Thursday, August 31, 2017
Sunday Rest exhibition introduces the Hard-boiled School of Slovak graphic art
The current exhibition of one generation of Slovak graphic artists offers a special event for English-speaking art lovers.
Hard-boiled School (of Slovak graphic art) in SNG Bratislava. (Source: TASR)
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On September 3, an irregular guided tour of the exhibition, called Sunday Rest, will take place at 16:00, on the third floor of the Esterházy Palace of the Slovak National Gallery (SNG) in Bratislava.
Meant specifically for foreigners or those who would like to listen to insights into Slovak visual art and artists in English, this event explores the exhibition called Hard-Boiled School and subtitled “Contemporary Graphic Art Confronting History, which introduces a generation of influential graphic artists who created works with an exceptionally strong visual point of view.Read also:
Font size:A-|A+0
On September 3, an irregular guided tour of the exhibition, called Sunday Rest, will take place at 16:00, on the third floor of the Esterházy Palace of the Slovak National Gallery (SNG) in Bratislava.
Meant specifically for foreigners or those who would like to listen to insights into Slovak visual art and artists in English, this event explores the exhibition called Hard-Boiled School and subtitled “Contemporary Graphic Art Confronting History, which introduces a generation of influential graphic artists who created works with an exceptionally strong visual point of view.Read also:
“The lecture will be focused on the individual approaches of the artists but also on the common features of the so-called “rough style”, the SNG informs. Admission for this lecture, as well as more generally for the SNG exhibitions in Bratislava, is free.
30. Aug 2017 at 23:50 | Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská
Source
30. Aug 2017 at 23:50 | Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská
Source
Pope Francis and Patriarch Bartholomew to issue joint environmental statement
August 30, 2017
AUTHOR
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople and Pope Francis meet children at the Moria refugee camp on the island of Lesbos, Greece, April 16, 2016. (Credit: Paul Haring.)
September 1 is observed in both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches as the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation. This year, the leaders of both Churches will issue a joint statement inviting everyone “to take an attitude of respect and responsibility towards creation.”
On Friday, Pope Francis and Patriarch Bartholomew will issue a joint message to mark the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation.
During his general audience on Wednesday, Francis appealed for those with influence to “listen to the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor, who suffer most because of the unbalanced ecology.”
The day of prayer was instituted by the Orthodox Church in 1989 by Bartholomew’s predecessor, Patriarch Demetrios I.
In 2015, Bartholomew’s personal envoy, Metropolitan John Zizioulas, was one of the speakers at the presentation of Laudato si’, Francis’s landmark encyclical on environmental ecology. In the document, Francis praised the ecumenical patriarch’s work for the environment.
Zizioulas suggested that all the Christian churches start marking the day together, as an ecumenical gesture.
Francis immediately embraced the idea, and decided to institute the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation in the Catholic Church the same year.
In his letter announcing the decision, Francis said the annual commemoration would offer individual believers and communities a fitting opportunity to reaffirm their personal vocation to be stewards of creation, to thank God for the wonderful handiwork which he has entrusted to our care, and to implore his help for the protection of creation as well as his pardon for the sins committed against the world in which we live.
Acid flashback: CIA’s mind-control experiment reverberates 40 years after hearings
CIA Director Allen Dulles created MK-Ultra in 1953 as America’s Cold War anti-communism sentiment reached its zenith. (Associated Press/File)
By Dan Boylan - The Washington Times - Wednesday, August 30, 2017
Forty years later, the story still seems hard to credit: In the summer of 1977, Capitol Hill was gripped by revelations of the CIA’s top-secret MK-Ultra mind control research program, targeting unsuspecting American citizens, in some cases by luring them to brothels to be fed LSD-laced cocktails.
The blockbuster hearings that summer, chaired by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, and aided by a timely dump of intelligence documents, touched some of the country’s rawest nerves: the assassination of Kennedy’s brothers, the possibility of mind-controlled “Manchurian candidates” and the increasing prominence of LSD and other hallucinogenic drugs across Western culture.
Although the CIA program officially ran from 1953 to 1964, its dark and fertile legacy stretches to today, living on in modern conspiracy theories about U.S. intelligence agencies’ ability and willingness to manipulate society through surveillance, disinformation, celebrity culture and strategic news leaks.
