Wednesday, December 31, 2014

The Vatican's Extraordinary Synod

An interesting article from http://www.ucg.org/ about the Vatican synod. This follows this post about the birth of Jesus. For a free magazine subscription or to get the books recommended for free click HERE! or call 1-888-886- 8632.
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The Vatican's Extraordinary Synod



Voices in the Catholic church are pushing for change in basic matters of the family. Where could this lead?


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[Darris McNeely] The Roman Catholic Church, just a few days ago, completed what they called an extraordinary synod. Now, don't get thrown off by that word, "synod" – it just means "meeting". But it was an extraordinary meeting called by the pope, Pope Francis, of many of the cardinals of the Catholic Church, to discuss the family, and issues regarding and relating to the family and Catholicism, especially whether or not divorced Catholics can take the Mass, according to church teaching. Also on the agenda was discussion about gay marriage and homosexuality, and the church's long-held stances on those particular social matters. And so it was hailed prematurely as a time when there would be some breakthroughs made and changes made in the Catholic Church's stance on these issues. But by the time they came to the end of the meetings and issued their preliminary papers on it, it was evident that they had not really changed at all. In fact, they could not get the two-thirds votes of the bishops that were convened on this to make any change whatsoever in the teachings and the stance of the Catholic Church on these matters. Now it's going to be carried over into another meeting next year. Whether or not they will change, we'll have to wait and see. The present pope, Pope Francis, has made some rather interesting comments about those issues, basically indicating that he was perhaps a little bit more flexible on them than the church teaching or past stances have been, but no change has taken place.
As you watch a church go through openly, at least as much as it can be, discussions on topics like this – these volatile social issues of gay marriage, of homosexual conduct, and the state of marriage, and particularly as it relates to Catholic teaching and other traditional Catholic instruction and even Christian instruction on the subject – you marvel at what is taking place compared to the upheaval that is going on in society at large and what will be the outcome – it will be yet to be determined.
What's quite interesting, I think, for us to look at and to consider, is where will this lead? What is going to be the future of this when it comes to at least just the Catholic Church and their particular stance on that? Nobody can predict that, necessarily. But I think that you're going to see further pressure for the church to reform its teachings. I think that's one thing that there is going to be, pressure to reform. Now, pressure by itself, when it comes to Catholicism, is not going to be enough to make any radical changes there, but the pressure, I think, is going to continue on. And also, I think that there's going to be possible backlash that we might look for, even within the church, and its impact upon its particular policies and approach and its public persona that could create some type of further interesting situations when it comes to religious associations and religious matters as a whole.
To watch something like this take place within the church that has over 1.2 billion adherents around the world is quite instructive, it is fascinating, and it is very, very important in our understanding of something that is taking place in society at large and in a very, very large church in our world today, and its implications for the future could be significant.
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Living on Mars is un-Islamic, and five other weird fatwas from 2014

A very interesting post from www.jihadwatch.org about Islamic decrees issued this year. This follows this post about the NYPD cop killer. This follows this article about American energy independence and preventing money from going to hostile countries. For more, you can read two very interesting books HERE.
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Living on Mars is un-Islamic, and five other weird fatwas from 2014

my-favorite-martianThis post could be entitled The Wacky Side of Sharia were it not for the unaccountable human suffering caused by #2 (and the beliefs that it echoed and reaffirmed) in the Islamic State, as well as in Nigeria. “Six weirdest fatwas of 2014,” Egypt Independent, December 30, 2014:
“God’s agents” — that was the term that famed 13th-century Islamic Jurist Ibn al-Qaayyim al-Jawziya gave to reflect how critical and sensitive it is to be a mufti, an Islamic scholar approached for religious opinions pertaining to all matters of Muslims’ lives.
Despite that sensitivity, several fatwas (religious edicts) that were issued throughout 2014 not only stirred controversy, but also inspired biting sarcasm from observers. Here are a number of those opinions that are believed to have failed to live up to the earnestness of the position.
1. Take a stealthy look at your bathing fiancee
Social network users circulated a video of preacher Ossama al-Quosy, who said it was permissible for a man to take a quick, stealthy look at his fiancee while she is showering, only on the condition that he has an earnest intention of getting married to her.
Literal interpretation of Islamic teachings prohibit women from showing any parts of their bodies, except the face and the hands, to men other than their husbands.
2. The return of concubation
A video was also trending on Youtube of Jordanian preacher Yassin al-Aglouny, in which he stated that female Syrian refugees are allowed to ask financially-able Muslim men to shelter them as “concubines.”
3. Open buffet is “haram”
Saudi preacher and member of Saudi Arabia’s senior scholars authority, Saleh al-Fawzan, had the lion’s share of contentious fatwas during 2014, most notably that open buffet banquets are impermissible on the basis that they do not quote a clear price for transactions.
4. Elections prohibited
Politics had their role in fatwas during the year, with the most outstanding political fatwa made by Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawy, prohibiting participation in the presidential elections that brought Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to power.
Qaradawy is the chairman of the International Union of Muslim Scholars and an ardent supporter of Sisi’s predecessor, deposed President Mohamed Morsy.
5. Lying is halal
Contrary to the popular opinion, Yasser Borhamy, deputy chairman of the Salafi Daawa, said it was even permissible for a wife to lie to her husband to be able to get out and vote in the constitutional referendum last January.
Opponents to the document said the fatwa resembled a manipulation of religion for political goals.
Borhamy backed the ouster of Morsy in 2013 and the adoption of the new constitution.
6. Living on Mars impermissible
On of the weirdest fatwas was made by United Arab Emirates’ General Authority for Islamic Affairs and Endowments, prohibiting life on Mars. In an official statement, the authority said living on Mars was against Islam, responding to Dutch-run project, Mars One, which proclaims plans for a human colony on the red planet by 2025.
The authority’s argument was that heading to Mars would resemble a suicide given the dangers such a step could involve.

