The Unforgivable Sin: America?

After having 3 of their members freed from terrorists in Iraq (a fourth was beheaded last month), the "Christian Peacemaker Teams" couldn't bring themselves to acknowledge the sinners who made the rescue possible. The following theological commentary is fascinating.

OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today: "But if the CPT is going to 'love our enemies,' the least it could do is thank them. The statement does not acknowledge that the hostages were rescued by U.S. and British servicemen, or indeed that they were rescued at all; it refers mysteriously to their having been 'released,' as if the kidnappers themselves had decided to let them go.

This seems to run deeper than a case of simple ingratitude. There is a whole strange worldview at work here--a theology, if you will. We don't claim to understand it fully, but it seems to equate America as the root of all evil and America's adversaries as Edenic creatures--innocents who know not good or evil and thus bear no culpability for their bad actions.

If we have this right, it follows that the CPT Christians see themselves, by virtue of their faith, as being forgiven for being American, or for being from another nation that America has corrupted. This is why they cannot be grateful to, or forgiving of, America: For them that would amount to thanking or forgiving sin itself."

Why the LA Times is losing revenue.

Gran Marcha--Gran Backlash! By Mickey Kaus: "From what I saw, this statement is false."

'Marriage Is for White People'

Washington Post: "'That's wonderful!' I told my class. 'I think I'll invite some couples in to talk about being married and rearing children.'

'Oh, no,' objected one student. 'We're not interested in the part about marriage. Only about how to be good fathers.'

And that's when the other boy chimed in, speaking as if the words left a nasty taste in his mouth: 'Marriage is for white people.'"

Quagmire update...

Power Line: Speaking of taboo: "U.S. deaths in Iraq have declined every month since October 2005. In March they are down sharply. Projecting based on data through March 25, the count should be about one-third of what it was in October. If the MSM is reporting this, I'm not aware of it."

How the mighty have fallen...

The American Thinker: "Harvard fired its president and published anti-Semitic claptrap, Yale invites the Goebbels of the Taliban to be a student, and Columbia has a Middle Eastern Studies department where Jewish students complain of harassment, and has accepted money from Libyan dictator Ghadafi and hosted a speech (via television) in which he called for the overthrow of democracy.

Now, Columbia University President Lee Bolinger (formerly the head of the University of Michigan) finds himself facing serious ethical questions, with implications for the corruption of the judicial system. "

Welcome to Yale

On The Fence Films :: Blog: "Yesterday, Director Evan Coyne Maloney was on the Yale campus hoping to interview administrators and allow them to give a fuller accounting of their decision to admit an ex-Taliban official with very little previous education to the hallowed halls of one of America's elite universities.

Things didn't go so well."

A throwback to the olden days...

OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today: "Who's the Boss?
'After being surprised by her husband's role in the Dubai ports deal, Sen. Hillary Clinton has insisted that Bill Clinton give her 'final say' over what he says and does, well-placed sources said,' New York's Daily News reports:

The former President agreed to give his wife a veto to avoid his habit of making controversial headlines that could hurt her chances of returning to the White House, multiple sources told the Daily News.

'He knows it's Hillary's time now,' said an adviser close to both Clintons who expects to play a key role in her likely 2008 presidential campaign.

Now perhaps this is more gossip than news, but can you imagine the outcry if, when Bill Clinton held office and Hillary didn't, someone had floated the story that he had demanded a 'veto' over her public statements?

C'mon, Bill, don't just stay home and bake cookies! Be a man, for heaven's sake!"

This is bad.

CNN.com: "She and her husband, preacher Matthew Winkler, were an ideal couple, congregants said.

But that image was shattered on Friday, when, according to police, Mary Winkler confessed to killing her husband."

Brokeback Yale

Penraker: Thou Shalt Not Debate Public Issues at Yale: "Yale has now refused to put on a once-planned debate over the presence at Yale of Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi - the former Taliban. John Fund reports:

The union's vice president had invited me, along with Yale alumnus and Army veteran Flagg Youngblood, to debate both military recruitment and the Rahmatullah case, on campus March 29. But when he brought the proposal to the executive board, it was rejected.

"No matter how carefully we frame this debate, it would inevitably turn into a trial of a fellow student and his personal life and beliefs,"

But Rahmatullah is not just some student from the Midwest who stumbled onto campus, he is a former Minister for the Taliban.

And it gets weirder and weirder: Listen to the ideologically blinded view of this student- she has been taught, like many students these days, to utterly ignore evil, and excuse it at any cost. She will trot forth a multitude of platitudes to justify having someone who is a practiced liar and sworn enemy of the United States at her school. But no doubt she would never countenance the presence of an American racist, or sexist, or homophobe. But somehow when a racist, sexist homophobic foreigner comes along, whose redeeming feature seems to be that he represents something that is implacably opposed to the United States - well then, he become instantly forgivable. He becomes a correctable, huggable, misguided youth. There is a lot of "our little brown brother" in her statements:

When I asked her if any of the revelations about Mr. Rahmatullah's past disturb her, she said that "while he has made some mistakes," she trusts that university officials had "investigated things" and satisfied themselves about him. She noted that Mr. Rahmatullah was "very, very young" when he had been a Taliban official, and said that "it's not like the Taliban attacked this country."