Wednesday, August 30, 2017
Pope to Catholic politicians: Let Church teaching influence your work
Inés San Martín
August 29, 2017
VATICAN CORRESPONDENT
In this file photo, Pope Francis delivers his message during his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Wednesday, June 14, 2017. (Credit: Alessandra Tarantino/AP.)
Speaking to a network of Catholic politicians, Pope Francis asked them to promulgate and apply laws that build bridges of dialogue between diverse political perspectives, particularly when their purpose is to promote greater care for the defenseless and the marginalized, “especially towards the many who are forced to leave their homeland.”
ROME - Speaking to a group of Catholic lawmakers from around the world on Monday, Pope Francis urged them to bring a commitment to Church teaching to their public lives in order to build a better society.
The pontiff also urged Catholic politicians to transcend partisan divides, calling on them to “build bridges of dialogue between diverse political perspectives.
“While the contribution of the Church to the great questions of the society of our time can often be called into question, it is vital that your commitment is continually permeated by her moral and social teachings in order to build a more humane and just society,” Francis said, according to the Spanish edition of Vatican Radio.
The pope also asked the group to promulgate and apply laws that build bridges of dialogue between diverse political perspectives, particularly when their purpose is to promote greater care for the defenseless and the marginalized, “especially towards the many who are forced to leave their homeland.”
Tuesday, August 29, 2017
Sean Spicer finally meets Pope Francis
JESSICA ESTEPA | USA TODAY
5:25 p.m. EDT Aug. 29, 2017
Dreams can come true.
Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer met Pope Francis earlier this week.
Spicer attended the annual meeting of the International Catholic Legislators Network at the Vatican. Photos of the meeting show the pope addressing the group and Spicer standing in the front row, snapping images on his phone.
The Vatican confirmed to the Associated Press that Spicer had an audience with the pope on Sunday.
It's a moment Spicer, a devout Catholic, has long waited for. Back in May, the then-presidential spokesman official was left off of a list of administration officials who got to meet the pope.
White House officials said at the time that this was due to number constraints from the Vatican.
"Wow. That's all he wanted," one source told CNN when hearing of the May snub.
View|37 Photos
A look at former White House press secretary Sean Spicer
5:25 p.m. EDT Aug. 29, 2017
"Follow after the things which make for peace"
Jesus Himself never purchased peace by compromise. His heart overflowed with love for the whole human race, but He was never indulgent to their sins. He was too much their friend to remain silent while they were pursuing a course that would ruin their souls,--the souls He had purchased with His own blood. He labored that man should be true to himself, true to his higher and eternal interest. The servants of Christ are called to the same work, and they should beware lest, in seeking to prevent discord, they surrender the truth. They are to "follow after the things which make for peace" (Rom. 14:19); but real peace can never be secured by compromising principle. And no man can be true to principle without exciting opposition. A Christianity that is spiritual will be opposed by the children of disobedience. But Jesus bade His disciples, "Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul." Those who are true to God need not fear the power of men nor the enmity of Satan. In Christ their eternal life is secure. Their only fear should be lest they surrender the truth, and thus betray the trust with which God has honored them.
The Desire of Ages, p.356.
WASHINGTON POST CALLS FOR RETHINKING FREE SPEECH ABSOLUTISM TO FIGHT THE ALT-RIGHT
AUGUST 23, 2017 | IAN MILES CHEONG
The First Amendment guarantees everyone the right to free speech and express their opinions, no matter how abhorrent or “problematic.” In the wake of Charlottesville and fearmongering over the rise of the so-called alt-right, The Washington Post published a piece Tuesday by history professor Jennifer Delton calling for liberals to reconsider their stance on free speech.
Delton argues that the same right that gives her the privilege of expressing opinions on the Post is a dangerous “political weapon,” which she claims is being used as “part of a strategy, deployed first by conservatives and perfected by the alt-right.”
Crediting Steve Bannon, Milo Yiannopoulos and Richard Spencer with popularizing the alt-right movement, Delton claims that these opponents of “liberal cultural hegemony,” which “they think, is perpetrated in the United States by the mainstream media and on college campuses” are baiting universities into weaponizing free speech against itself.