President Obama Will Shut Down DHS If Amnesty Not Funded, According to Aide

An interesting article from www.numbersusa.com about President Obama. This follows this post about Rand Paul vs. Ted Cruz on immigration. This follows this post on HOW amnesty is funded in ways other than the DHS. Remember, “Amnesty” means ANY non-enforcement of existing immigration laws! This follows this comment and this post about how to Report Illegal Immigrants! Also, you can read two very interesting books HERE.
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President Obama Will Shut Down DHS If Amnesty Not Funded, According to Aide


https://www.numbersusa.com/sendfax

Updated:  


During a recent interview, top White House aide Dan Pfeiffer said that President Obama would block funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) if the Republican Congress does not fund his executive action to grant illegal aliens amnesty and work permits.
In the interview, Pfeiffer said that the president would "absolutely not" sign a 2015 spending bill that would include limits on amnesty spending. When asked if President Obama would veto the spending curbs, Pfeiffer replied, "Yep."
Pfeiffer continued, saying that while DHS can be shut down, "You can't defund our executive action because it is paid for by fees." While the agency within DHS that is in charge of implementing President Obama's executive amnesty is funded by fees from legal immigrants, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) has found that funds "received as fees by federal agencies must still be appropriated by Congress to that agency in order to be available for obligation or expenditure by the agency." Therefore, Congress has the power block the funding of executive amnesty when they convene early next year.
DHS' funds are set to expire on February 27, 2015 as per the 2015 spending bill that was passed into law earlier this month.
For more on this story, read The Daily Caller

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Editorial: Is the U.S. majority getting beaten EVERYWHERE?

Editorial


On almost every front in the U.S. the will of the majority is being suppressed. The results of the 2014 midterms are being watered down by caving Republican leaders and by the boxing in efforts of the president.


In the battle for the future, the majority stance is being suppressed at all levels of education as was reported here. http://www.yaf.org/Top11PCCampusDebaclesOf2014.aspx

Hillary’s Two-Faced Cynicism: Clinton Bashed Jeb Bush for Trying to Save Terri’s Life

An interesting story from www.lifenews.com about Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush. This follows this post about fathers and abortion. For  two very interesting books click HERE
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Hillary’s Two-Faced Cynicism: Clinton Bashed Jeb Bush for Trying to Save Terri’s Life



by Wesley J. Smith | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com


Jeb Bush is making all the noises of a presidential candidate and is already being hit for his attempt to save the life of Terri Schiavo.
People aren’t going to change their opinions about that case. But for those who hate Bush for interfering in the case, you should have even greater disregard for Hillary Clinton, who — oh, so typically — tried to have it both ways in the Schiavo tragedy – first voting to try and save her and then criticizing the very effort with which she cooperated.
Bush tried to save here with a state “Terri’s Law” (discussed in detail in the article). When that law was found unconstitutional, an effort was launched in the Congress to impede Schiavo’s slow death by dehydration.
From, “The Schiavo Case Revisited”:
Schiavo’s feeding tube was again removed . . . In the Senate, Majority Leader Bill Frist and Minority Leader Harry Reid cooperated on a bill that required a federal court to review alleged irregularities in the state’s judicial proceedings—an extraordinary, unprecedented proposal to grant federal jurisdiction over a legal matter the U.S. Supreme Court had already refused repeatedly to consider.
Time was of the essence as each day without sustenance, Terri grew closer to death. Getting the bill to the Senate floor before Terri died required unanimous consent. In other words, if even one senator refused, the Schiavo case was over except for the dying.
terrischiavo5That means Clinton could have easily prevented the law from taking effect. All she had to do was refuse consent. What did she do?
Typical of her notorious angle-playing approach to politics, she said nothing one way or the other publicly—and along with every other senator, quietly consented to the bill receiving a floor vote. The federal “Terri’s Law” quickly passed, becoming one of the most bipartisan laws enacted during George W. Bush’s presidency. (Besides the unanimous voice vote in the Senate, it gained the support of about 45 percent of House Democrats.)
How bipartisan?  Passed without objection in a Senate voice vote, and receiving about 45 percent yes votes from the House Democratic caucus.
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That law didn’t save Terri’s life either. And then Clinton’s cynicism gene really kicked in.
When postmortem polls showed that the public opposed the federal involvement, many Democrats—Clinton among them—disparaged the very effort in which they themselves had cooperated. For example, at a 2006 fundraising appearance in Florida, Clinton hypocritically decried Republicans for “exploiting the tragedy of Terri Schiavo.”
Back when a catastrophically disabled woman’s life hung in the balance, Jeb Bush took a principled, if unpopular, stand. Contrast that with Clinton, who went along with the legislative effort to save Terri Schiavo, but in a politically calculated way: If the law had been popularly embraced, she could have taken credit for being on board. When it turned out that the law was generally unpopular, she pointed fingers.
Those who disdain Jeb because of Terri Schiavo, should feel even greater antipathy toward Hillary. Her two-faced approach to politics is very hard to stomach.
LifeNews.com Note: Wesley J. Smith, J.D., is a special consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture and a bioethics attorney who blogs at Human Exeptionalism.


Box Office: Unbroken, The Imitation Game, Big Eyes, Into the Woods, The Gambler The Interview: Juvenile Crap w/ Some Funny Lines

Here is an interesting article from http://www.debbieschlussel.com/ reviewing some of the movies that came out over the past weekend. This follows this post about some of the movies from last week and THIS POST about some movies that have been released over the past few years that you might have missed! This all follows this post about guidelines to choosing good movies to watch yourself!




