orthodox Jewish singer Yaakov Shwekey.

New York City Hop-on Hop-off Tour, Shopping and Top of the Rock - Perfect introduction for first-time visitors - See the sights illuminated at night - Multiple departure times and locations available - Ideal choice for families - Travel by boat and see the sights from the water - Receive discounts at selected restaurants, shops and attractions Uptown Tour: Views of Fifth Avenue, Museum Mile, Lincoln Center, Time Warner Center, Central Park, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Guggenheim, Museum of Modern Art and Harlem Market. Brooklyn Tour: Drive through trendy and historic neighborhoods with views of the Brooklyn Bridge. Pass the oasis of calm at Prospect Park, see stately mansions plus the grand arches at Grand Army Plaza. Night Tour: Enjoy breathtaking views of the glittering Manhattan skyline and the Brooklyn Bridge lit against the night sky. Also make a stop at historic Fulton Ferry. Hop-on Hop-off Ferry: Enjoy a day of hop-on hop-off privileges aboard a harbor ferry. Frequent departures from 10am to 3pm, this convenient ferry has three stops at World Financial District, Pier 11 and Dumbo. Museum of the City of New York:The museum is dedicated to fostering an understanding of New York's evolution from its humble origins to one of the world's greatest cities. Woodbury Common Shopping Tour: Visit and shop at the world-famous Woodbury Common Premium Outlets. You'll experience the ultimate shopping experience with over 200 designer and brand-name outlet stores offering savings of 25% to 65% everyday from leading designers and name brands including Burberry, Chanel, Coach, Dolce & Gabbana, Fendi, J.Crew, Giorgio Armani, Gucci, Lacoste, Nike, Prada, Polo Ralph Lauren, and more. Top of the Rock: Take in unobstructed 360 degrees view of New York City from the 70th floor, the breathtaking landscape stretches for miles in every direction. Top of the Rock includes a panoramic view of Central Park and the northern half of Manhattan that cannot be found anywhere else in New York City. Recent Photos of this Tour Select a month to view a calendar of availability and departure details. - Downtown Tour: Departs daily every 10 to 15 minutes from 8am to 5pm - Uptown Tour: Departs daily from 8:30am to 4:30pm - Brooklyn Tour: Departs daily every hour from 10:30am to 3pm - Night Tour: Departs daily from 6pm to 9pm - Hop-on Hop-off Ferry: 10am to 3pm - Museum of the City of New York: Opens Tuesday to Sunday from 10am to 5pm - Top of the Rock Observation Deck: Opens daily from 8am to midnight - Woodbury Common Shopping Day Trip: Departs daily from Port Authority Bus Terminal at 8:30am, 9:15am, 10am, 11:30am, and 12:45pm. Return trips from Woodbury Commons are at 4:10pm, 4:45pm, 5:21pm, 5:45pm, 6:15pm, 6:58pm, 8:16pm and 9:26 pm All services end at 3pm on: - December 31 Click the link below to check pricing & availability on your preferred travel date. Our pricing is constantly updated to ensure you always receive the lowest price possible. New York City Hop-on Hop-off Tour - Ticket to Top of the Rock Observation Deck - Hop-on hop-off tour - Woodbury Common Shopping Day Trip - Visit to Museum of the City of New York - Night Tour - Hop-on Hop-off Ferry - Brooklyn Tour - Gratuities (optional) - Hotel pickup and drop-off - Confirmation will be received at time of booking - Not wheelchair accessible - Infants 2 years and under are free - Theater District: 8th Ave - 49th and 50th St - Carnegie Hall 7th Ave - 56th and 57th St - NYC and Company Visitor Center - 7th Ave and 51th St - Times Square - 7th Ave between 46th and 47th St - Times Square - 7th Ave between 41st and 42nd St - Macy's 34th St - 7th and 8th Ave - Empire State Building - 34th between 5th and 6th Ave - Flatiron District - 5th Ave between 22nd and 23rd St - Union Square/Ladies Mile - 14th St between 5th and 6th Ave - Greenwich Village 2 - Bleecker St between Carmine St and 6th Ave S. - SoHo - Broadway between Spring and Broome - StreetChinatown/Little Italy - Broadway between Lispenard and Walker St - St Paul's Chapel - Broadway between Vesey and Fulton St - Battery Park/Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island Ferry - Bridge and Pearl St Exchange - South Street Seaport - South and Fulton St - Lower East Side/Chinatown - Pike St between Madison and Henry St - East Village - 1st Ave between St Marks Place and 9th St - Kip's Bay - 1st Ave between 34th and 35th St - United Nations - 1st Ave between 44th and 45th St - Waldorf Astoria Hotel - 49th St between Lexington and Park Ave - Rockefeller Center - 49th St between 5th and 6th Ave - Times Square - 49th St between 7th Ave and Broadway - Plaza Hotel/Central Park - Central Park South between 5th and 6th Ave - Columbus Circle/Time Warner Center - NYC and Company Visitors Info Center - 7th Ave