The New News Media

Recently there's been a focus on Al Jazeera, the Arabic news source because two of its journalists have been jailed in Egypt.

Al Jazeera, also known as Aljazeera and JSC, is a Doha based broadcaster owned by the Al Jazeera Media Network, which is funded by the House of Thani, the ruling family of Qatar.

Wikipedia

Which brings to mind a phenomenon that I have been pondering upon for some time...

• A Handful of News Media entities have burst upon the scene out of the blue, as if by magic.
• How did these new news sources wind up in our land?
• Is there a shortage of news coverage that would warrant it? 

Al Jazeera is the one currently in the headlines.  Well, Al Jazeera English is one of the new news sources that I am perplexed by.  Besides Al Jazeera's amazing acceptance as a credible news source there is RT (Russia Today), also Press TV (Iran), and lastly Xinhua (People's Republic of China).

They have an internet presence

Some of these news sources have a YouTube Channel like RT does.

I sometimes stumble upon Xinhua when I look for news on Google.

Others are regularly quoted on the radio on NPR or FOX: According to Al Jazeera.... 

We have come a long way when we are being provided news by countries that have no history of journalism or freedom of the press.  Am I wrong here?  Was TASS and Pravda the basis for this new found affinity for impartial news reporting from the ex-Soviet Union? These folks only see things from the perspective of the politburo, the gang of four or the Ayatolla in the case of Persia (The Islamic Republic of Iran). 

Just thinking out loud here, and I hope someone can identify with the point I am trying to make.

Spasibo

Arsenio.

Photo Collage Courtesy of http://www.photovisi.com

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When a president goes rogue

George F. Will Opinion Writer



By George F. Will, Published: June 4 E-mail the writer


What Winston Churchill said of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles — that he was a bull who carried his own china shop around with him — is true of Susan Rice, who is, to be polite, accident-prone . When in September 2012 she was deputed to sell to the public the fable that the Benghazi attack was just an unfortunately vigorous movie review — a response to an Internet video — it could have been that she, rather than Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was given this degrading duty because Rice was merely U.N. ambassador, an ornamental position at an inconsequential institution. Today, however, Rice is Barack Obama’s national security adviser, so two conclusions must be drawn.

Perhaps she did not know, in advance of the swap of five terrorists for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the, shall we say, ambiguities about Bergdahl’s departure from his platoon in Afghanistan and the reportedly deadly consequences of his behavior. If so, then she has pioneered a degree of incompetence exotic even for this 10-thumbed administration. If, however, she did know and still allowed Obama to present this as a mellow moment of national satisfaction, she is condign punishment for his choice of such hirelings.


Gallery



Tom Toles draws Obama: A collection of cartoons of the president.


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At a joint news conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron, President Obama said he made "absolutely no apologies" for the way Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was returned from Afghanistan. The Taliban released Bergdahl in exchange for five of their commanders.

Perhaps this exchange really is, as Obama said in defending it, an excellent thing “regardless of the circumstances, whatever those circumstances may turn out to be.” His confidence in its excellence is striking, considering that he acknowledges that we do not know the facts about what would seem to be important “circumstances.”

Such as the note Bergdahl reportedly left before disappearing, in which he supposedly said he did not approve of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. And the notably strong and numerous expressions of anger by members of Bergdahl’s battalion concerning his comportment and its costs.

Obama did not comply with the law requiring presidents to notify Congress 30 days before such exchanges of prisoners at Guantanamo. Politico can be cited about this not because among the media it is exceptionally, well, understanding of Obama’s exuberant notion of executive latitude but because it is not. Politico headlined a story on his noncompliance with the law “Obama May Finally Be Going Rogue on Gitmo.” It said Obama’s “assertive” act “defied Congress” — Congress, not the rule of law — in order “to get that process [of closing the prison at Guantanamo] moving.” It sent “a clear message” that “Obama is now willing to wield his executive powers to get the job done.” Or, as used to be said in extenuation of strong leaders, “to make the trains run on time.”

The 44th president, channeling — not for the first time — the 37th (in his post-impeachment conversation with David Frost), may say: “When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” Already the administration says events dictated a speed that precluded complying with the law.

This explanation should be accorded open-minded, but not empty-minded, consideration. It should be considered in light of the fact that as the Veterans Affairs debacle continued, Obama went to Afghanistan to hug some troops, then completed the terrorists-for-Bergdahl transaction. And in light of the fact that Obama waged a seven-month military intervention in Libya’s civil war without complying with the law (the War Powers Resolution) that requires presidents to terminate within 60 to 90 days a military action not authorized or subsequently approved by Congress.

Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), vice chairman of the intelligence committee, says the administration told him he would be notified about negotiations for the release of terrorists. He now says he cannot “believe a thing this president says.”

Obama says his agents “consulted with Congress for quite some time” about prisoner exchanges with the Taliban. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman of the House intelligence committee, says there have been no consultations since 2011. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) says “I don’t like it when the White House says the intelligence committees were briefed. Because we weren’t.” He says Obama is “referring to . . . 2011-2012, when I was still in grade school.”

Now, now. “Assertive” presidents can’t be expected to “go rogue” without ruffling feathers. And omelets cannot be made without breaking eggs. Etc.

This episode will be examined by congressional committees, if they can pierce the administration’s coming cover-up, which has been foreshadowed by the response to congressional attempts to scrutinize the politicization of the Internal Revenue Service. If the military stalls on turning over files to Congress pertaining to the five years of Bergdahl’s absence, we will at least know that there is no national institution remaining to be corrupted.


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The great backlash by Nouriel Roubini*

June 02, 2014, Monday/ 15:40:30 / NEW YORK


A In the immediate aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis, policymakers' success in preventing the Great Recession from turning into Great Depression II held in check demands for protectionist and inward-looking measures.

But now the backlash against globalization -- and the freer movement of goods, services, capital, labor, and technology that came with it -- has arrived.