No, they only actively hosted and encouraged Al-Qaeda within their borders so that IT could attack the U.S. They publicly executed women for trivial matters. They imprisoned anyone who tried to practice a non-Muslim religion. They made Hindus wear yellow emblems to mark them publicly. They refused to let girls go to school. They blew up religious statues. They prevented the playing of music. Homosexuals were killed by making walls fall on them."

I wonder what Rahmatullah's review of Brokeback would be. Please read the whole thing, and then pray for the Northeast.

Pie Update: Lemon Meringue

My ode to pie was well received, at least by my Dad.

Since then I have had a delightful mixed berry by from Costco. Costco always has great pies and they are as big as a tire.

I am currently working on a lemon meringue pie from Perkins. It's not close to a favorite and my family hates it.

I've recently been informed of some new pie intelligence. Apparently, Maine is famous for a unique strain of wild blueberries, making Maine Wild Blueberry Pie a conquest that lies in my future.

And it turns out, my immediate future. Our house is finally selling and we will move to Boston at the end of May.

Pie.

Another CCC and DaVinci

Jesus Decoded is a web site where a different CCC addresses The DaVinci Code

A CHRISTIAN ON TRIAL

Michelle Malkin: A CHRISTIAN ON TRIAL: "Abdul Rahman, 40, was arrested last month, accused of converting to Christianity. Under Afghanistan's new constitution, minority religious rights are protected but Muslims are still subject to strict Islamic laws. And so, officially, Muslim-born Rahman is charged with rejecting Islam and not for practicing Christianity.

Appearing in court earlier this week Rahman insisted he should not be considered an infidel, but admitted he is a Christian. He says he still believes in the almighty Allah, but cannot say for sure who God really is. 'I am,' he says, 'a Christian and I believe in Jesus Christ.'"

Marriage Rights?

OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today: "Here Comes the Bride. Lock Her Up.
Lisa Clark, a 37-year-old Georgia woman with a month-old son, has been sentenced to nine months in jail--for having sex with her husband. The problem, as the Associated Press reports, is that the husband is 15:

Clark was arrested in November on charges of statutory rape, child molestation and enticing a minor. A few days before her arrest, she married the boy under a 1962 Georgia law that allows children of any age to get married if the bride-to-be is pregnant.

This just goes to show that you can't rely on made-up constitutional rights. The so-called right to privacy, established in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), is premised, as Justice William O. Douglas wrote in the court's opinion, on the inviolability of 'the sacred precincts of marital bedrooms.' Apparently this doesn't apply if the marriage is solemnized pursuant to a screwy law."

You decide.

Anatomy of a rumble

I hope this doesn't seem self serving. I am just glad there are folks with time to carry on the conversation.

Triablogue: "A few days ago I asked Ryan McReynolds to a link a movie review of his to Triablogue. Ryan is the founder of Triablogue, as well as a long-time employee of Campus Crusade for Christ.

Ryan had reviewed Brokeback Mountain. Many Christians have condemned the movie unseen because of its liberal agenda. Likewise, many liberals have praised the movie unseen because of its liberal agenda.

Ryan is a Christian who'’s actually seen the movie. And the point of his review is that, whatever its agenda, the movie unwittingly deconstructs its own message.

Now, I figured that if anyone would be offended by the review, it might be Christians who missed the point of what Ryan was saying.

The film doesn't intentionally present a Christian worldview. Rather, it ends up presenting a Christian worldview in spite of itself.

And, as a matter of fact, his review did trigger a very negative reaction. Mind you, Triablogue is no stranger to controversy, so that'’s fine with me.

As it turns out, though, all the hue and cry came, not from the Evangelical community, but from a weblog linked to The Secular Outpost, which is an arm of The Secular Web.

And it'’s very instructive to see how unbelievers behave when their back is to the wall. They began by attacking Ryan'’s review. Then they turned to something I had written."

Read the whole thing so you can enjoy one of the most eloquent and profound explanations of the Church that you will ever read.

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005)

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005)

Saw this last night and I was amazed.

This movie is a mixture of all that is good and evil in people. It feels totally original yet it is a mixture of many other things: Crash, Unforgiven, Magnolia, The Sopranos, and many others.

Hopefully you can tell from the list above that it is R rated for a reason. There is much grit in this film. It is disturbing and comforting. Sexual and chaste. Unforgettable and regrettable. Horrifying and edifying. It has so many interesting and original elements that it is truly difficult to sum up. Justice and Mercy. Death and Life. Purpose and aimlessness. Redemption and condemnation. Murder and healing. Freedom and bondage. Heaven and Hell.