Monday, August 28, 2017
Millionaire Televangelist Prays for Houston, Declines to Open Megachurch as a Shelter
Today 8:17pm
Filed to: Evangelical christianity
AP
What do you do when you’re a multimillionaire televangelist with a church that seats more than 16,000 people during the worst natural disaster to batter your community in centuries? Tweet your sincerest thoughts and keep those pearly megachurch doors locked, of course!
Joel Osteen, a Houston-based celebrity pastor whose hackneyed smile is reminiscent of every used car salesman to be portrayed in film, proved today that words are meaningless when you don’t put your money where your mouth is.
After Osteen tweeted out his prayers for “everyone affected by Hurricane Harvey” to 6 million people, a majority of responses to his tweet could be summarized in one sentence: What about that megachurch?
Osteen’s Lakewood Church, an arena formerly occupied by the Houston Rockets, houses 16,000 people — making it an ideal shelter for the some 30,000 people Hurricane Harvey has displaced. According to Lakewood Church’s Facebook, the grounds are inaccessible and flooded.
Twitter users who either live in the Houston, TX, neighborhood where Lakewood Church is located or have ventured to its location begged to differ:
As you can clearly see, the area surrounding Lakewood seems to be accessible by car. There are a few suspect reports that the church’s parking garage is flooded, but unless Houston’s riverlike roads drain overnight, I doubt anyone needing shelter will require parking for the car that they can’t drive. Just as you would expect, Osteen has apparently blocked several users who have called his bluff that Lakewood is “inaccessible due to severe flooding.”
On the off chance that Lakewood Church is indeed so flooded that it can’t house any of Houston’s displaced, I have some other questions for Osteen: Why not turn your $10 million mansion into a temporary shelter? Not enough room? What about your second multimillion dollar home in Houston? Perhaps you could assist your fellow messenger of God, Pastor Brian Roberson, who spent his weekend checking submerged cars for people in need of rescue? Just prayers and a donation link? Okay.
Source
Filed to: Evangelical christianity
APWhat do you do when you’re a multimillionaire televangelist with a church that seats more than 16,000 people during the worst natural disaster to batter your community in centuries? Tweet your sincerest thoughts and keep those pearly megachurch doors locked, of course!
Joel Osteen, a Houston-based celebrity pastor whose hackneyed smile is reminiscent of every used car salesman to be portrayed in film, proved today that words are meaningless when you don’t put your money where your mouth is.
After Osteen tweeted out his prayers for “everyone affected by Hurricane Harvey” to 6 million people, a majority of responses to his tweet could be summarized in one sentence: What about that megachurch?
Osteen’s Lakewood Church, an arena formerly occupied by the Houston Rockets, houses 16,000 people — making it an ideal shelter for the some 30,000 people Hurricane Harvey has displaced. According to Lakewood Church’s Facebook, the grounds are inaccessible and flooded.
Twitter users who either live in the Houston, TX, neighborhood where Lakewood Church is located or have ventured to its location begged to differ:
As you can clearly see, the area surrounding Lakewood seems to be accessible by car. There are a few suspect reports that the church’s parking garage is flooded, but unless Houston’s riverlike roads drain overnight, I doubt anyone needing shelter will require parking for the car that they can’t drive. Just as you would expect, Osteen has apparently blocked several users who have called his bluff that Lakewood is “inaccessible due to severe flooding.”
On the off chance that Lakewood Church is indeed so flooded that it can’t house any of Houston’s displaced, I have some other questions for Osteen: Why not turn your $10 million mansion into a temporary shelter? Not enough room? What about your second multimillion dollar home in Houston? Perhaps you could assist your fellow messenger of God, Pastor Brian Roberson, who spent his weekend checking submerged cars for people in need of rescue? Just prayers and a donation link? Okay.
Source
North Korea fires missile over Japan, sharply escalating tensions
A Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) soldier takes part in a drill to mobilise their Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missile unit in response to a recent missile launch by North Korea, at U.S. Air Force Yokota Air Base in Fussa on the outskirts of Tokyo, Japan August 29, 2017.Issei Kato
William Mallard and Jack Kim
6 Min Read
TOKYO/SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea fired a missile that flew over Japan and landed in waters off the northern region of Hokkaido early on Tuesday, South Korean and Japanese officials said, marking a sharp escalation of tensions on the Korean peninsula.