between 52nd and 53rd St - Midtown Manhattan - Broadway between 49th -50th St - Times Square South- 8th Ave between 42nd -43rd St - Theatre District South - 8th Ave between 45th and 46th St - Theatre District North - 8th Ave between 49th and 50th St - Lincoln Center - Broadway and West 63rd St - Central Park/Strawberry Fields - Central Park West and 72nd St - American Museum of Natural History - Cathedral of St John the Divine - Amsterdam Ave and 112th St - Apollo Theatre/Harlem - 125th St between Frederick Douglass and Adam Clayton Powell Jr Blvd - Big Apple Jazz Center - Adam Clayton Powell Jr Blvd between 131st and132nd St - Schomburg Center - Lenox Ave (Malcom X Blvd ) & 135th st - Harlem Market/ Shopping - 116th St between Malcolm X Blvd and 5th Ave - Museum of the City of NY/Conservatory Gardens/El Museo del Barrio - 5th Ave 103rd St - Guggenheim and Jewish Museums - 5th and 90th St - Metropolitan Museum of Art - 5th Ave and 83rd St - Frick Collection/Whitney Museum/Central Park - 5th Ave and 72nd St - Central Park Zoo - 5th Ave and 66th St This double decker bus tour of Brooklyn takes you through trendy and historic neighborhoods offering you unforgettable views of the famous Brooklyn Bridge along the way. Pass the wonderful oasis of calm within the chaotic city, Prospect Park, and see stately mansions as well as one of the first vehicular parkways built in the US with its triumphant entrance way - the grandest of arches at Grand Army Plaza. Brooklyn is not just about monuments and museums, it is a borough of people from all walks of life. See the diversity of America's first suburb as the you become acquainted with the place one in seven Americans can find a connection to. This is a continuous tour, no stops are made. New York's only double-decker night tour where you stop at the historic Brooklyn Fulton Ferry Landing for a photo opportunity and breathtaking views of the glittering necklace of the Manhattan Skyline. Enjoy nighttime views and ambiance of Times Square, Empire State Building, Greenwich Village, SoHo, Manhattan Bridge, Brooklyn Bridge and Lower East Side. Hop-on hop-off Ferry: Enjoy a day of hop-on hop-off privileges aboard a harbor ferry. Frequent departures from 10am to 3pm, this convenient ferry has three stops at World Financial District, Pier 11 and Dumbo. From the World Financial Center stop, find easy access to numerous attractions including Wall Street, Brookfield Place, Museum of Jewish Heritage and the 9/11 Memorial and Museum (not included). At Pier 11, explore Lower Manhattan's waterfront including South Street Seaport and the Vietnam Veterans Plaza. From down under Manhattan Bridge Overpass, more commonly known as DUMBO, stroll along the Brooklyn Heights Promenade with its spectacular views of Manhattan, take a ride on on an antique carousel in the Brooklyn Bridge Park (not included) or dine at one of the area's delicious dining options such as The River Café or Grimaldi's. Museum of the City of New York: The Museum of the City of New York embraces the past, present and future of New York City and celebrates the city's cultural diversity. It does so through its rich collections, a lively schedule of exhibitions and an array of programs for adults and children. The Museum is dedicated to fostering an understanding of New York 's evolution from its origins as a settlement of a few hundred Europeans, Africans and Native Americans to its present status as one of the world's largest and most important cities. Top of the Rock Observation Deck: Is your New York bold? Is it brilliant? Is it tranquil? Is it peaceful? Discover New York in all its forms from 70 stories up at Top of the Rock Observation Deck. Dazzling multimedia history exhibits are a feast for the eyes and stimulate the minds of all ages. And then there's the view: the city's only crystal-clear, 360 experience of your New York. Woodbury Common Shopping Day Trip: Enjoy the thrill and excitement of finding the world's finest designer labels for less at Woodbury Common Premium Outlet. Enjoy a distinctively upscale shopping experience while saving 25% to 65% every day. Make sure to visit all 220 designer and name brand outlet stores, where you will find impressive savings on Coach, Dolce and Gabbana, Escada, Fendi, Gap Outlet, Giorgio Armani, Gucci, Neiman Marcus Last Call, Saks 5th Avenue - Off 5th, Polo Ralph Lauren, Tod's, and Versace, just to name a few. If you cancel between 3 and 6 day(s) in advance of the scheduled departure, there is a 50 percent cancellation fee. If you cancel within 2 day(s) of the scheduled departure, there is a 100 percent cancellation fee. Reviewed by: vwms217, June 2016 Reviewed by: Janet C, January 2016 A must for everyone visiting NYC

