Peace on Earth to All Men of Good Will

I love this story of a Muslim restaurant owner in London who has proclaimed to the homeless and elderly, "No one eats alone on Christmas Day!"

pic.twitter.com/0BUh2gvOlz

— Shish restaurant (@shishsidcup) November 18, 2016

RTWT, as I think there's something instructive about how he got the idea (from an elderly woman who reminded of his mom home in Turkey) and about how the gesture has spread.

A couple of Christmases ago Mr. W. read me a news story about a Jewish man in (I think) Detroit (Nope: Milwaukee) who volunteered to work on Christmas in place of a Christian and did a whole variety of different jobs as a result. (Oh, hurrah! I found the story. And I can't believe it's from 1998!)  That's diversity and multiculturalism I can get behind -- because it so evidently springs from genuine good will.

#BlackLiversMatter

Pretty good piece in The American Thinker about Planned Parenthood and blacks.  I have one quibble, perhaps it's more than a quibble, which is that the piece makes use of this oft-repeated-among-pro-lifers quotation: 

“We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population.”

I wish folks would quit citing that, because in context I don't think it means what it's purported to mean. It comes from a letter in which Sanger recommends recruiting black doctors and pastors to promote birth control to blacks not to hide an intent to exterminate the entire race, but because blacks were backwards and superstitious and likely to think that without one of their own to reassure them. 

Which is still plenty racist, I grant. And here's an abundance of actual quotations considering blacks inferior, and Sanger's actual "Negro Project" to make it unnecessary to muddle things with a juicy quotation taken out of context.  

The larger point, however: that Planned Parenthood targets the poor and desperate -- which in this country means targeting blacks and immigrants-- is well-taken. 

While Blacks make up 25 percent of the NYC population, 46 percent of abortions were Black babies. Shockingly more Black babies were killed by abortion in NYC than were born alive. By contrast, Whites make up 44 percent of the NYC population but only account for 12 percent of abortions. Margaret Sanger’s dreams are being realized. Where is the outrage in The Big Apple over #BlackLivesMatter?

Well, given the recent and ongoing exposure of Planned Parenthood for trafficking in fetal organs, it just goes to show that #BlackLiversMatter. 

Nate Beeler, shamelessly pinched from The Washington Examiner.

Mansfield On Why You Should Read the Whole Speech

Love this piece by Harvey Mansfield in this morning's WSJ: Give Michelle Obama A Break. If you read a speech through instead of relying on a sound bite clipped out of context, you might be surprised at what you find.

Yes, it's true that the First Lady went through a litany of past and present slights against black citizens. But if you read her speech, she really did not do it in the spirit of "hate whitey," nor did she claim that most whites are racists. She was simply frank with the kids that occasionally they'll have it harder or feel slighted because of their race -- and that is no excuse for anything. 

She's a progressive liberal, so of course not everything she says resonates with me, but its overall message is positive and wholesome: 

Our history provides us with a better story, a better blueprint for how we can win.  It teaches us that when we pull ourselves out of those lowest emotional depths, and we channel our frustrations into studying and organizing and banding together -- then we can build ourselves and our communities up.  We can take on those deep-rooted problems, and together -- together -- we can overcome anything that stands in our way.And the first thing we have to do is vote.  (Applause.)    Hey, no, not just once in a while.  Not just when my husband or somebody you like is on the ballot.  But in every election at every level, all of the time.  (Applause.)  Because here is the truth -- if you want to have a say in your community, if you truly want the power to control your own destiny, then you’ve got to be involved.  You got to be at the table.  You’ve got to vote, vote, vote, vote.  That’s it; that's the way we move forward. That’s how we make progress for ourselves and for our country.   That’s what’s always happened here at Tuskegee.  Think about those students who made bricks with their bare hands.  They did it so that others could follow them and learn on this campus, too.  Think about that brilliant scientist who made his lab from a trash pile.  He did it because he ultimately wanted to help sharecroppers feed their families.  Those Airmen who rose above brutal discrimination -- they did it so the whole world could see just how high black folks could soar.  That’s the spirit we’ve got to summon to take on the challenges we face today.And you don’t have to be President of the United States to start addressing things like poverty, and education, and lack of opportunity.  Graduates, today -- today, you can mentor a young person and make sure he or she takes the right path.  Today, you can volunteer at an after-school program or food pantry.  Today, you can help your younger cousin fill out her college financial aid form so that she could be sitting in those chairs one day.  (Applause.)  But just like all those folks who came before us, you’ve got to do something to lay the groundwork for future generations.That pilot I mentioned earlier -- Charles DeBow -- he didn’t rest on his laurels after making history.  Instead, after he left the Army, he finished his education.  He became a high school English teacher and a college lecturer.  He kept lifting other folks up through education.  He kept fulfilling his “double duty” long after he hung up his uniform. And, graduates, that’s what we need from all of you.  We need you to channel the magic of Tuskegee toward the challenges of today.  And here’s what I really want you to know -- you have got everything you need to do this.  You’ve got it in you. Because even if you’re nervous or unsure about what path to take in the years ahead, I want you to realize that you’ve got everything you need right now to succeed.  You’ve got it. 