Christmas Box Office: Unbroken, The Imitation Game, Big Eyes, Into the Woods, The Gambler


And the end of a bad year in new movies goes out with a whimper. The only one of the movies, new in theaters yesterday, that I liked was the gay WWII hero movie. And even that was all relative in a year of really shabby movies. Oh, and by the way, those who claim “patriotism” got snubbed because neither “Unbroken” nor “American Sniper” got nominated for any awards–well, they are dead wrong. I myself did not vote for either of these in any category, as a member of the Detroit Film Critics Society, and–at least with regard to “Unbroken”–here’s why:
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bigeyesintothewoods

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* “Unbroken“: You would think that a movie about an American World War II hero and patriot would be right up my alley (you would be right about that) and that I would love this movie, but you would be wrong. It would be very difficult for any director to screw up a movie about the inspiring, incredible life story of Louis Zamperini. But Angelina Jolie managed to bleep it up. Gone is the amazing, uplifting story depicted in the book of the same name. In its place, Jolie produces a long, boring, formulaic, stilted, distracting mess. I received the DVD screener for this movie a month ago. I was excited to watch it, but it was so slow and herky-jerky that I had to watch it in 15 minute installments, since it didn’t keep my attention.







The most noticeable disservice to the late Zamperini is that Palestina Jolie skips what may be the most interesting part of Zamperini’s life: his second (and third) acts. Maybe that is because she is a godless woman who doesn’t seem to like Christianity (or Judaism) much (but oh does she love Islam!). After he returned home from being tortured in a Japanese prison camp during the war, Zamperini retreated into a life of drunken carousing. But he heard Rev. Billy Graham deliver a sermon in person, and it changed his life. He became a devout Christian and started a camp for wayward boys, changing their lives. NONE of that is in the movie. None. Knowing that story and watching this long, drawn out, formulaic movie end, I thought, “Is that all there is?” I felt like I’d watched only half a movie. The only references to his future life are a brief line in the movie when Zamperini tells G-d he will devote his life to him if he is allowed to survive and in a caption at the end of the movie stating that he did devote his life to G-d. That’s it. The story is much bigger than those brief mentions.
And then there’s what I did watch. Jolie employs the device used by the most incompetent so-called directors. She constantly flashes back and forward and back and forward and back again. It’s dizzying, confusing, and just flat-out annoying. It wasn’t necessary and ruins the movie. The most interesting parts of Zamperini’s life are obfuscated and/or poorly told. Zamperini, after being a bad kid, is convinced by his older brother to become a disciplined runner and track star. When he makes Team USA and goes to compete at the “Hitler Olympics” in 1936, director Jolie shows some silly “We Are the World” scene of Zamperini and a Japanese athlete nodding at each other during the opening ceremony. She completely skips Zamperini’s meeting Hitler, because, hey, that’s not at all a big deal, right? The whole set of Olympic scenes, by the way, are in the endlessly distracting flashbacks.
And since she manages to make one of the potentially most interesting scenes into a bore, she then also makes what should have been one of the most boring things into something interesting, in a survival adventure movie kind of way that reminded me of Tom Hanks in “Castaway” or Robert Redford in “All is Lost” (read my review) or the Indian kid in “Life of Pi” (read my review). Zamperini and two other soldiers are shown adrift on two rafts in the middle of the sea for 45 days, struggling to survive. Compared to the lengthy scenes of Zamperini and two other soldiers in the raft, the scenes of Zamperini in the Japanese POW camp seem rote, like the directrix was bored. The movie was cold and lacks spirit, exactly like the personality of its director.
Jolie said she wanted the message of the movie to be that all people suffer in war, and she shows us scenes of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We are morally equivalent to the enemy. I get that’s the message. How sad that she doesn’t seem to get that it’s just not true. And if she feels that way, she should go live amidst the enemy and stop making bad movies.
Some people have pointed out that Zamperini was taken with Jolie. Well, so what? A 90-something old man is taken with a beautiful and very famous movie star? He wouldn’t be the first to be starstruck and happy just to have her make a movie about his life, no matter how boring and uncomprehensive the movie is. The only touching part of Jolie’s film is the part that she had no part in directing: real-life footage of Zamperini running with the Olympic torch down the streets of Japan.
A couple of weeks ago, in the endless hype for this, Tom Brokaw hosted an hour special on NBC about the life of Zamperini, Palestina Jolie, and the making of this movie. The parts about Zamperini combined were far more touching and infinitely more interesting than this multi-million dollar heap of film.
Like I said, it would be very hard to bleep up the Zamperini story as told in the book, “Unbroken.” But in the movie of the same name, Angie Voight managed to do just that. She says it’s an anti-war movie. And I believe her.
ONE REAGAN
reagancowboy