Safety Evaluation of Inhaled Treprostinil Administration Following Transition From Inhaled Ventavis in Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (PAH) Subjects This is a 24-month, multi-center, prospective, open-label, safety evaluation in PAH subjects following transition from a stable dose of inhaled iloprost (Ventavis). Subjects are to be evaluated for safety throughout the course of the study while secondary assessments will be conducted at Baseline, Week 6, Week 12, and Months 6, 12, 18 and 24 following initiation of treprostinil sodium. |Study Design:||Allocation: Non-Randomized Intervention Model: Single Group Assignment Masking: None (Open Label) Primary Purpose: Treatment |Official Title:||An Open Label, Multi-center Study Evaluating the Safety of Long-term Inhaled Treprostinil Administration Following Transition From Inhaled Ventavis® (Iloprost) in Subjects With Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension.| - Number of Adverse Events [ Time Frame: up to 24 months ]Overall safety of transitioning from inhaled iloprost to inhaled treprostinil was assessed by type and frequency of adverse events. - Six-minute Walk Distance (6MWD) [ Time Frame: Baseline and 12 weeks ]Change in 6MWD from Baseline to Week 12. The 6-minute walk test (6MWT) was conducted at Baseline (10-30 minutes following the last dose of inhaled iloprost) and at Week 12 (10-60 minutes following the dose of inhaled treprostinil). The change in distance (meters) between Baseline and Week 12 is reported below. - Quality of Life (QoL) Assessment: Cambridge Pulmonary Hypertension Outcome Review (CAMPHOR) [ Time Frame: Baseline and 12 weeks ]Change in CAMPHOR Scores from Baseline to Week 12. The CAMPHOR is a health related quality of life instrument validated for pulmonary hypertension that assesses impairment (symptoms), disability (activities) and quality of life. The questionnaire is divided into three sections; Symptoms (Scores 0-25; high scores indicate more symptoms), Activity (Score 0-30; low score indicates good functioning)and Quality of Life (0-25; high scores indicate poor QoL). The sum of these scores equates to the Total score (0-80). In the CAMPHOR scores, lower scores indicate improvements. - Treatment Satisfaction Questionnaire of Medication (TSQM) [ Time Frame: Baseline and 12 weeks ]Change in TSQM score from Baseline to Week 12. The TSQM is a validated instrument (Health and Quality of Life Outcomes 2004, 2:12) that measures major dimensions of patient satisfaction with medications. The questionnaire is comprised of 15 questions which fall into one of four categories; Effectiveness, Side-Effects, Convenience, and Global Satisfaction. Responses are scaled on a seven point bipolar scale from 'Extremely Satisfied' to 'Extremely Dissatisfied' where higher scores indicate improvements (total scores from 0-100). The questionnaire was completed at Baseline and Week 12. The Baseline questionnaire focused on the subject's satisfaction with inhaled iloprost treatment, while the questionnaire completed at Week 12 focused on the subject's satisfaction with inhaled treprostinil. - Patient Impression of Change [ Time Frame: Baseline and 12 weeks ]The patient impression of change (PIC) was three single therapy-related questions related to the subjects overall impression of the transition from inhaled iloprost to inhaled treprostinil. Subjects were surveyed related to their overall impression of the transition from inhaled iloprost to inhaled treprostinil at Week 12. - N-terminal Prohormone of Brain Natriuretic Peptide (NT-proBNP) [ Time Frame: Baseline and Week 12 ]Change in NTpro-BNP from Baseline to Week 12. Blood samples were collected for plasma NTpro-BNP analysis during the study. - World Health Organization (WHO) Functional Class [ Time Frame: Baseline and 12 Weeks ]Change in WHO Functional Class (FC) from Baseline to Week 12. Data presented as percent of subjects who either improved FC, worsened FC, or had no change in FC from Baseline to Week 12. - Drug Administration Activities Questionnaire [ Time Frame: Baseline and 12 weeks ]Change in tasks from Baseline to Week 12. At Baseline and Week 12, subjects provided information related to the daily administration and time requirements of inhaled iloprost (Baseline) and inhaled treprostinil (Week 12). |Study Start Date:||September 2008| |Study Completion Date:||December 2010| |Primary Completion Date:||March 2010 (Final data collection date for primary outcome measure)| Experimental: Inhaled treprostinil Solution for oral inhalation treprostinil (0.6 mg/mL). Inhaled via an ultrasonic nebulizer which provides a dose of 6mcg of treprostinil per breath. Doses are titrated up to 12 breaths four times daily. Drug: Inhaled treprostinil Other Name: Tyvaso Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT00741819 |United States, Alabama| |University of Alabama Birmingham| |Birmingham, Alabama, United States, 