This new nationalism takes different economic forms: trade barriers, asset protection, reaction against foreign direct investment, policies favoring domestic workers and firms, anti-immigration measures, state capitalism, and resource nationalism. In the political realm, populist, anti-globalization, anti-immigration, and in some cases outright racist and anti-Semitic parties are on the rise. These forces loath the alphabet soup of supra-national governance institutions -- the EU, the UN, the WTO, and the IMF, among others -- that globalization requires. Even the Internet, the epitome of globalization for the past two decades, is at risk of being balkanized as more authoritarian countries -- including China, Iran, Turkey, and Russia -- seek to restrict access to social media and crack down on free expression.

The main causes of these trends are clear. Anemic economic recovery has provided an opening for populist parties, promoting protectionist policies, to blame foreign trade and foreign workers for the prolonged malaise. Add to this the rise in income and wealth inequality in most countries, and it is no wonder that the perception of a winner-take-all economy that benefits only elites and distorts the political system has become widespread. Nowadays, both advanced economies (like the United States, where unlimited financing of elected officials by financially powerful business interests is simply legalized corruption) and emerging markets (where oligarchs often dominate the economy and the political system) seem to be run for the few. For the many, by contrast, there has been only secular stagnation, with depressed employment and stagnating wages. The resulting economic insecurity for the working and middle classes is most acute in Europe and the eurozone, where in many countries populist parties -- mainly on the far right -- outperformed mainstream forces in last weekend's European Parliament election. As in the 1930's, when the Great Depression gave rise to authoritarian governments in Italy, Germany, and Spain, a similar trend now may be underway.

If income and job growth do not pick up soon, populist parties may come closer to power at the national level in Europe, with anti-EU sentiments stalling the process of European economic and political integration. Worse, the eurozone may again be at risk: some countries (the United Kingdom) may exit the EU; others (the UK, Spain, and Belgium) eventually may break up. Even in the US, the economic insecurity of a vast white underclass that feels threatened by immigration and global trade can be seen in the rising influence of the extreme right and Tea Party factions of the Republican Party. These groups are characterized by economic nativism, anti-immigration and protectionist leanings, religious fanaticism, and geopolitical isolationism.

A variant of this dynamic can be seen in Russia and many parts of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, where the fall of the Berlin Wall did not usher in democracy, economic liberalization, and rapid output growth. Instead, nationalist and authoritarian regimes have been in power for most of the past quarter-century, pursuing state-capitalist growth models that ensure only mediocre economic performance. In this context, Russian President Vladimir Putin's destabilization of Ukraine cannot be separated from his dream of leading a “Eurasian Union” -- a thinly disguised effort to recreate the former Soviet Union. In Asia, too, nationalism is resurgent. New leaders in China, Japan, South Korea, and now India are political nationalists in regions where territorial disputes remain serious and long-held historical grievances fester. These leaders -- as well as those in Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia, who are moving in a similar nationalist direction -- must address major structural-reform challenges if they are to revive falling economic growth and, in the case of emerging markets, avoid a middle-income trap. Economic failure could fuel further nationalist, xenophobic tendencies -- and even trigger military conflict.

Meanwhile, the Middle East remains a region mired in backwardness. The Arab Spring -- triggered by slow growth, high youth unemployment, and widespread economic desperation -- has given way to a long winter in Egypt and Libya, where the alternatives are a return to authoritarian strongmen and political chaos. In Syria and Yemen, there is civil war; Lebanon and Iraq could face a similar fate; Iran is both unstable and dangerous to others; and Afghanistan and Pakistan look increasingly like failed states. In all of these cases, economic failure and a lack of opportunities and hope for the poor and young are fueling political and religious extremism, resentment of the West and, in some cases, outright terrorism.

In the 1930's, the failure to prevent the Great Depression empowered authoritarian regimes in Europe and Asia, eventually leading to World War II. This time, the damage caused by the Great Recession is subjecting most advanced economies to secular stagnation and creating major structural growth challenges for emerging markets. This is ideal terrain for economic and political nationalism to take root and flourish. Today's backlash against trade and globalization should be viewed in the context of what, as we know from experience, could come next.

*Nouriel Roubini is chairman of Roubini Global Economics and Professor of Economics at the Stern School of Business, New York University.


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Two Visions in Conflict Today: Friedrich Nietzsche's Suprahuman Person vs. St. Ignatius Loyola's Jesuit (Pope Francis)

Life Arts 5/26/2014 at 18:59:13

By Thomas Farrell 

Headlined to H4 5/26/14

Duluth, Minnesota (OpEdNews) May 26, 2014: I propose to compare apples and oranges:

(1) the Suprahuman Person envisioned by Friedrich Nietzsche (1884-1900) in his puzzling book Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for Everybody and Nobody and

(2) the Jesuit envisioned by St. Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556), the founder of the Jesuits, in his book of instructions for meditation known as theSpiritual Exercises.

These two envisioned types of persons are apples and oranges because the Suprahuman Person is presumably an atheist and the Jesuit is presumably an orthodox Roman Catholic believer. (But anybody who wants to can read an English translation of the Spiritual Exercises.)

However, if you are not a Roman Catholic, you probably are understandably not interested in the Jesuits. But Pope Francis is the first ever Jesuit pope. He's widely known today in the United States.

In effect, in describing Ignatius Loyola's vision of the Jesuit, I will be describing how Pope Francis saw himself when he was a young man in the Jesuit novitiate making his first (of two) 30-day retreats in silence (except for the conferences with the retreat director) following theSpiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola. (Many years later in Jesuit training, usually after being ordained to the all-male priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church, Jesuits make a second 30-day retreat. Disclosure: From 1979 to 1987, I trained with the Jesuits.)

ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA'S VISION OF THE JESUIT

So what type of person does St. Ignatius Loyola envision the Jesuit as being?