* “The Imitation Game“: While this is, among other things, a gay rights movie clothed in World War II intrigue and mystique, the people who made this know how to make a movie. It’s one of this year’s best. As a conservative, I don’t believe in special rights for gays, but I do believe that what you do in your bedroom is your business (so long as it’s not with kids, incompetents, or animals), and I oppose any form of persecution like the awful kind that is on display at the end of this film.
That said, this is a pretty decent movie, one of this year’s best, in a very bad field of them. And it’s the story of thinking outside the box (though the use of that phrase is now inside the box) and genius. It’s the story of those who think differently not letting the mainstream horde of sheep get them down or cause them to change. And more than all of these, it’s the story of a brilliant British man, Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch), who broke the Nazi Enigma code and helped end World War II early, saving countless lives. He also invented the first computer.
This movie also employs flashbacks to Turing’s childhood as an odd duck who is endlessly mocked by classmates, has only one friend, and so on. You get the point. But unlike in Angelina Jolie’s “Unbroken,” the flashbacks are few and far between, and they are employed to make a point. Despite being a persecuted kid on the outs with others, he didn’t let that stop his different way of thinking or get him down. He persevered and thought great things, did great things.
He is chosen for a position on a squad of code breakers attempting to decipher the Nazi code to pilots and others. The code changes every 24 hours, so if it’s not solved by the end of the day, they have to start all over again. It’s frustrating work, and they aren’t making progress, until Turing convinces Winston Churchill to make him the director of the project, and he fires those who persecuted and attacked him. Turing creates a computer of sorts to break the code, but the computer isn’t making much progress. Soon, though, he hires people who solved a crossword puzzle he put in the newspaper. One of these is Keira Knightley, who inadvertently helps him figure it out.
She also becomes his girlfriend and fiancee until he tells her he is gay and that they can’t be married. This was back in the day when homosexual acts were against the law. Ultimately, none of his World War II heroics or genius matters. And it’s, in the end, a sad film because of the deplorable way Turing was treated.
Still, it’s an important movie about a lesser-known man who helped the West against the forces of evil and was a computer science pioneer. And it’s a great portrayal of the importance of rugged individualism and independent, critical thought–all of which Turing embodies in this movie.
Usually, science and math geniuses aren’t sexy enough for Hollywood, and so their stories aren’t told on the silver screen. I’m glad this was one of the exceptions to that rule.
THREE-AND-A-HALF REAGANS
reagancowboyreagancowboyreagancowboyhalfreagan

* “Big Eyes“: I always dislike reviewing movies about real-life people, as told from the point of view of only one of those people. You never know if the story is true. And this one is very heavy-handed, very over the top. Walter Keane, the villain in this movie, isn’t alive to defend himself. And the movie is told from the point of view of his ex-wife, Margaret Keane. The movie isn’t just heavy-handed. It’s heavy-handed feminism and it’s also anachronistic because even if everything that happens in this movie actually happened in real life, none of it would happen today.
The story: Margaret Keane (Amy Adams) is an artist and single mother. She paints portraits featuring big eyes (think “Bratz” dolls). You’ve probably seen her work, which became popular in the ’60s and ’70s. My late maternal grandmother had a “big eyes” painting, probably a knock-off or lithograph of Keane’s work, hanging in her basement. (I used to think it was soooo ugly and creepy-looking.) Keane meets another artist (or at least a man who pretends to be an artist) and eventually marries him. The man, Walter Keane, soon begins marketing and selling his new wife’s paintings as his own. And after being initially upset, she goes along with it. Walter turns the paintings into a huge marketing hit. They are soon everywhere, and the Keanes are making a mint. But Margaret is upset that she doesn’t get credit for her work and that her husband is abusive and constantly degrades her, plus he’s apparently an alcoholic. Ultimately, she leaves him and fights back with a vengeance (and this movie, told as she sees it). Gloria Steinem and the ghost of Betty Friedan are proud.
But is the story really true? Mainstream liberal media accounts discuss the lawsuit depicted in the movie, so that seems accurate, as does Margaret’s claim that she, not her husband, painted the pics. Still, I saw nothing confirming that Walter Keane was a violent, abusive, harmful person, threatening and attempting to burn Mrs. Keane and her daughter and their house down. Like I said, I hate reviewing these movies that seem over the top in depicting what may (or may not) have occurred in real life.
I don’t want to give away the whole movie, but you get the point. I wonder about the casting of Christoph Waltz as the Nebraska-born and American-raised Walter Keane. Waltz’s Austrian accent comes through crystal clear, and that is never explained in the movie, despite the fact that much of the movie takes place just a decade or two after World War II. It’s curious.
Like I said, the real Walter Keane is long dead and not around to give his side of the story, which–in past press accounts quoting him–was quite different than what you see here. So, if you go see this agenda-laden, ax-grinding movie, keep in mind that it’s propaganda neatly wrapped in Hollywood’s “You go girl!” grrrl-power-narrative bow.
And you’ll never know the whole story. Or the real one.
FOUR BETTY FRIEDANS PLUS FOUR MICHELLE LAVAUGHN ROBINSON HUSSEIN OBAMA IDI AMIN DADAS
michelleobamaangrysmallermichelleobamaangrysmallermichelleobamaangrysmallermichelleobamaangrysmallerplus.jpgbettyfriedanbettyfriedanbettyfriedanbettyfriedan

* “Into the Woods“: While the “first act” of this movie is entertaining and engrossing, the second act is an anti-male bore. Copied from a Broadway musical of the same name, the movie takes several fairy tales–“Little Red Riding Hood,” “Cinderella,” “Jack and the Beanstalk,” etc.–and intertwines them, with the characters involving themselves in each other’s stories. Johnny Depp’s child-molester-like wolf in the “Little Red Riding Hood” story was just more than a little creepy, but I enjoyed the first half of the movie.
It’s all male characters, especially the princes (including the one Cinderella marries), are idiots, fools, and failures, fending off a female giant in the woods, that I got bored and turned off. That part was boring and typical Hollywood crap. And if you don’t like musicals (I do like them), you’ll hate this.
Oh, by the way, Meryl Streep is pretty true to character as a witch. She’s played one several times, and I get the feeling this ain’t just acting.
FOUR BETTY FRIEDANS PLUS FOUR MICHELLE LAVAUGHN ROBINSON HUSSEIN OBAMA IDI AMIN DADAS
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* “The Gambler“: Mainstream (liberal) movie critics are falling all over this movie in gushing unison. Not me. I don’t know what the point of this slow, boring, pathetic movie was . . . other than to give Mark Wahlberg yet another paycheck and pretend he’s a great arthouse, indie film actor. This is supposedly a remake of the 1974 James Caan star vehicle of the same name.
The story: Wahlberg is a college professor from a very rich family. But he keeps losing everything because he’s addicted to gambling. And even when his wealthy mother and loan sharks give him the money to pay off his gambling debts–and even when he’s hundreds of thousands of dollars ahead at the casino tables–he deliberately keeps making risky bets and gambles it all away. Therefore, a whole bunch of mobster and loan shark thug types are after him.
Oh, I forgot one other reason they musta made this movie: so they could show you a digustingly morbidly obese John Goodman wearing nearly no clothes in a schvitz joint, playing a pseudo-Jewish loan shark, who uses the word “schvartze” (Yiddish word for Black, usually derogatory). We are just 5.2 million people (and shrinking) in America. And they couldn’t resist yet another opportunity to implicate Jews as ugly, fat, racist cretins in a movie. Thanks, Hollywood.
THREE MARXES PLUS THREE OBAMAS
karlmarxmovies.jpgkarlmarxmovies.jpgkarlmarxmovies.jpgplus.jpgobamasmilingsmallerobamasmilingsmallerobamasmilingsmaller