35294| |United States, California| |UCSD Medical Center| |La Jolla, California, United States, 82037| |Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center| |Los Angeles, California, United States, 90095| |United States, Kansas| |Kansas University Medical Center| |Kansas City, Kansas, United States, 66160| |United States, New York| |Long Island Jewish Medical Center - North Shore| |New Hyde Park, New York, United States, 11040| |Beth Israel Medical Center| |New York City, New York, United States, 10003-3314| |Cornell University Medical Center| |New York City, New York, United States, 10021| |Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center| |New York, New York, United States, 10032| |Mary M. Parkes Center for Asthma, Allergy and Pulmonary Care| |Rochester, New York, United States, 14623| |United States, North Carolina| |Duke University Medical Center| |Durham, North Carolina, United States, 27710| |United States, Ohio| |Ohio State University Medical Center| |Columbus, Ohio, United States, 43210| |United States, Pennsylvania| |Allegheny General Hospital| |Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, 15212| |University of Pittsburg Medical Center| |Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, 15213| |United States, Tennessee| |Vanderbilt University Medical Center| |Nashville, Tennessee, United States, 37232| |United States, Texas| |Baylor College of Medicine| |Houston, Texas, United States, 77030|

We noticed that you're using an unsupported browser. The TripAdvisor website may not display properly.We support the following browsers: Windows: Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome. Mac: Safari. We staying in this hotel for 6 nights in October. A very nice hotel, for sleeping and taking a shower. The room was small, shower was quite big, Wi-Fi was ok. We didn't eat breakfast in the hotel so I can not tell you about...More my husband and i were introduced to this cute hotel by my cousin. we have stayed here a couple of times with our family as well as just a couple. rooms are a good size, clean and comfortable. prices are extremely reasonable. great location -...More I like the welcome at Hotel Printania Temple. The staff is friendly, all of them, from the front desk to the cleaning ladies. I felt at home here. The place is nothing fancy, but it is very comfortable. The rooms are clean, quiet, good shower,...More Location is perfect. There is a metro station almost in front of the hotel. Rooms are clean, heating is working well. Hotel management is very warm, sympathetic, we dont forget them. There are large rooms overlooking the courtyard. There are room types to suit everyone....More The Marais is a winding maze of multi-faceted streets that beg to be explored. It bursts with small boutiques, historic buildings, cozy traditional restaurants, and hidden parks. Around each corner, you'll come across little gems of architecture spanning the centuries, from understated medieval towers to classical libraries and 17th century splendour. This neighbourhood unites a rich mix of people of all ages, but it's best known for the gay scene mostly in the south and the Jewish community around Rue des Rosiers.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010 Tax Deduction For Holders of Nazi-Looted Art Who Return It? Derek Fincham's Illicit Cultural Property blog has a link herehttp://illicit-cultural-property.blogspot.com/2010/05/student-note-on-nazi-era-claims-and.html to a student article with a proposal that sounds like a great idea to bring all of those holders of stolen art out of hiding. Getting private collectors to do the right thing might help U.S. museums to start returning stolen artworks to the Jewish families from whom they were stolen and help to bring a lot of stolen art back into public, legitimate circulation. Right now, these litigations are unfortunately a "winner-take-all" situation. Having a tax credit through a 501(c)(3) like IFAR would make it a win-win. Labels: 501(c)(3) tax credit, art law, art litigation, IFAR, illicit cultural property blog, nazi art looting, stolen art Partner in Manhattan law firm Dunnington Bartholow & Miller LLP in New York City litigating in federal and state courts and arbitrations. Experienced trial and appellate practitioner. Author: Copyright Litigation Handbook (Thomson Reuters 2015-2016). The New York Law Journal called it "an indispensable guide". Serve on the Board of Directors of the Federal Bar Association, served as Chair of the Circuit Vice Presidents, Vice President for the Second Circuit and General Counsel. Member Board of Governors, National Arts Club. President, Network of Bar Leaders (2013-2014). Attorney advertising disclaimer - prior results do not guarantee success. The statements and opinions voiced here are my own and not of my law firm.