The test, which experts said appeared to have been a recently developed intermediate-range Hwasong-12 missile, came as U.S. and South Korean forces conduct annual military drills on the peninsula, against which North Korea strenuously objects.
Earlier this month, North Korea threatened to fire missiles into the sea near the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam after U.S. President Donald Trump warned Pyongyang would face “fire and fury” if it threatened the United States.
North Korea has conducted dozens of ballistic missile tests under young leader Kim Jong-Un, the most recent on Saturday, but firing projectiles over mainland Japan is rare.
“North Korea’s reckless action is an unprecedented, serious and a grave threat to our nation,” Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters.
Abe said Japan was seeking an urgent meeting at the United Nations to strengthen measures against Pyongyang. The test was a clear violation of UN resolutions and the government had protested against the move in the strongest terms, he said.
South Korea also condemned the launch. “We will respond strongly based on our steadfast alliance with the United States if North Korea continues nuclear and missile provocations,” the South’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
North Korea fired what it said was a rocket carrying a communications satellite into orbit over Japan in 2009. The United States, Japan and South Korea considered that launch to have been a ballistic missile test.
“It’s pretty unusual,” said Jeffrey Lewis, head of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of Strategic Studies at Monterey, California. “North Korea’s early space launches in 1998 and 2009 went over Japan, but that’s not the same thing as firing a missile.”
Sunday, August 27, 2017
Time Promotes Liberal, Pro-LGBTQ Evangelist as the Authentic 'Non-Negotiable' Christian
The liberal media’s favorite Christians are the liberal Christians, the ones who think there’s too much emphasis on abortion and homosexuality....and are fine with both, when you nudge them about it. Time’s “Ten Questions” interview in the August 28 issue features "Texas pastor" Jen Hatmaker, a liberal author and blogger who’s horrified by Donald Trump and thinks evangelicals need to loosen up.
The pull quote in the magazine is this: “If we are following Christ literally, then nobody’s humanity is up for grabs. Nobody. That is a non-negotiable.”
This is NOT a quote about abortion. It’s a quote about “LGBTQ issues.” Liberals insist their positions are “non-negotiable,” and that social conservatives deny the humanity of people they oppose as the promoters of grave sin. Christians are called to surrender everything the Bible says about sexuality or they’re not “following Christ literally.” That may seem nonsensical, but it lines up with the Time viewpoint very nicely.
Time’s Belinda Luscombe asked an abortion question, if there’s a “way forward,” which translates into “will the anti-abortion folks please accept our progressive future?”
TIME: As a woman of faith, do you think there's a way forward in the anti-abortion vs. pro–abortion rights debate?
HATMAKER: It's one that my particular tribe of women is asking. Historically the Christian community has taken what is a very fraught decision and reduced it down to a sound bite. Right or wrong. But rather than simply just a pro-life stance, I'm seeing a much broader construct, which is pro–prenatal care, pro–affordable housing, pro–health care.
Pro-lifers get upset by Hatmaker’s politician answer, the one she has typically offered. She refuses to address the humanity of the unborn, and then insults pro-lifers as anti-health care, or anti-affordable housing. Abortion is not a "decision," it's the destruction of a person. It's not "reduced to a sound bite" to advocate for a baby's survival. It's "reduced to a sound bite" if you obliterate their humanity.
Time’s interviewer was upset at “Why did so many evangelical Christians vote for President Trump, who didn’t seem to espouse traditional evangelical values?” This is a deeply stupid question.
How can supposedly intelligent journalists ignore the Supreme Court mandating "gay marriage" on all 50 states? And the fines and the shaming and the persecution of Christians who don't want to make gay-wedding cakes or host these unions? And the federal government imposing birth-control requirements on nuns? Religious liberty -- which the liberal media put in scare quotes, like they're not real freedoms -- are in danger, and Trump promised to oppose that.
One can certainly be a sincere Christian and skip voting for Trump. The better question is how can one profess to be a Bible-thumping evangelical Christian and be in vogue with the Democrats and Time magazine? What gospel is being preached?