In a word, a superior type person. Naturally he is not so indelicate as to say this as I have just summed it up. But check out the Meditation on the Three Classes of Persons (standardized paragraph numbers 149-156). St. Ignatius Loyola envisions the Jesuit as being in, or at least as aspiring to be in, the Third Class of person types.

In addition, he envisions the Jesuit as enlisting in the great cosmic battle on this earth between the mythic Christ and the mythic Lucifer See the Meditation on Two Standards: of Christ and Lucifer (paragraph numbers 136-147).

Robert L. Moore, the Jungian theorist at the Chicago Theological Seminary, says that Jesuit training is Warrior training (i.e., training in learning how to access the energies of the Warrior archetype in the human psyche).

No doubt that all people today need to learn how to access the energies of the Warrior archetype in their psyches, because without Warrior energies they are going to be in big trouble.

Thus by virtue of his lengthy Jesuit training, Pope Francis has been cultivating the Warrior archetype in his psyche. By virtue of being elected pope, he is now the warrior-king of Roman Catholics today, as King David was the warrior-king of ancient Jews in his day.

Concerning Jesuit spirituality, see James Martin's accessible book The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life (2010).

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE'S VISION OF THE SUPRAHUMAN PERSON

Surprise, surprise, Friedrich Nietzsche envisions the Suprahuman Person as a superior type person. So I may not be comparing apples and oranges after all, eh?


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Will liberal thought police come for you *

Kirsten Powers: Liberals' Dark Ages

Kirsten Powers

6:33 p.m. EDT May 15, 2014

Each week seems to bring another incident. Who will the thought police come for next?



(Photo: Janet Van Ham, AP)

Welcome to the Dark Ages, Part II. We have slipped into an age of un-enlightenment where you fall in line behind the mob or face the consequences.

COLUMN: Dear Condi, no one was listening anyway

How ironic that the persecutors this time around are the so-called intellectuals. They claim to be liberal while behaving as anything but. The touchstone of liberalism is tolerance of differing ideas. Yet this mob exists to enforce conformity of thought and to delegitimize any dissent from its sanctioned worldview. Intolerance is its calling card.

COLUMN: 5 steps for Shinseki to rebuild trust in Veterans Affairs

Each week seems to bring another incident. Last week it was David and Jason Benham, whose pending HGTV show was canceled after the mob unearthed old remarks the brothers made about their Christian beliefs on homosexuality. People can't have a house-flipping show unless they believe and say the "right" things in their life off the set? In this world, the conservative Tom Selleck never would have been Magnum, P.I.

This week, a trail-blazing woman was felled in the new tradition of commencement shaming. International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde withdrew from delivering the commencement speech at Smith College following protests from students and faculty who hate the IMF. According to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, this trend is growing. In the 21 years leading up to 2009, there were 21 incidents of an invited guest not speaking because of protests. Yet, in the past five-and-a-half years, there have been 39 cancellations.

Don't bother trying to make sense of what beliefs are permitted and which ones will get you strung up in the town square. Our ideological overlords have created a minefield of inconsistency. While criticizing Islam is intolerant, insulting Christianity is sport. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is persona non grata at Brandeis University for attacking the prophet Mohammed. But Richard Dawkins describes the Old Testament God as "a misogynistic … sadomasochistic … malevolent bully" and the mob yawns. Bill Maher calls the same God a "psychotic mass murderer" and there are no boycott demands of the high-profile liberals who traffic his HBO show.

The self-serving capriciousness is crazy. In March, University of California-Santa Barbara women's studies professor Mireille Miller-Young attacked a 16-year-old holding an anti-abortion sign in the campus' "free speech zone" (formerly known as America). Though she was charged with theft, battery and vandalism, Miller-Young remains unrepentant and still has her job. But Mozilla's Brendan Eich gave a private donation to an anti-gay marriage initiative six years ago and was ordered to recant his beliefs. When he wouldn't, he was forced to resign from the company he helped found.

Got that? A college educator with the right opinions can attack a high school student and keep her job. A corporate executive with the wrong opinions loses his for making a campaign donation. Something is very wrong here.

As the mob gleefully destroys people's lives, its members haven't stopped to ask themselves a basic question: What happens when they come for me? If history is any guide, that's how these things usually end.

Kirsten Powers writes weekly for USA TODAY.

In addition to its own editorials, USA TODAY publishes diverse opinions from outside writers, including our Board of Contributors. To read more columns like this, go to the opinion front page or follow us on twitter @USATopinion or Facebook.

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* Original title when I read it on Thursday's USA Today Newspaper (5/15/2014).

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Does Pasadena have the right to discipline Eric Walsh for expressing his views?

Opinion

Pasadena Public Health Director Eric Walsh at a press conference for the "Healthy Stores for a Healthy Community" campaign. (Dan Steinberg / Invision / Associated Press)

JIM NEWTONcontact the reporter

Pasadena put Public Health Director Eric Walsh on leave for his churlish remarks on gays, evolution
Would Pasadena want a health director who claimed tobacco didn't cause heart disease?

My post last week on the case of Pasadena Public Health Director Eric Walsh — whose churlish remarks about gays, the prophet Muhammad, Jay Z and evolution, among other things, have caused Pasadena to put him on leave while the city investigates — drew an unexpectedly large and sharp response.



Some readers questioned Walsh’s fitness to hold office; others vigorously defended his right to his beliefs. Though I never called for him to be dismissed (merely suggesting that he should prepared to explain himself), some also accused me of jumping to trample his 1st Amendment rights. One reader called me an anti-Christian bigot. Oh well.