We Need a Way to Grow, Here's How! Part II here....part III, here...Well goyim, I have had a strategy for the last year or so, of exposing what is apparently co-opted behavior by leaders in the Jew-wise resistance. What I have found is that most within the community understand there is a problem but only wish to confront the problems in adjacent areas and never their own. It's that ole political saying where when you ask people if the congress is corrupt, everyone agrees but that answer changes drastically when they are asked if THEIR Congressman is corrupt (of course not!). Well, I have found this exact same mindset within our movement. People consider it negative if an infiltration story charging personalities they know within their confines is published. A couple of months ago, I signed on with Rebel of Oz to publish as a "guest writer". When we talked about the fact much of my writings concerned troublesome behavior close to home, Rebel said that he was always suspicious of people that do that and it makes him think they are ops, themselves. He then went on to say Gordon Duff, Alex Jones Adam Kokesh etc, were all fair game. In other words, expose evil outside my gates but leave my neighborhood alone. This relationship lasted a week. Slightly updated on 9/8/17 by Blindlight In protocols 12-8 through 12, it talks about infiltrating every apparent sphere of dissent. It also states that any sphere unpenetrated will be ignored, demonized or criminalized while getting no voice in their media. I submit, contrary to bubblegum, red pill notions, this "truth" movement has been infiltrated in every nook and cranny of THE RESISTANCE. Would an intelligent, authentic resistance create silly flame wars, invent reasons why people can't interact because of ideology variations, stay chronically stagnant for years? One of the classic examples is that of Frank Collin: "June 25, 1978: Frank “Collin” the Heartless Nazi Monster leads his “Nazi march” on its alternate route through Chicago. During preceding weeks “Collin” achieved national notoriety with his outrageous original plan to march through the suburb of Skokie, the largest community of “Holocaust survivors” on earth. His “right to march” is championed by Jewish attorney and purported “civil liberties advocate” Alan Dershowitz. “Collin’s” real family name: Cohen. He’s Jewish. His father is a “Holocaust survivor.” His “Fuhrer” career is destroyed when this comes to light, but most Americans are none the wiser, so three years later “Frank ‘Collin’ the Nazi Monster” and his march become the subject of a nationwide made-for-television slobber-fest titled Skokie, one of many such propaganda bombs during these years. The original was NBC’s eight-hour miniseries Holocaust, a tele-orgy of fake “history” that aired two months before Collin’s march. The whole Skokie affair thus proves instrumental in catapulting Holocaust Guilt into mainstream American consciousness right when the Jewish psy-war on America is shifting gears in exactly this direction, thus Dershowitz’s real interest." ***It should have been a warning having the Jew, Dershowitz, defending a Nazi, a Jew with a proven track record of never defending anything not in Jewish interests and pulling any conceivable stunt to promote it. Hey Goy, a Nazi introduced the "Holocaust Hysteria" endoctrination, ongoing, ever since. There's a reason that Jews did not push the Holocaust before the '70s, that Eisenhower, a Jew, never mentioned them in his memoirs as neither did Churchill. Too many people knew the truth, that there was no holocaust. Thirty years later, many of them were gone or didn't have a dog in the fight. So we get a Covert Jew neo-nazi, leading stupid goyim racists into a battle that was all about a Jew win. Well, let's don't just shoot one foot, let's shoot both! The latest theatrics, though the media is selling this as a troubled young Jewish troll, is the Joshua Goldberg case, a guy who masqueraded as an extremist Jew, Muslim radical and a white nationalist who wanted to kill all non-whites. He was so good, he penetrated Andrew Anglin's site and became a prolific writer for Stormer for three months till his antics became an issue. Not a big enough issue for Anglin to raise community awareness about, apparently, but big enough to try and remove any evidence Slay (his WN alias) had posted with Stormer. Sometimes, it feels like this atmosphere of hostility is present between Goy while the Jew looks on in merriment from Vince McMahon's booth, high up in the stands, laughing and placing bets on likely winners! First thing I'd like to say about that is that Joshua Goldberg became invisible almost as soon as he left public school while being home schooled by Orthodox Jewish parents at 13 years of age or so. Other than Goldberg's "confession" there is no physical proof that Goldberg, himself, did everything linked to him. No proof. Assuming that all the action came from his IP address and that does not preclude a team of some sort working together with him on this. I am just putting this out there as something that can't be ruled out. Either way, we had a Jewish infiltration and goy disruption op ongoing in obvious service to a JWO agenda and many gullible goy @stormer as well as the public at large including Andrew Anglin fooled. (Hey Goy, there is a reason only two pics of Goldberg are on the internet and one blocking most of his face! He is going to blend in somewhere else to do more damage. Now we not only have the havoc caused on the internet but proof on record that more internet laws need enacting to handle this new trolling