I'm not kidding. It's all in there.

The plot has the same multi-layered, unfolding pace of The Shawshank Redemption or The Green Mile. It is truly a great story.

Yet it ends like most modern art films, about 10 minutes to soon. It has no answers, no truths, no final resolution, only a resolution. It could have been one of the greatest Westerns of all time, but that would require an eschatology of meaning and transcendent purpose. Instead the film settles for being great, with a post-modern ending in futility, revealing humanity.

The characters in this film are truly unforgettable. Barry Pepper was great in 25th Hour and Saving Private Ryan but he is amazing in this film. The whole cast is perfect.

If you live in the Denver area, tonight may be the last night that you can see this film on the big screen.

Go see it!

It may sound strange but this film is so intimate and detailed, that it really would lose power on a small screen.

My Rating: Big Screen

Just and Justifier

Eric Swanson: Joanna Meyer Comes Over: "Joanna said, 'God sees us like Simon but treats us like Paula.'"

For those of you who know, you know.

Icarus and violence against Gays

Icarus Poe said in the comments section of this post:

"Could you perhaps supply me with one or two examples of "Islamofascist"-on-gay violence in this country?"

I'm glad you asked. The first issue to consider is that in this country (USA) violence against homosexuals is rightly criminal and punishable by law. This means that violence against gays by Islamofascists is probably secret. I don't have any offhand examples in this country.

But ask yourself this, what countries criminalize homosexuality? Here's an article that gives you many examples. It takes about 5 seconds to find this stuff.

But why go all the way back to last year? Here's an issue as fresh as today's headlines:

What would you say if you found out that one of the murderers of Matthew Shepard was given a special exception to attend an elite Ivy League school? Couldn't happen? Well not if you're a cowboy from Wyoming, but if you are an Islamofascist it's the Yale you say: Click here for fresh evidence.

Here's a lengthy presentation to the UN about Taliban violence against gays. This is just one example of the policies of the "administration" that this Yale student used to represent:

The two, Abdul Sami, 18, and Bismillah, 22, residents of Herat province,
were placed beside a wall of dried mud which was bulldozed upon them.
They had been detained four months earlier accused of sodomy and
sentenced by a Shari'a court to death by
crushing a wall upon them.

News of the execution was carried by the official Taliban Radio Voice of
Shari'a, which stated:

"Shari'a-prescribed punishment has been administered to two sodomites
[in] Herat Province. Bakhtar Information Agency informed us [two men]
who had been arrested by security officials on charges of committing
sodomy were publicly punished for their deeds in the city of Herat
today. The cases of the accused were investigated by the public
prosecution office of Herat Province where the accused confessed to
their crimes without duress or torture. Following the completion of the
investigation the cases were sent for judicial decision by primary,
appeal and discernment courts which passed their verdicts. Having
received the assent of His Eminence Amirol Momenin, the judicial
decision was administered at a stadium in the city of Herat today."

These evils are just the ones that can be proven. Imagine life under the Taliban for homosexuals.

Icarus, you and I both know that there's a cowboy in the White House that won't be invited to speak at Yale anytime soon. But Islamofascists are welcome?

One would expect artists in Hollywood and elsewhere to be speaking out about such things, and using their art to the same end.

I'm a fan of Ang Lee but I'm still waiting for a filmmaker with the courage to take on this kind of oppression. Of course Ang Lee won't receive a death sentence from cowboys in Wyoming or Texas, which is why making a film about Islamofascist-on-gay violence would be far more "courageous".

Your comments are welcome...

I haven't blogged today because I've been answering comments on this post.

By some miracle I turned on comment moderation just in time to catch some inappropriate stuff. I don't know what the person was thinking. I work with college students. It's very hard to shock me.

Let's be honest.. except on campus.

Cruel, cruel Summers: "Chew on that for a bit, why don’t you: blunt speaking (candor? honesty? impassioned defense of ideals?) leads to trouble in academe. Instead, “sensitivity,” or, to use the more loaded word, “tolerance”—the primary directive being to hurt no feelings (unless the feelings are those of the ruling / oppressor class, who by definition can’t be materially injured, given their position of social power)—is the new ideal. Which leads, almost invariably, to an insulated cult of homogeneity, where disagreement is discouraged because, well, it can be so very unpleasant. “Consultation,” in the sense Piereson uses it here, is akin to the UN (and European) idea of consensus: gone are the days of defiant individualism (at least, pre-tenure); instead, departments—particularly in the Humanities—are run on group agreements that have the effect of officially watering down the beliefs of intellectual outliers."

Google Moon

Google Moon - Lunar Landing Sites: "Welcome to Google Moon"

Zoom in all the way to see the detailed face of the lunar surface.