The Interview: Juvenile Crap w/ Some Funny Lines


By Debbie Schlussel
Reader I Am Me warned me it was bad. “It’s AWFUL. It may be the worst movie I have ever seen,” he wrote me. He paid to watch the controversial “The Interview” online, “out of some probably misplaced sense of patriotism.” I went to a theater to see it, last night.
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It’s not a great movie. In fact, I agree with him that it’s somewhat crappy, although I’ve seen many far worse movies just this year, and I didn’t hate it as much as he did. It’s a low-rent movie with a lot of silliness and juvenile, crass, gross humor–the kind that appeals to teens and 20-somethings raised on a steady diet of MTV’s “Teen Moms” and assorted Kardashian Kartrashian. I’m surprised it actually cost $40 million to make because it looks more like a $4 million (or less) budget movie.
But I thought it was very funny. I will be the first to admit that I went to the movie ready to laugh, and that makes a huge difference. I laughed a lot, especially during the first third or half of the movie, probably more than anyone else in the theater where I saw it.
But the movie isn’t just a crude, low-humor vehicle for Seth Rogen and James Franco. It made a lot of good points about the low taste of America, these days. Rogen plays a serious journalist stuck producing Franco’s celebrity-culture interview show. Rogen longs to do serious stuff and be taken seriously by his colleagues at other journalism outlets. But Franco argues with him that Americans want this kind of low-brow celebrity culture. He says that the American TV-viewing public is constantly saying, “Gimme s–t, gimme s–t!” To me, that’s spot on. If it weren’t, TMZ wouldn’t have soared to become THE influential “news” source in America in just a few years. And if it weren’t true, the Kardashians would be working minimum wage jobs sweeping up hair at a salon, instead of multi-million dollar annual earners, famous for being famous.
The movie makes the point repeatedly about the dumbing down of America’s taste and description of what is journalism and news. And that’s on-target. But after that, it’s downhill. And while it makes other journalists seem more serious than the celebrity “journalists,” that simply isn’t the case anymore and hasn’t been for a long time. All three of the major network nightly news broadcasts are more than peppered with celebrity news, whether it was about Joan Rivers’ death or Bill Cosby’s alleged multiple rapes or NBC News Anchor Brian Williams’ daughter Allison’s starring role in NBC News’ live braodcast of “Peter Pan.” And “60 Minutes”–which is portrayed in the movie as a serious news program–constantly does celebrity profiles and interviews. Just last Sunday, Reese “I Am an American Citizen! [so don’t arrest me for drunk driving]” Witherspoon was profiled and interviewed on “60 Minutes.” And you know what they deliberately didn’t mention in the puff piece? Her drunk driving arrest and outrageous behavior on video. It’s as if it never happened.
Back to “The Interview.” As you probably know, the plot centers on a celebrity-obsessed interview show and its host (played by Franco) and its producer (played by Rogen). As I mentioned, Rogen wants to be taken seriously (which makes you wonder why he agreed to produce a celebrity show with a semi-dim-witted host), and the host wants to make news. Franco reads that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un is a fan of his show, and he convinces Rogen to make contact with North Korea to request an interview. Once the interview is on, serious journalists are all angry, afraid that Franco is being played for a patsy (which he essentially is) by Kim. And the CIA manages to convince the duo to assassinate Kim. But when the two of them get to North Korea, Franco buys into the propaganda and is “honeypotted” (I won’t use the phrase here that they actually use in the movie) into liking Kim, and it’s up in the air whether a hard-hitting interview and the assassination will actually happen.
Amidst all the controversy about this movie, I heard many (liberal) commentators whine that Rogen and Franco and Sony shouldn’t have made a movie about killing an actual sitting world leader (which is funny because all of them were dead silent when a movie about killing President Bush, “Death of a President,” was released while he was President–read my review). I thought this movie actually humanized Kim and undersold what a madman and mass-murdering human-rights abuser he is. There were no shots of concentration camps or starving people. No scenes of citizens murdered en masse. None of that. And you have to wonder, “Is this all there is? Is this nothing of a movie really what North Korea was upset about?”
While Sony may still lose a lot of money after initially canceling the movie’s release, North Korea’s strategy over a really stupid movie was even more stupid. Had they done nothing and not released hacked messages (at least until after “The Interview” was long gone from theaters), this movie would have quickly bombed and died a quick death, unnoticed by most. It’s not a good movie, and it would have failed against relatively better Christmas-time fare. But North Korean hackers and terrorist-threat-issuers created controversy and publicity for the movie that made people want to go see it or pay to see it online. North Korea created a demand for crap–crap that isn’t really that negative against North Korea as much as it is negative against America and Americans.
Watching this movie, I didn’t even think it was original, as some claim it is. It reminded me of real-life boob Dennis Rodman traveling to hang out with Kim and singing his praises to all who would give him a forum. And it reminded me of assorted cold war movies in which we Americans are the idiots versus clever Communist dictators, such as “Spies Like Us.” And it has notes from Michael Moore’s totally unwatchable, failed attempt at a fiction movie (though all his documentaries do qualify as fiction movies), “Canadian Bacon.” Both of those movies stank, and this stinker is a doubly smelly derivative of those. There is nothing new under the sun, except for North Korea’s help in making this a questionable “must-see” movie for the masses by making it forbidden fruit. North Korean hackers turned this unworthy target into the most talked about movie of the year.
There’s nothing patriotic about this movie in which Americans are dummies (though, sadly, we often are in real life, today). The bottom line is that this movie isn’t worth the hype, and definitely not worth the ten bucks-plus and two hours of your life you’ll never get back.
Says reader I Am Me, “Not only did the movie stink, but I am now fearing the North Koreans may hack the database containing my credit card information.”
He gave me yet another reason to see it at a movie theater. And to pay for my ticket in cash.
TWO OBAMAS PLUS THREE DENNIS RODMANS