menace in our midst. Add to this the non-heard voices in protest from the alternative media while the corporate media puts the most innocent face possible on this caper and we have what looks to be a guy, born with Jewish privilege, fading away to black, "Nothing to see here, just mailbox bashing that included some 'staged event' acting with Rita Katz", Lol! Well, Jews probably control 80% of the "red pill" district media (means it's FAKE RED PILL) where undercover ops posing as info disseminators for enlightenment are getting calls to back off the story and misdirect. No problem. Remember Sandy Hook, lol, where the orchestration was so blatant many saw through it and still didn't get we were being psyoped! Oh, trusting goy, they be playin ya so bad! ) Slay implicated Stormer as extremist hate site with this calling card of his on Sept. 3, 2015 It's exactly these kinds of easy penetrations into our fabric, in this case, the CI-WN community but all have been penetrated, that helped me to claim that the Zander Fuerza incident in February, 2013 was a psyop. Zander-Brandon! We need to talk so I can get you off my op list! ***Before I go on with this psyop summary, let me say that there are several possibilities to contemplate as far as who knew what, when and how. Both primary actors could be in on the caper, one could be and the other an unwitting accomplice, both could be unwitting accomplices tricked in some fashion or the last possibility, it happened exactly as claimed and believed by almost all at the time. I am about to focus on Brandon Martinez's credibility here because he is pretty uninvolved with my contemplations being put forth in this article, and circumstantially, there are big problems with his behavior. That said, let's get to it.*** Fuerza adopted, as did Michael Slay, AKA Joshua Goldberg in his way, appropriate language that would endear himself to his target audience through an extremely Jew focused mindset. What never made sense, prior to that Delaney feud, was that a non-separatist like Zander would allow his site to be taken over by non-white haters and yes, much of the language in comments on that site was pure hate towards other goy races. It does however make sense when you realize it's a psyop and proven by Fuerza's immediate disassociation with Hitler afterward and with a watering down of "Jew-calling out" as well. The proper associations made for the public psyche that "Hitler worship" and bold Jew outing is a Neo-Nazi affliction and with the damage done or sold, a "DISAPPEARING" Zander and an "APPEARING" Brandon Martinez magically happened, simultaneously. Just as luck would have it, Zander-Brandon had several job offers, one being as an analyst for "Press TV". Good timing eh? Press TV would not tolerate Hitler talk or bold Jew outing the way Brandon's previous MK alter was manifesting. Clearly Brandon had become the "kinder and gentler" version of Zander Fuerza. By the way, months after this transition, the ADL did a spread on Brandon totally ignoring, inexplicably, his four years as a Jew hating gentile named Zander. This only makes sense if Zander is "controlled opposition" and the ADL was advertizing the Brandon they wished to share. By the way, all this fighting occurred at the peak of Fuerza's popularity, coincidence or design? Are we really that fucking stupid? It's a fact that ZCF was a no-show on his website a full month before the supposed fight. It's a fact that Delaney released the name Brandon but not the name Martinez. Why not Martinez, too? It's a fact that Brandon later thanked Delaney for all he'd done for him as Brandon, this while using always Brandon Martinez as his pen name elsewhere. It's a fact he praised Ryan Dawson as one of his greatest influences as "Brandon" while always using his full name elsewhere. This after calling him a myriad of unprintable names writing a year earlier at ZCF. It's also a fact that Brandon is now attacking Dawson again, as Brandon Martinez. It's a fact that Joshua Blakenly was pure communist scum to Zander Fuerza and it's also a fact that Brandon Martinez's partner at "Non-Aligned" media is Joshua Blakenly, prior animosities never broached or acknowledged. I t's a fact that Brandon Martinez's bios mentions not a word of his previous four years as Zander Fuerza. Because of all that, all of us and I was one, bought into a February, 2013, food fight, WWE cage match with Mike Delaney in which Vince McMahon won because we, the stupid goy, totally bought it......Finally, it is a fact that the whole left and right Hitlerian community of information disseminators are engaged in an enabling cover-up to keep Brandon's previous life hidden and I don't understand why (Yes, I know he's outed in Metapedia! A side note, Metapedia is a creation of Daniel Friberg, a Jew masquerading as a New Right leader by Richard Spencer's site. I think that allows us to assume that Metapedia will cover for limited hang-outs and further backs up the reality that our resistance is run or closely monitored by the "Deep State"). I stay on Zander-Brandon's case cause I think he has some 'splainin ta do I say all this, and I could go into the AFP-Spingola psyop of the Sandy Hook hoaxers, to clearly state we have people influencing our focus that don't have our best interests at heart. Be that as it may, I have become convinced that simply outing folks is going nowhere and I agree, I have been unable to show beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are infiltrators but only that they appear to be infiltrators. So now I am going with plan "B" and lowering my emphasis on