Hatmaker first drew liberal attention by announcing last fall that she favored gay marriage. Here's how Time asked about that moment:
TIME: Do you think LGBTQ issues will eventually divide the church?
HATMAKER: I feel hopeful, to be honest. Had you asked this question even 10 years ago, I would have had a different answer. Now I see really smart people pulling chairs up to the table and thinking this through together. If we are following Christ literally, then nobody's humanity is up for grabs. Nobody. That is a nonnegotiable. So I'm hopeful. And I hope to help lead that charge.
TIME: Were you surprised by the vitriol when you first expressed your opinion?
HATMAKER: Yes and no. I knew that space was tender. It's fragile, theologically. But if the end result was that I in some tiny, tiny, tiny way created a little safe space where really good people could join a conversation that matters, then I'm glad for it. It nicely parlays into what my dream is for my little moment on this earth, which is to set a really wide table.
This is a bogus answer. Liberals never set "a really wide table." They are not tolerant of the conservative Christians. They want them defeated and marginalized as...."fragile, theologically."
The pull quote in the magazine is this: “If we are following Christ literally, then nobody’s humanity is up for grabs. Nobody. That is a non-negotiable.”
This is NOT a quote about abortion. It’s a quote about “LGBTQ issues.” Liberals insist their positions are “non-negotiable,” and that social conservatives deny the humanity of people they oppose as the promoters of grave sin. Christians are called to surrender everything the Bible says about sexuality or they’re not “following Christ literally.” That may seem nonsensical, but it lines up with the Time viewpoint very nicely.
Time’s Belinda Luscombe asked an abortion question, if there’s a “way forward,” which translates into “will the anti-abortion folks please accept our progressive future?”
TIME: As a woman of faith, do you think there's a way forward in the anti-abortion vs. pro–abortion rights debate?
HATMAKER: It's one that my particular tribe of women is asking. Historically the Christian community has taken what is a very fraught decision and reduced it down to a sound bite. Right or wrong. But rather than simply just a pro-life stance, I'm seeing a much broader construct, which is pro–prenatal care, pro–affordable housing, pro–health care.
Pro-lifers get upset by Hatmaker’s politician answer, the one she has typically offered. She refuses to address the humanity of the unborn, and then insults pro-lifers as anti-health care, or anti-affordable housing. Abortion is not a "decision," it's the destruction of a person. It's not "reduced to a sound bite" to advocate for a baby's survival. It's "reduced to a sound bite" if you obliterate their humanity.
Time’s interviewer was upset at “Why did so many evangelical Christians vote for President Trump, who didn’t seem to espouse traditional evangelical values?” This is a deeply stupid question.
How can supposedly intelligent journalists ignore the Supreme Court mandating "gay marriage" on all 50 states? And the fines and the shaming and the persecution of Christians who don't want to make gay-wedding cakes or host these unions? And the federal government imposing birth-control requirements on nuns? Religious liberty -- which the liberal media put in scare quotes, like they're not real freedoms -- are in danger, and Trump promised to oppose that.
One can certainly be a sincere Christian and skip voting for Trump. The better question is how can one profess to be a Bible-thumping evangelical Christian and be in vogue with the Democrats and Time magazine? What gospel is being preached?
Hatmaker first drew liberal attention by announcing last fall that she favored gay marriage. Here's how Time asked about that moment:
TIME: Do you think LGBTQ issues will eventually divide the church?
HATMAKER: I feel hopeful, to be honest. Had you asked this question even 10 years ago, I would have had a different answer. Now I see really smart people pulling chairs up to the table and thinking this through together. If we are following Christ literally, then nobody's humanity is up for grabs. Nobody. That is a nonnegotiable. So I'm hopeful. And I hope to help lead that charge.
TIME: Were you surprised by the vitriol when you first expressed your opinion?
HATMAKER: Yes and no. I knew that space was tender. It's fragile, theologically. But if the end result was that I in some tiny, tiny, tiny way created a little safe space where really good people could join a conversation that matters, then I'm glad for it. It nicely parlays into what my dream is for my little moment on this earth, which is to set a really wide table.
This is a bogus answer. Liberals never set "a really wide table." They are not tolerant of the conservative Christians. They want them defeated and marginalized as...."fragile, theologically."
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