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Was There Really "No Room in the Inn"?

An interesting article from http://www.ucg.org/ about the birth of Jesus. This follows this previous post about it. For a free magazine subscription or to get the books recommended for free click HERE! or call 1-888-886- 8632.
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Was There Really "No Room in the Inn"?





Most have taken for granted Jesus' nativity story as commonly related - that when Joseph and Mary arrived in Bethlehem there was no room in an inn so Mary ended up giving birth to Jesus in a stable. But is this the true account in Scripture? See for yourself!

Was There Really "No Room in the Inn"?
The Greek word translated "inn" in Luke 2:7 refers to a guest room.

Source: Scott Ashley/Explorations in Antiquity Center, LaGrange, GA.
A typical translation of Luke:2:7 says about Mary giving birth to Jesus, "And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn" (New King James Version).
We've grown up hearing the account that the "inn" in Bethlehem was full, with no "room" available, so Joseph and Mary ended up in a stable, with Jesus Christ born and laid in a manger there. This image has been used to promote the typical Christmas nativity scene for generations. Yet a careful analysis of the biblical text reveals quite a different story!

Not an inn but a guest room

The New Testament was originally written in Greek, and the Greek word translated "inn" here is kataluma. It means a place of rest, usually a guest room. In fact, the same writer Luke uses this very word later where it clearly refers to a guest room and not an inn. Notice Luke:22:11, where Jesus said to His disciples, "Then you shall say to the master of the house, 'The Teacher says to you, "'Where is the guest room [ kataluma ] where I may eat the Passover with My disciples?"'" (emphasis added throughout).
Furthermore, Luke elsewhere in his Gospel uses a different Greek word when he writes about an actual inn— not the word kataluma. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus mentions that the injured man in the story was taken to an inn—and here Luke translates using the Greek word pandokheion, the normal word for an inn. We read this in Luke:10:34, where the kind Samaritan set the injured man "on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him."
Interestingly, the Arabic and Syriac versions of the New Testament, which reflect more of a Middle Eastern context, have never translated kataluma as meaning an inn, but instead as a guest room. As Kenneth Bailey, a Middle Eastern and New Testament scholar points out, "This translation [of the word as 'inn'] is a product of our Western heritage" ("The Manger and the Inn: The Cultural Background of Luke:2:7," Bible and Spade, Fall 2007, p. 103).
In addition, Young's Literal Translation uses the term "guest-chamber" instead of an inn. It says: "And she brought forth her son—the first-born, and wrapped him up, and laid him down in the manger, because there was not for them a place in the guest-chamber ."
Note also the word here translated "place" or "room." In the context of "inn," most assume this is referring to an individual room ("no room in the inn"), yet even inns of that time did not often have individual rooms. The reference is simply to space. What Luke is telling us is that there was not enough room, or enough space, for them in the guest room.
The linguistic evidence shows that Luke used the term kataluma to mean not an inn, but the guest room— indeed, "the" guest room (the definite article is used) of a particular house.

Historical factors

The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, after pointing out that the word kataluma is used elsewhere in the Gospels for the guest chamber of a private home, comments: "Was the 'inn' at Bethlehem, where Joseph and Mary sought a night's lodging, an upper guest room in a private home or some kind of public place for travelers? The question cannot be answered with certainty. It is thought by some that it may have been a guest chamber provided by the community. We know that visitors to the annual feasts in Jerusalem were entertained in the guest rooms of private homes" (1982, Vol. 2, "Inn," p. 826).
Another factor that powerfully argues against this term meaning an inn is that these places were not appropriate to giving birth to a child. Inns at that time were far from anything like typical motels or hotels we might think of today. "Generally speaking, inns had a bad reputation . . . This ill repute of public inns, together with the Semitic spirit of hospitality, led the Jews and the early Christians to recommend the keeping of an open house for the benefit of strangers" (ibid.).
Besides, for commercial reasons inns were usually found along the major roads. Yet Bethlehem was a small town in the upper mountains of Judea, and no major Roman road is known to have passed through it. Since it seems to have been an insignificant village at the time, it's doubtful that an inn even existed there then.
This gives yet more reason to realize that what Luke really wrote is that there was no room in the guest chamber. Certainly, due to the Roman census being taken at the time and the huge number of people traveling to their birthplaces, available space in the guest quarters was scarce.
So the question then becomes: Does that mean Joseph and Mary aimed to stay in someone's home but, since the guest room was full, were turned out into the night to a stable? When Mary was in labor? That might seem worse than being turned away from an inn. Of course, both scenarios seem rather terrible—certainly downright inhospitable, which is far out of line from the way things were at that time.