Related

OPINION L.A.Pasadena's anti-evolution, anti-gay health director has some explaining to doSEE ALL RELATED

On a more serious note, the controversy surrounding Walsh raises legitimate questions about how far a public employee can go in expressing his views without compromising his duties. It’s not simply a matter of saying he has a right to his opinions and that the government must tolerate all speech by its employees. Imagine, for instance, a police officer who openly advocated white supremacy. Could that officer be trusted to patrol a neighborhood that was predominantly black? Would juries accept his testimony in cases involving minority defendants? The answers are clearly no, and the law, recognizing that, permits government agencies to discipline employees for their speech in some instances.

The controversy surrounding Walsh raises legitimate questions about how far a public employee can go in expressing his views without compromising his duties.-

As Eugene Volokh, the conservative legal scholar at UCLA, wrote this week, “The government may discipline employees when the speech tends to disrupt work relationships or relationships with clients or the public, if the disruption exceeds the value of the speech.” (Volokh went on to write that Walsh’s comments may be protected if they are regarded as political expression, though he did not say specifically that those protections would be enough.)

In other words, if Pasadena concludes that Walsh’s denunciation of homosexuality interferes with the city’s ability to provide services to gays, it might have the right to discipline him, even though he has a right to hold and express his opinions.

That’s hardly novel, by the way. This newspaper’s ethics guidelines, which I helped to write, similarly constrain the speech of some employees. If a political reporter at The Times, for instance, were to put up a lawn sign supporting a candidate he was covering, or donate money to that candidate, he could lose his beat or even his job, even though he has a constitutional right to hold those views. And we’re an organization that feels pretty strongly about speech.

But that misses what seems to me the more salient point in Walsh’s case. Not only did he pop off about the various kinds of people he believes are condemned by God, he also specifically rejected evolution, which he regards as the mischievous work of Satan rather than a fact of science. Those remarks suggest not just intolerance or religious fervor but active rejection of science important to carrying out his work as a health officer. In that instance, his comments raise questions not so much about his beliefs as about his competence. Would Pasadena want a health director who claimed tobacco did not cause heart disease or who insisted that climate change was a myth?

There, I would argue, Pasadena officials have reason to ask whether Walsh has demonstrated unfitness for his job, irrespective of what he thinks about Jay Z.

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Infiltration of the U.S. Government, Part Two

By Cliff Kincaid — May 5, 2014

Vladimir Putin’s aggression in Ukraine has apparently surprised a lot of people who thought the Cold War was over, and that Russia had been integrated into the “community of nations.” In 2012, President Obama pushed through Permanent Normal Trade Relations for Russia, giving Putin access to billions of dollars of Western capital. Continue reading here... 

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The west is obliged to defend Ukraine – and Putin must know what that means

Force should be met with force in Ukraine, but civil war can only be avoided if Russia's legitimate interests there are accepted




Angus Roxburgh


theguardian.com, Wednesday 16 April 2014 08.30 EDT




A fighter jet flies above Ukrainian soldiers in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, on 16 April 2014. ‘Under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum the UK and US are guarantors of Ukraine’s territorial integrity.' Photograph: Marko Djurica/Reuters


As foreign ministers from Russia, the UK, the US and Ukraine prepare for talks in Geneva on Thursday, Ukraine is stumbling towards civil war – the victim both of President Vladimir Putin's ambition and spite, and of the west's consistent failure to predict or counter his moves. All the signs suggest they are going to leave it too late once again.

First, let us be clear: Putin has no grand plan to reconquer all parts of the Soviet Union. (Wanting to create a common market with a few of them is hardly a crime.) But he certainly has other goals, scarcely less sinister, such as "protecting" what he describes as "the Russian world". And he is a master in reacting to events, often created by the west, and turning them to his advantage. He will prise open any chink that allows him to further his aims, and he will continue to do so if the west keeps pussy-footing around.

The EU astonishingly failed to predict that Ukraine's former president Viktor Yanukovych would turn away from a "partnership" deal that promised little money and lots of tough conditions. This gave Putin his first chance to make an opportunistic counter-proposal that cost, in Russian terms, small change. That in turn provoked the "Maidan" revolution and Ukraine's decisive turn to the west. Once again, amid the mad cheering over the downfall of Putin's supposed ally Yanukovych, no western leaders seemed to foresee what this would provoke.

It should hardly have been a surprise that Putin's first thought would be to secure his Crimean military base from Nato hands. He has more or less promised this for years.

At that point, surely, the west should have taken steps to make absolutely sure that eastern Ukraine would not fall too. That required a big stick, and big carrots too – or at least some subtle diplomacy. Instead we got utterly meaningless sanctions aimed at the wrong people (Putin's big-business cronies do not determine his foreign policies).

This was accompanied by sneers and taunts intended only to rile Putin, such as Barack Obama's comments about the Crimea annexation being the work of a "regional power" acting out of weakness. Was belittling the strongman meant to win him round? Ah yes, and then Obama sent his CIA chief to Kiev just to make sure the Russians got the point about where the new Ukraine is headed.

Then Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, suggested that federalisation would help. Predictably he was scorned. But why? If ever a country needed some sort of major devolution of power it is surely Ukraine. The west should have had this idea first and insisted that its clients in Kiev got a move on – before it became branded as a Kremlin idea (and therefore became by definition worthless).

It needs to made absolutely clear to Putin – even as the time for manoeuvre slips tragically away – that further military intervention (or disguised invasion) will be met not with more warnings, jeering and pointless sanctions, but with resolute western military support for Ukraine. Under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum the UK and US are guarantors (morally, if not legally) of Ukraine's territorial integrity. They should make clear that any attempt to dismember the country will be repulsed by force.

That's the big stick. And there needs to be a smaller one too: the threat of total isolation of Russia. Sanctions should be introduced with immediate effect against the people who matter – the entire political leadership (government, Duma, military, security services), plus their families. Visa bans and asset freezes on them all – that would really send a shock up the Kremlin spine.

Economic sanctions are pointless, and sanctions against Putin's oligarch friends are meaningless gestures, winning braying applause in the west but laughed at in Russia.