exposing infiltrators. Don't get me wrong, as long as goyim allow pleasant agreeable words to influence their judgement skills we are destined to continue to be dupes but then on the other hand, there are other ways to expose folks. This is my new effort, to combine building a real resistance movement that goes beyond cult status and little niche groups, to a huge, humongous whole that also takes into consideration the evolution of the various factions and provides a structure where people who disagree over less important matters, can agree on the primary cause of our dilemma, Jewish supremacism and the reality of that supremacism dominating the power structure, covertly and through lying, intimidation and unity of purpose against all non-Jews. The Pyramid of our power! Ok, ya'll. This pyramid is made of Jew awareness and the further up the pyramid you go, the more all the "bailing water issues", immigration, scapegoating races, false flags, gun control, hate crime legislation, white demonizing, all get swallowed up by "the Deep State"!!!!! Therefore the top of the pyramid is an all encompassing "JEW-WISE-NESS" where all life's problems, it is clearly seen, are damned and constrained in a big Jew, scummy lake! In theory, a group would form here comprised of all those aware enough to leave the divisive goy on goy issues and ideology antagonisms about life-style which thusly are only to be addressed in a Jew-context. Bring the issue back to the Jew source, in other words ( the assumption is the goy conflict we easily see has a behind the curtain starting point we need to shine a spotlight on. Down the left side would be ops anti-tribalist in nature, Jew wise and who also include members preoccupied on Social justice matters. As we go to the base of the pyramid, we have very fuzzy Jew awareness and great emphasis on ideological social justice issues often separating from the source Jew due to ignorance. The same goes for the right side. This includes CI-WN focused groups as well as non-white Jewaware groups that are separatist oriented and that allows for Muslims and Negroes in the mix. Be aware, groups on down the pyramid, can be seeming enemies to other goyim, also on the pyramid and indeed have members that believe so as well. If this group wishes to be well represented at the top, there will need to be an acknowledgement of the Jew source superceding all other issues by those attending. Clearly, we have to deal with all the various prejudices that accompany those making their way into HITLERIAN ENLIGHTENMENT. In theory, at the bottom, would be separatist but Zionist whites for example that are caught between Fox news and have a red pill stuck in their throat. Ideally, we have a Jew-wise person shepherding them to a higher level to combat Alex Jones, hellbent on selling "Jews are just like us only smarter"bullshit! Examples of this right side abound. ***Referred to extensively in other articles this left-right paradime, contrary to the Democrat-Republican masonic format, would have a "Hitlerian"nature", which basically means that it acknowledges, as Hitler acknowledged, the core of the gentile predicament had become the presence of the Jew in liberated circumstances within a dominant goy society structure (Jewish freedom means gentile servitude). The particular divisions revolve around how that vision is currently interpreted in other areas. No need for hatin. We can argue and we don't have to hate and we can join hands when the Jew comes to intimidate and we can support and fight along side each other. This pyramid is meant to be a connecting device that keeps us in touch and somewhat coordinated.*** To be clear, any group of folks no matter the ethnicity, is our enemy as long as they are wearing JEWISH ROSE COLORED GLASSES (protocol 12-5), you dig? So I am not saying to love everybody different than us. I am saying seek all those who might come to us no matter their origins, if they can connect who the real enemy is. This is so blatantly obvious, that all this superficial casting out or bringing in simply because of birth entitlement is not only good for Jews but most likely planted among us by Jews to create walls in our minds. This, again, is what the "pyramid" is for. To gently bring people beyond this"lazy thinking" and realize it's an awareness issue. Awareness kills the Jew and he has smoke screened that with pre-occupations that substitute for that final realization. Now, I know the WNs have a lot of groups that get along (while fighting over petty). My pyramid device is meant to not undermine that in anyway. You all can work together exclusively in most of your endeavors. Allowing some of your folks to partake on a HIGHER JEW PLAIN PURPOSE just gives you other options. There have to be circumstances where all these left-right Hitlerian types can join hands and the top of the pyramid will be that coordinating area where the most evolved of our species will tackle how to go about it. It's clear to me the Jew is aiming to get the Hitlerian right and left to consider each other the enemy and many do so as we speak. There will need to be some breathing room here to build some trust. There's a famous Jewish saying, "Jews, love your fellow Jews even the ones you hate" and I believe that means never forget that the unity of your tribe or resistance is more important than the petty day to day bickering we are all capable of andd should always take presidence.