A culture of hospitality and honoring kinship

In Christ's day, hospitality to visitors among the Jews was essential, based on biblical example and law. In Deuteronomy:10:19, God told the Israelites to "love the stranger." And Leviticus:19:33 stated, "If a stranger dwells with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him." Denial of hospitality was shown throughout Scripture to be an outrage. Hospitality toward visitors is still important throughout the Middle East.
Moreover, since Bethlehem was Joseph's ancestral home, he probably had relatives there. And being a descendant of King David, whose hometown this was, he would have been highly respected upon his arrival. Think of a descendant of George Washington coming to his hometown of Alexandria, Virginia, after a long lapse of time. The townspeople would've shown him respect.
As Bailey explains: "[My] thirty-year experience with villagers in the Middle East is that the intensity of honor shown to the passing guest is still very much in force, especially when it is a returning son of the village who is seeking shelter. We have observed cases where a complete village has turned out in a great celebration to greet a young man who has suddenly arrived unannounced in the village, which his grandfather had left many years before" (p. 103).
It should also be pointed out that childbirth was a major event at that time. In a small village like Bethlehem, many neighboring women would have come to help in the birth. Bailey states: "In the case of a birth, the men will sit apart with the neighbors, but the room will be full of women assisting the midwife. A private home would have bedding, facilities for heating water and all that is required for any peasant birth" (p. 102).
What this all means is that it would have been unthinkable and an unimaginable insult and affront to societal decency for Joseph, a returning village son, and his laboring wife to need to seek shelter in an unsavory inn to have a baby of Davidic descent—and then, even worse, to be sent out to have the birth in a stable. This simply cannot be what happened. Nor can it be that they were sent out into the night from a private home.
So what actually happened? 

Reading the text carefully

Regrettably, the birth of Christ is later overlaid with so much tradition and legend about Christmas that it's hard to let the biblical text speak for itself.
The common assumption is that Joseph and Mary arrived in Bethlehem and, being hastened by her labor pains, rushed to an inn only to find it full with no vacancies, so they ended up in a stable where she gave birth.
However, a careful reading of the text shows us they had already been in Bethlehem for some days when she went into labor. Notice carefully Luke:2:4-6: "Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child. So it was, that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered."
Consequently, they must have already been lodging somewhere in Bethlehem when her birth pangs began—and this was surely not a stable for a period of days. Could not Joseph have found a more suitable lodging place for his pregnant wife in that amount of time? Of course.
In fact, we should realize that not far from here dwelt Mary's cousin Elizabeth, whom Mary had lived with for a while during her pregnancy (Luke:1:39-40). If they were seeking a place to stay for days, why didn't they go to Elizabeth's house? The answer is simple. They found a house in which to stay in Bethlehem—probably that of Joseph's relatives.
And being in these accommodations already, it makes no sense for them to suddenly be out seeking a room in an inn or anywhere else at the time of Mary's labor.
Yet we might still be asking: So why were they sent out to a stable? The answer is, they weren't.

Birth in a house, not a stable

The Archaeological Study Bible offers some helpful background: "The 'manger' was the feeding trough of the animals. This is the only indication that Jesus was born in a stable. Very early tradition suggests that his birthplace was a cave, perhaps being used as a stable.
" Justin Martyr in the second century A.D. stated that Jesus' birth took place in a cave close to the village. Over this traditional manger site the emperor Constantine (A.D. 330) and his mother, Helena, constructed the Church of the Nativity" (2005, p. 1669).
Note that it is only the manger, an animal food or water trough, that gives any indication of a stable. And indeed a manger might well have been found in a stable. But it's important to realize that they were also to be found within first-century homes!
A typical Judean house of that day consisted of an area near the door, often with a dirt floor, where the family's animals were kept at night—so they wouldn't be stolen or preyed upon and so their body heat could help warm the home on cool nights. The family lived and slept in a raised part of the same room set back from the door. There was also usually a guest room either upstairs on a second floor or adjoining the family common room on the lower floor. Typically the lower area near the door had a manger for food and/or water for the animals.
Eric F.F. Bishop, an expert in Middle East culture, noted that the birth of Christ probably took place in "one of the Bethlehem houses with the lower section provided for the animals, with mangers 'hollowed in stone,' the dais [or raised area] being reserved for the family. Such a manger being immovable, filled with crushed straw, would do duty for a cradle. An infant might even be left in safety, especially if swaddled, when the mother was absent on temporary business" ( Jesus of Palestine, 1955, p. 42).
Yet another authority on Middle Eastern life, Gustaf Dalmann, stated: "In the East today the dwelling-place of man and beast is often in one and the same room. It is quite the usual thing among the peasants for the family to live, eat, and sleep on a kind of raised terrace . . . in the one room of the house, while the cattle, particularly donkeys and oxen, have their place below on the actual floor . . . near the door; this part sometimes is continued along under the terrace as a kind of low vault. On this floor the mangers are fixed, either to the floor, or to the wall, or at the edge of the terrace" ( Sacred Sites and Ways, 1935, p. 41).
This scene of an ox or donkey in the house at night might go against our Western sensibilities. Yet, as Bailey comments: "It is we in the West who have decided that life with these great gentle beasts is culturally unacceptable. The raised terrace on which the family ate, slept and lived was unsoiled by the animals, which were taken out each day and during which time the lower level was cleaned. Their presence was in no way offensive" (p. 105). Of course, the animals could have been taken outside when the actual birth was occurring.
Consider that the medium of En Dor whom King Saul sinfully consulted with "had a fatted calf in the house," which she killed to prepare a meal for Saul and his men (1 Samuel:28:24). It was more often the wealthy who had stables for their animals apart from the house.
Thus, a more realistic view of what occurred with Christ's birth according to the customs of the time is that the manger was in a house and not in a stable. It should be stated that this could conceivably have involved a cave, but that's only because some houses were built over caves. Yet this was not the norm. And the cave imagery may come from pagan myth about the Persian sun-god Mithras, who was supposedly born in a cave—along with the belief of some that Christ's birth had to have been in seclusion, as we will see.