Finally, the west must also offer some incentives. Western leaders should assure the Kremlin that they will press Kiev to devolve power in the regions and guarantee Russians' rights. They should order President Oleksandr Turchynov to get rid of the far-rightists who inexplicably are in his government. ("Order" is a horrible word, but the time has passed when we could pretend Ukraine's policies should be left to Ukranians; that will come later.) They should condemn the west's darlings such as Yulia Tymoshenko when she is heard calling for Russians to be wiped out. And they should tell Putin to call on his proxies in eastern Ukraine to back down, leave all occupied buildings, drop the idea of a referendum, and wait for the results of the 25 May election.

The west must also accept that Russia has legitimate security interests, and rule out Nato membership for Ukraine for ever. In the long run a global rethink of security is needed, to guarantee the west's security together with Russia's, not in opposition to it – but that cannot happen until after Putin leaves the scene.


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Jesus knocking at the door

Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. 

Revelation 3:20

(King James Version)

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Whose Door is Jesus knocking on?

I have often heard some people , even preachers state that Jesus knocks on everyone's door (or the heart of sinners).  If one opens the door?..  Then, Jesus enters into one's life and offers His Grace.  However, this is not very accurate.

Where does the passage of Jesus knocking on a door appear in the Holy Bible?

• It appears in the Message to (the churches) Laodicea, in Chapter 3 of the book of Revelation.  So, if I am correct Jesus' offer is meant and intended for Laodicea, His remnant church, or more specifically its individual members.

 Therefore, Jesus knocks on the door of Laodicea;  not everyone's heart.


Jesus died and lives for all humanity.  But, He knocks on the door (of the heart) of Laodicea.
Let's call things what they are, and not what we want them to be.

The Message is given as a direct testimony to Laodicea;  As are/were the Messages to the other 6 churches (Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis and Philadelphia) from the Alpha and the Omega (Revelation 1:11).  The Message to Laodicea is inteded especially for Laodicea.
This is the will of Jesus as revealed to John the Revelator.

In my humble opinion it is not right to take a Message meant for the faithful of the Last Days...
and apply it to the world at large...
I believe that the counsel of the Lord is misappropriated when it used as an analogy for Evangelism.

Arsenio.
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Is the Religious Right responsible for America’s fading allegiance to religion?

Posted: Wed, 26 Feb 2014 13:26 by Terry Sanderson





Terry Sanderson on the Religious Right's baneful attempts to desecularize the United States with a raft of "religious freedom" bills.

There seems to be something of a disconnect in America between the rising number of people who profess to have no religion and the state legislatures that are falling over themselves to enact legislation that is little short of theocratic.

Research is repeatedly showing a sharp rise in the number of Americans who have no religion - the "nones" as they are known to academics who study the changing dynamics of religion.

Many evangelical Christians have been comforting themselves with the idea that even though these "nones" don't associate themselves with a particular church, they are still Christians at heart who worship in their own way.

But David Voas, a sociologist at Essex University, begs to differ. He has found from his own research that the "fuzzy faithful" – those who claim to believe in some kind of unidentified higher power and perhaps go to church at Christmas – are really drifting towards complete indifference to religion and all its trappings.

In his 2008 paper The Rise and Fall of Fuzzy Fidelity in Europe, Professor Voas concluded that those who sometimes define themselves as "spiritual but not religious" are actually more likely to be entirely indifferent to religion – a state of affairs that he says is much more dangerous for the future of religion than outright scepticism.

If the same pattern is repeating in America – and it seems to be – then the hope among evangelicals that the "nones" are really just non-practising, but faithful, Christians is little more than wishful thinking.

But despite this rapid secularisation of American culture, there are bills being brought forward in state legislatures that give mighty privilege to religious believers.

So-called "religious freedom" bills have been proposed in several states, but so far have only succeeded in completing the legislative process in Arizona. And even there the Governor still hasn't signed it into law. [Note: Since this blog was originally published, the Governor of Arizona has vetoed the bill].

But there are other battles over supposed "religious freedom" (which usually translates into religious privilege or the right to discriminate against gay people). The Catholic Church and its acolytes are fighting hard to destroy President Obama's flagship Affordable Healthcare legislation because they object to having to supply contraceptives.

Obama gave them an opt out that would relieve them of that duty, then he gave another one, but still they are not satisfied and continue to attack the Affordable Care Act in the courts. At present, a ruling on the matter is awaited from the Supreme Court.

And this is the problem with religious accommodation. Once one concession is made, another demand quickly follows. Religious hierarchies will never stop until they have complete control.

In Arizona the new law seeks to make it legal for businesses and individuals to deny services to gay people if doing so would offend their religious conscience. There could be all kinds of unintended consequences from this legislation (as well as it likely being unconstitutional).

So why is it happening? Why this sudden surge of bills seeking to give religion special privileges in American society? To get religion back into schools, to control what books can be read in colleges (if they are deemed anti-religious) and to promote creationism over evolution in schools?

The answer is that the Republican Party – fused as it now is with the Religious Right – is seeking revenge for the success of gay marriage campaigns around the nation.

As it realises it has lost the war against gay marriage, the Religious Right seeks compensation in the form of "religious freedom" bills, the ultimate aim of which is to make sure gay marriage becomes impractical, despite being legalised.

By putting more and more barriers up against gay people achieving equal rights before the law, the Religious Right and its Republican representation in politics now seeks to make life almost impossible for gay couples in some parts of the country.

But this may end up being a case of making the same mistake twice.

During the last election campaign, the Republicans/Religious Right came to realise that the tide of history had turned against their opposition to gay marriage, and they pragmatically toned down the poisonous anti-gay rhetoric that had been so prominent on their previous electoral platform.

After being trounced again at the ballot box by Obama, they have regrouped and their new plan is to derail gay marriage wherever and however they can with these supposed "religious freedom" bills. But hiding behind the high-falutin' claims of "protecting the liberty of believers to practice their faith" lies rank bigotry.