*** The 3rd side, finally,will represent the occult and all those preferring independence from the right and left I, personally, would gravitate to the third side as I am not capable in anyway, of putting scapegoat goy on a par with the enemy Jew. Though I prefer my white culture and hang pretty exclusively with whites, I, personally, am not concerned about segregated nations. I want healthy volk within the nation I live in and will let others with more priorities focused there, work that out after the Jew has had his Talmud burned, his kippahs outlawed and forcibly returned to the "Pale of Settlement" with as big a wall keeping them in there as the Palestinians are confronted with in the occupied territories in Palestine today........Everytime I cry, never forget! I am not deluded into thinking such an apparatus will easily be accomplished. It's a given that all covert infiltrators will either do their best to keep unity from happening, using influence over all they hold sway on, or that their links to the JWO were always tenuous in nature and will be challenged when they see a viable option to the contrary, allowing them to fully join us. There are many examples of this. Gordon Duff, Pat Buchanan, Ann Coulter, all clearly working for the enemy but showing signs that under the right situation, they could cross over. Anyone who has gone to my site knows I focus on infiltrators. PLEASE DON'T LET ANY OF THAT ALLOW YOU TO BELIEVE I AM NOT WILLING TO BE PROVED WRONG ON ANY CLAIMS I HAVE MADE. I do state that I will enter into this kind of model (pyramid) giving all folks I have mentioned as being co-opted , the benefit of the doubt while keeping all my three eyes open. It is my belief we have many Collin's in our midst though and there will be a natural shaking out as we go along (Perhaps we wave a magic wand and conjure up a Michael Collins out of a Frank Collins, eh?) What this system does do is allow for a communication network between all Jew-wise factions so that when an Anglin realizes he has a Michael Slay in his midst, he can tell more folks than just his admins and close friends. Of course, it is totally necessary that the top of the pyramid not allow traitors to garner any influence there or the whole vehicle simply becomes one more Jew op. Bottomline, it is imperative to go beyond many small cult like gatherings to a bigger operation that can coordinate those interests. Please remember, various cult fixations are allowed in those groups and their sphere of influence. It is just when we work on a higher level that higher standards and focus expectations become prevalent in a way to supersede smaller op concerns. To finish, there is no clearer dividing line in what represents the JWO and what represents those that would fight that than the Masonic-Hitlerian conflict. The Hitlerian left and right or identarians- inclusivists clearly have a mutual interest in building bridges and putting aside our petty ideological concerns for the truly graver threat of the Jew, represented in his Masonic-left-right dynamic. That's who we are all fighting if we are truly resisting. We are fighting those that are supporting the building of a Jew World Order. If you have been deluded into calling a Hitlerian, of any faction, the enemy, without cause to believe he is a false witness, you have been tricked by our adversaries and need to go deeper. This process takes time and why I propose a pyramid that rises to the top as the enemy Jew awareness is crystalized into those that would rise.........part II is here (will be linked when posted)...............Part II here....part III here With this knowledge assimilated, let all conflicts amongst ourselves be held with that over riding knowledge of who the real enemy is!

Thank you for the opportunity to ask my question. I have been praying for a reconciliation with an ex for a fulfilling and loving relationship. It’s been almost 11 months apart and since last Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) I have been praying. Interacted with my ex a few times and found out recently that he is seriously dating. Should I continue praying to Hashem or just give up? It sounds like you have had a rough year. You are asking a question about your personal situation, but the general idea applies to just about everyone at one time or another. Do we let God know what we wish, or do we instead pray to God to do His will? The answer is that we need to do both. There is a concept in ancient Jewish wisdom that God leads us in the path that we choose to go. If we make a poor choice, we won’t necessarily find thorns and obstacles in our way. That would lift all responsibility off our shoulders; if we took a wrong step we would immediately know it. So, whether it is in relationships, business or other areas we must act knowing that we may be making a mistake. At the same time, we should pray for God’s guidance to help us act wisely. In general (and we emphasize in general because we do not know you or presume to give you a personal answer) once a couple is divorced or a relationship has terminated, most people need to leave the past behind and move forward. Hopefully, the decision was made after great deliberation so replaying and questioning it over and over isn’t productive. We would recommend using the opportunity of the new Hebrew year that starts in a few short weeks to make a completely fresh start and focus on yourself rather than your ex. Pray that God makes a rewarding and joyous path clear to you, but take pragmatic and tangible steps to move forward while learning from the past and molding yourself into the person you want to be. Wishing you a healthy, happy and prosperous year, Rabbi Daniel and Susan Lapin

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