The pieces fall into place

What we've seen so far explains a great deal.
Some might object that Mary and Joseph being accommodated in the family common room of a house instead of the guest room is itself inhospitable. But as Bailey points out: "No unkindness or lack of hospitality is implied when the Holy Family is taken into the main family room of the home in which they are entertained. The guest room is full. The host is not expected to ask prior guests . . . to leave. Such would be quite unthinkable and, in any case, unnecessary. The large family room is more appropriate in any case" (p. 104).
Indeed, considering all the women that would be going in and out of the room during the birth, having Mary stay in the main room would probably have seemed the wisest choice to everyone concerned. In fact, it's possible that Luke's mention of there being no room or space meant that this particular guest room was too small for all the birth activity. 
Bailey continues in regard to understanding kataluma as meaning the guest room: "This option admirably fulfills both the linguistic requirements of the text and the cultural requirements of the village scene. This translation gives new understanding to the story of Jesus' birth. Joseph and Mary arrive in Bethlehem. They find shelter with a family whose separate guest room is full [or too small], and are accommodated among the family in acceptable village style. The birth takes place there on the raised terrace of the family home, and the baby is laid in a manger . . .
"The (Palestinian) reader [of Luke's account] instinctively thinks, 'Manger—oh—they are in the main family room. Why not the guest room?' The author instinctively replies, 'Because there was no place for them in the guest room.' The reader concludes, 'Ah, yes—well, the family room is more appropriate anyway.' Thus, with the translation 'guest room,' all of the cultural, historical and linguistic pieces fall into place" (p. 104).

The reaction of the shepherds

Another element of the story that reinforces the picture here is that of the shepherds who received the announcement of the birth of the Savior, the Lord Messiah, and where to find Him that night from an angel (Luke:2:8-11). As men of the lower ranks of society, they may not have felt they would be received well in visiting a king, but the angel told them that as a sign they would find the child lying in a manger (verse 12).
"That is," says Bailey in an insightful book he has written, "they would find the Christ child in an ordinary peasant home such as theirs. He was not in a governor's mansion or a wealthy merchant's guest room but in a simple two-room home like theirs" ( Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels, 2008, p. 35).
Luke's account further states that the shepherds "came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger" (verse 16). On arriving they made "widely known" what had been announced to them (verse 17)—showing that there were many people there. And when they left, they went out "praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen" (verse 20).
Bailey points out: "The word all obviously included the quality of the hospitality that they witnessed on arrival. Clearly, they found the holy family in perfectly adequate accommodations, not in a dirty stable. If, on arrival, they had found a smelly stable, a frightened young mother and a desperate Joseph, they would have said, 'This is outrageous! Come home with us! Our women will take care of you!'
"Within five minutes the shepherds would have moved the little family to their own homes. The honor of the entire village would rest on their shoulders and they would have sensed their responsibility to do their duty. The fact that they walked out, without moving the young family, means that the shepherds felt they could not offer better hospitality than what had already been extended to them" (pp. 35-36, emphasis in original).   

Where does this leave us?

So what are the implications of upending the traditional view of the Christmas nativity scene?
We should first ask, given the facts we've seen, why has there been such an insistence since early centuries that the birth setting of Christ was a stable or cave with no one around—perhaps even outside the town, as some have even contended?
Bailey reveals: "After reading a number of Arabic and Syriac fathers' writings on the question, one has the distinct feeling there is an unspoken subjective pressure to understand the birth as having taken place without witnesses because of the sacred nature of the 'mother of God' giving birth to the 'Son of God.'
"Even as the sacraments are consecrated in utter seclusion behind an altar screen, so the eyes of even the faithful might not look on the holy event, even so Middle Eastern Christology, Mariology and piety seem to combine to insist that the birth took place where no eye beheld the divine mystery" ("The Manger and the Inn," p. 105).
Yet this is a fiction straight out of ancient pagan mystery religion. The reality is quite different, as we've seen. While Jesus was conceived of God the Father through the Holy Spirit, His was nonetheless a typical birth for the common man of His day. Though begotten of God, He truly came as one of us.
As for the common tradition, Kenneth Bailey concludes: "We all face the enormous weight of church tradition which surrounds us with the 'no room at the inn' mythology. If our conclusions are valid, thousands of good Christmas sermons, plays, filmstrips, films, poems, songs and books will have to be discarded.
"But is the traditional myth of a lonely birth in a stable a help or a hindrance to the reality the text proclaims? Surely a more authentic cultural understanding enhances the meaning of the story, rather than diminishing it.
"Jesus was rejected at His birth by Herod, but the Bethlehem shepherds welcomed Him with great joy, as did the common people in later years. The city of David was true to its own, and the village community provided for Him. He was born among them, in the natural setting of the birth of any village boy, surrounded by helping hands and encouraging women's voices.
"For centuries Palestinian peasants have been born on the raised terraces of the one-room family homes. The birth of Jesus was no different. His incarnation was authentic. His birth most likely took place in the natural place for a peasant to be born—in a peasant home" (pp. 105-106).
Let's be thankful that we can examine the biblical text without the hidden biases of religious tradition—and that we don't have to prop up a wrong meaning of a term in order to keep alive the religious myths of Christmas.
The Bereans left us with a wonderful example on how we should base our faith. Luke commended them by saying in Acts:17:11, "These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so."
May we all do the same!