If they imagine this is going to revive their fortunes they are sadly mistaken. Much of America was repelled by their vile homophobia last time, and it is unlikely it will be impressed with it this time.

The fanatic evangelicals with their hysterical televangelists and lying propagandists are turning off young people, not just from Republicanism, but from religion in general.

The "nones" are growing, but the Religious Right does not seem yet to have made the connection between that trend and their hate-mongering. They have made religion toxic and Americans are fleeing it in their thousands.

Terry Sanderson is the President of the National Secular Society. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the NSS.


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President Obama’s magic words and numbers

George F. Will
Opinion Writer




By George F. Will, Published: February 7

Barack Obama, the first president shaped by the celebratory culture in which every child who plays soccer gets a trophy and the first whose campaign speeches were his qualification for the office, perhaps should not be blamed for thinking that saying things is tantamount to accomplishing things, and that good intentions are good deeds. So, his presidency is useful after all, because it illustrates the perils of government run by believers in magic words and numbers.

The last progressive president promised Model Cities, with every child enjoying a Head Start en route to enjoying an Upward Bound into a Great Society. Today’s progressive president also uses words — and numbers — magically emancipated from reality.

What Obama didn’t know: The many controversies that the White House says the president was kept in the dark about.

Thirty months have passed since Obama said: “The time has come for President Assad to step aside.” Today, James Clapper, director of national intelligence, says Bashar al-Assad’s grip on power has “strengthened.” In last month’s State of the Union address, Obama defined success down by changing the subject: “American diplomacy, backed by the threat of force, is why Syria’s chemical weapons are being eliminated.” If saying so makes it so, all is well.

Assad, however, seems tardy regarding this elimination, perhaps because the threat of force was never actually made. The Democratic-controlled Senate nullified the threat by its emphatic reluctance to authorize force. Reuters recently reported that Assad had surrendered “4.1 percent of the roughly 1,300 tonnes of toxic agents” he supposedly has. The “.1” is an especially magical number, given the modifier “roughly” attached to 1,300 tons.

The English Civil War was not finally ended by negotiations between Oliver Cromwell and Charles I; Cromwell seized power and Charles lost his head. America’s Civil War ended when Robert E. Lee capitulated to U.S. (“Unconditional Surrender”) Grant. Russia’s civil war ended when Leon Trotsky’s Red Army defeated the White forces. Spain’s civil war ended with Francisco Franco in Madrid and remnants of the loyalist forces straggling across the Pyrenees into France. China’s civil war ended when Chiang Kai-shek skedaddled to Formosa (now Taiwan), leaving the mainland to Mao. But Syria’s civil war — after the massacres, torture, chemical weapons — supposedly will be resolved by a negotiated regime change: with words. Next, words will supposedly result in Iran ending the decades-old and hugely expensive nuclear weapons program that it says is nonexistent, and will proceed.

The magic number 8 percent identified the level above which Obama’s administration said unemployment would not rise, thanks to the 2009 stimulus. Seven dollars is the figure, plucked from the ether, that Obama says will be saved by every dollar spent on “high quality” universal preschool, which is probably defined, with tidy circularity, as preschool that saves seven dollars for every dollar spent on it.

Forests continue to be felled to produce the paper on which are printed the continuing studies demonstrating that the United States, which has more than 2 million miles of natural gas pipelines and about 175,000 miles of hazardous-liquid pipelines, would not be menaced by the 1,179 miles of Keystone XL. The new State Department study says construction “would support approximately 42,100 jobs (direct, indirect, and induced).” Obama, of course, has his own number. In a July 24, 2013, interview with the New York Times, he said construction “might create maybe 2,000 jobs.”

The workforce participation rate is at a 36-year low; in the second half of the fifth year of the recovery, a smaller fraction of the population is employed or looking for work than was when the recovery began. Nevertheless, the administration is cheerful about the Congressional Budget Office’s conclusion that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will substantially slow the growth of employment and compensation over the next decade.

The decrease is projected to be nearly three times larger than the CBO had previously predicted. The ACA’s insurance subsidies, which decline with rising income and increase with falling income, will cause many people to choose to stop working, or to work less, or to stop looking for work, thereby reducing the number of hours worked by the equivalent of 2.3 million full-time jobs by 2021.

An administration spokesman did not dispute the CBO’s key finding but hailed it as evidence that the ACA is increasing Americans’ choices. Really.

Many of the words and numbers bandied by Obama and his administration may reflect an honest belief that the world is whatever well-intentioned people like them say about it. So, Obama’s critics should reconsider their assumption that he is cynical. It is his sincerity that is scary.


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No excuses for priestly child abuse

Photo (Courtesy) http://www.expressnews.com/news/religion/article/U-N-report-accuses-Vatican-of-protecting-priests-5209266.php


By James Carroll | Globe Columnist


February 10, 2014


ON THE QUESTION of how far papal authority extends, the canon law of the Catholic Church could not be clearer: “The vicar of Christ. . . possesses full, immediate, and universal ordinary power in the Church, which he is always able to exercise freely.” (Can. 331) Note that canon law does not say, “except in cases of priestly sex abuse of children.” Canon law does not say that priests and bishops are independent contractors. Canon law does not say that what happens in Catholic parishes and dioceses around the world has nothing to do with Rome. In fact, another canon reads, “By virtue of his office, the Roman pontiff not only possesses power over the universal church, but also obtains the primacy of ordinary power over all particular churches and groups of them.” (Can. 333)

How to square that sweeping papal power with the shameless dodge put forward by the Holy See in this era of church disgrace — the claim that, when it comes to protecting children from abuse, the Roman Catholic Church is legally responsible only to safeguard those living in the confines of Vatican City, a tiny city-state that would fit inside New York’s Central Park eight times? Washing the Vatican’s hands of broader responsibility for the staggering transnational accumulation of rapes by priests, and systematic enabling of those rapes by bishops, a Vatican spokesman said, “When individual institutions of national churches are implicated, that does not regard the competence of the Holy See . . . The competence of the Holy See is at the level of the Holy See.”

Last week, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child mocked that claim by issuing a scathing indictment of Catholic child abuse, laying full responsibility at the feet of the pope himself. The committee, investigating priestly abuse under the authority of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which the Vatican is a signatory, reminded the Holy See that “by ratifying the convention it has committed itself to implementing the convention not only on the territory of the Vatican City state, but also as the supreme power of the Catholic Church through individuals and institutions placed under its authority.” The UN committee, that is, upholds canon law better than the Vatican does.

The pope’s men, including squads of lawyers who deny that offending priests and bishops are “employees” and insist that the pope as a sovereign head of state is immune from lawsuits, are obviously seeking to fend off the threat of multinational litigation that could saddle the Vatican with billions of dollars in liabilities. So far, courts have mostly sided with the Holy See.

But the Vatican strategy has come at a terrible moral cost. Once again, protection of church power and possessions is trumping the profound moral obligation to reckon with the truth of what is still happening in the Catholic Church. And now comes this next lie — the ridiculous assertion that the pope does not exercise full and complete authority over priests and bishops. When parishioners fight the closure of beloved churches, they appeal to Rome. When English-speaking Catholics are directed to say at Mass that Jesus died for “many” instead of for “all,” the fiat comes from Rome. “The competence of the Holy See” is exercised at every level of church life everywhere.

Protection of church power is trumping the obligation to reckon with the truth of what is still happening.

The UN report is so blistering because the committee clearly concludes that, despite a Vatican official’s assertion that the church “gets it,” the hierarchy still does not understand the urgency of protecting children. The Holy See hides behind reporting law loopholes that exist in many nations. It still does not hold to account the abuse-enabling bishops, a failure permanently on display in the honors accorded to cover-up icon Cardinal Bernard Law. And the UN commission, surprisingly impolitic, properly calls attention to the broader culture of Catholic sexual repressiveness — “barriers and taboos” — because it is the source of what endangers children. Vatican push-back in the name of “religious freedom” misses the point, and deflects the core UN indictment.

Pope Francis has appointed a Commission for the Protection of Minors, and the UN urges that it be independently empowered and fully transparent. Francis has generated enormous hope for a new day in the Catholic Church, but on the abuse question he has miles to go. The message from the United Nations is that the world is more appalled by Catholic crimes than defensive church officials are. If the church does not address those crimes, others will. James Carroll writes regularly for the Globe.


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Unemployment down to 6.7 percent, not 6.66?

The unemployment rate fell to 6.7 percent. Don’t celebrate.


By Neil Irwin


January 10 at 9:42 am



A tradition like no other: The jobs sign as an illustration of our jobs report story. (Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images)

...

The unemployment rate fell to 6.7 percent, which is the lowest since October 2008. But this apparent good news has a dark lining -- 347,000 people dropped out of the labor force (that is, are no longer looking for work) while only 143,000 additional people reported having a job. Interestingly, a broader measure of unemployment that also captures people who have given up looking for a job out of frustration didn'tdidn’t budge, remaining at 13.1 percent. 

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Flashback to the Fall of 2008, when President George W. Bush addressed the nation regarding the subprime mortgage crisis, toxic assets, and the need to pump $700 Billion into the federal government to avoid a financial collapse.

Just a few days after his inauguration in 2009, President Barack Obama called for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to jump start the economy; proposed cost $787 Billion.

Ever since taking office the Obama Administration has devised several techniques to improve the economic condition of the nation:

1. Shovel Ready Jobs;
2. Extension of Unemployment Benefits to 99 weeks;
3. Cash for Clunkers;
4.  And several other measures that didn't amount to much...

Remember the Recovery Summer of 2010?

Ever since I can remember (perhaps, the last 5 years) the Federal Reserve has been pumping $85 Billion per month into the economy:

The Federal Reserve (and other Central Banks) have been 'printing' money in recent years under various code-names, including Quantitive Easing (QE 1, 2, & 3), LTRO, SMP, TWIST, TARP and TALF, in order to bring unemployment down & speed up the economy. This article explains the failure behind the current money printing scheme and how banks, not people, get the money.

http://demonocracy.info/infographics/usa/federal_reserve-qe3/money_printing-2012-2013.html

Photo (Courtesy)  http://www.npr.org/2013/12/17/251796694/year-in-numbers-the-federal-reserves-85-billion-question


In December 2013, the Federal Reserve hinted that it might 'reduce' the Quantitative Easing to a smaller amount...


In January 2014 we hear President Barack Obama talking about wage disparity and Income Inequality; parroting the Roman Pontiff's latest critique of the Capitalist Financial System and its Trickle Down Economics.

Poverty?

Then, yesterday (01/21/2014), the White House revealed that the President will meet with the Bishop of Rome on March 27, 2014...


And you wonder whether the Unemployment Rate is down to 6.7%?

I think the unemployment rate is rather down to 6.66%, and the signs and wonder are all over the place (for those that have ears to hear and eyes to see)!

Photo (Courtesy) http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2014/jan/21/president-obama-pope-francis-shared-economic-view/

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Arsenio.
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Obamacare Bleeding From Self-Inflicted Wounds

Photo (Courtesy) http://grumpyelder.com/2013/10/obama-cant-blame-the-republicans-this-time/

11/16/2013 - 10:32

Douglas Bloomfield


The worst wounds a politician can suffer are usually self-inflicted. Nixon had Watergate, Clinton had Monica Lewinsky, Reagan had Iran-Contra, Bush 41 had "read my lips" and his son, Bush 43, had Katrina.

And now it's Barack Obama and "if you like your insurance plan you can keep it."

House Republicans have passed more than 40 bills, amendments and resolutions and they even shut down the government for 16 days at a cost of $24 billion to the U.S. economy in repeated failed efforts to stop Obamacare. They held funding for the federal government hostage to their demand that Obama agree to kill (defund) his signature legislative achievement.

Instead it was the Republicans who ran up the white flag, but not before doing enormous damage – not to Obama and Obamacare but to themselves. They didn't lay a finger on the President. Public approval for the Congress has dived to single digits; Democrats fare better than Republicans in the public view, but only by comparison.

Republicans compounded their incredibly damaging self-inflicted wounds by deflecting all attention to their shutdown and overshadowing the botched rollout of the Obamacare website and enrollment effort. Obama's approval rating went up in the wake of his tough and successful stand against the Republican shutdown blackmail.

It took a while for most people to notice that the Obamacare rollout was a fiasco.

Republicans are talking about repairing Obamacare, but that's a hoax. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Rep. Fred Upton (R-Michigan), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce committee and author of the so-called "repair" bill that passed the House with 39 Democratic votes, admit that repair is the last thing they want to do.

"There's not a Republican out there who wouldn't want to repeal it," Upton told CNN's Jake Tapper, who asked whether his bill wasn't a "Trojan horse" because he really isn't interested in repairing Obamacare.

But don't blame the Republicans for what went wrong; all their efforts to damage and destroy the Affordable Care Act have failed, sometimes, like the shutdown, with disastrous consequences for them. What has Obamacare bleeding and in the ICU are self-inflicted wounds.

The President faces a slow, painful recovery. He's apologized, taken responsibility ("the buck stops here"), said he's "sorry," promised a quick fix that he can't deliver, asked for help from an unsympathetic insurance industry and pleads ignorance because staff didn't tell him about the problems. There's been a shuffling around of staff to make the website and sign-up work, but so far no one is being held accountable, no one has lost their job.

And Barack Obama is left out there twisting slowly, slowly in the wind, suffering from the damage done to Obamacare with no one to blame but himself for this self-inflicted wound.


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A week of Hegelian Dialectics

This past week (w/e 12/14/13) we were provided a week of  Hegelian Dialectics

This past Tuesday was the culmination of the latest paradigm shift

1. Jorge Ma. Bergoglio, the bishop of Rome was named man of the year by Time Magazine...
2. On the same day a Memorial Service for the recently deceased Nelson Mandela (at least 100 world leaders and dignitaries attended) was held in Johannesburg South Africa...
3. During that Memorial Service President Obama shook hands with Raul Castro, El Nuevo Comandante of Cuba...

I see Hegelian Dialectics (in effect) in these events -

Last month, Jorge Ma. Bergoglio disparaged Capitalism via a  85 page document Evangelii Gaudium, (The Joy of the Gospel), for which he was criticized by Conservative Radio Commentator Rush Limbaugh. In my opinion the Jesuit Bishop of Rome hinted at the need for a Third Way, what I call Liberation Theology, the Catholic Church's Social Doctrine.  This ideology promotes Universal Wealth Redistribution, and embraces the Catholic fomented Liberation Theology.

While Bergoglio is promoting Socialism;  Barak Obama, the President of the United States attended a reunion of World Leaders where he makes cordial social contact with Raul Castro, the leader of Cuba which has had an Economic Embargo in place (by the U.S. of America) for over 50 years.

The United States represents Free Enterprise Capitalism, while Cuba is the epitome of Socialism and  a tyrannical Oligarchy.

Nelson Mandela was a revolutionary and a Socialist.

Hegelian Dialectics

Thesis - Antithesis = Synthesis

Capitalism - Socialism = Madiba-ism

 I would define Madiba-ism, as a Syncretism of Capitalism, Socialism and Racial Equality, a consensus of economic ideologies.
 

or

Problem - Reaction = Soltution

The Developed Nations acquired wealth - The Third World lacks goods - Wealth Redistribution

To further illustrate the subliminal propaganda perpetrated in the media:


Yesterday, the U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, while in Viet Nam, for his 14th visit, stated he wanted to stop climate change in the Mekong Delta...  When John Kerry was an Navy Officer during the Viet Nam Police Action, he patrolled the Mekong River looking for Communists...

Now,

Now, Kerry wants to stop climate change?

Two words:

 Hegelian Dialectics

Arsenio

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The Nuclear Paradox (Update)

The Nuclear Paradox 
Synchronicity?

Iran's Nuclear Agreement

Under the guidance of Secretary of State (Globalism) John Kerry (previous U.S. Presidential Candidate, also cousin of Pres. George W. Bush and fellow Skull and Bones member). ..

Over the weekend we have found out that the U.S. has reached an agreement with Iran over its Nuclear ambitions;  The U.S. and the P5 +1 (6 world powers) aka the U.N. Security Council plus Germany, have reached a temporary 6 months agreement with Iran.  Iran agrees to halt or suspend its Nuclear enrichment program as it ultimate leads to Nuclear Weapons proliferation which the aforementioned nations do not want...

The United States and the P5 +1 will temporarily relax the sanctions that have been imposed on Iran beginning in 1979...

The Nuclear Option (at the American Loya Jirga)

Just a few days before this Nuclear phenomenon, last week the U. S. Senate under the leadership of Senator (D) Harry Reid of Nevada, gutted the procedure called a Filibuster, under which the minority party can stall judicial and cabinet nominations by the sitting president.   They call it the Nuclear Option...

Washington Times

'Nuclear option' in Senate makes president more powerful

Washington Post-by Chris Cillizza-19 hours ago
When Senate Democrats invoked the “nuclear option” last week, they immediately did one thing: made this president — and future ones ...

Wow, two Nuclear Events in one week?  
You know... They are really playing when they run out of names to call things...

Regarding the second issue:  What an amazing choice of words?


Arsenio.


(Update) 11/26/13;  Minimal changes to better convey the point. 

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