In her own way, she's telling them to be citizens. 

Ferguson Burning

Sigh. Another pox on everyone's house situation and meanwhile it's the day before Thanksgiving, so there must be cleaning and baking more than writing.

I took some time yesterday to read through the grand jury materials just to see for myself. I think it's clear Michael Brown was charging the cop and the grand jury decision not to indict was correct based on evidence (or lack thereof).  And I equally think it's likely the cop could have handled the situation better.  Michael Brown seems to have been a thug as my Right-leaning FB feed says. I'm troubled by the implication, however, that being a thug means you deserve anything at all you get. The death penalty for smoking weed,  stealing cigarillos, and saying, "F-- you" to a cop? When by the cop's own testimony back-up was 30 seconds away?

The great tragedy of the Ferguson riots, beyond one dead black man, one ruined white man and many black businesses (and therefore families) financially devastated, is that they cement in everyone's mind the idea that this is a race problem primarily, when I think it's actually another instance of the real problem we have nationwide with police thinking of themselves as ground forces fighting an insurgency rather than fellow citizens tasked with protecting communities. I am not anti-cop; I'm pro cop. But it's undeniable we have a problem with trigger happy police, police who have no inclination -- or perhaps no training?-- to de-escalate situations.  The Rev. Al Sharpton, a genuinely evil man, has done the black community a double disservice: stoked literal fires in an African-American town and distracted whites from taking problem policing seriously.

Take a moment to watch the video embedded in this page for example.  A man, happens to be a black man, is sitting in a chair in a building's skyway. The chair happens to belong to a bank, but the chairs are just in the open air and look like public property. The police, prompted by the bank presumably, ask the guy to move along. He thinks he's within his rights to stay. No one bothers to say, "Sir, I know it looks like public property, but it's actually private property." No one answers his very reasonable questions, they just lord their power over him -- and it ends in a ridiculous roughing up and arrest. Is there a race dimension? I suppose. I wonder if the bank would have asked a white customer to move along -- or asked the police to get involved rather than simply shooing him themselves.  But I don't look at that video and see whites prejudiced against a black man. I see cops abusing a citizen, and if they'll treat one citizen that way, they'll do it to others as well.

The broader matter is, this is how government officials at every level treat private citizens now. Janet Reno sent armed men to put machine guns in the faces of Elian Gonzalez' law abiding aunt and uncle to "resolve" a case that was peacefully working its way through the courts. The FDA sends armed swat teams to Amish farms to prevent the sale of raw milk.  Almost monthly it seems to me I read a story of the police shooting some dog or some baby in a raid on the wrong house.  Radley Balko wrote an entire book about the rise of the militarized cop. We DO have a problem, and it's not primarily a race problem, it's a loss of solidarity and the very notion of citizenship problem.

Having said that, football player Benjamin Watson has a fabulous post on his Facebook page that pretty well sums up my thoughts. Citing a few excerpts here, but I hope you'll read the whole thing.

I'M ANGRY because the stories of injustice that have been passed down for generations seem to be continuing before our very eyes.
I'M FRUSTRATED, because pop culture, music and movies glorify these types of police citizen altercations and promote an invincible attitude that continues to get young men killed in real life, away from safety movie sets and music studios.
I'M FEARFUL because in the back of my mind I know that although I'm a law abiding citizen I could still be looked upon as a "threat" to those who don't know me. So I will continue to have to go the extra mile to earn the benefit of the doubt.
I'M EMBARRASSED because the looting, violent protests, and law breaking only confirm, and in the minds of many, validate, the stereotypes and thus the inferior treatment.
I'M SAD, because another young life was lost from his family, the racial divide has widened, a community is in shambles, accusations, insensitivity hurt and hatred are boiling over, and we may never know the truth about what happened that day.
I'M SYMPATHETIC, because I wasn't there so I don't know exactly what happened. Maybe Darren Wilson acted within his rights and duty as an officer of the law and killed Michael Brown in self defense like any of us would in the circumstance. Now he has to fear the backlash against himself and his loved ones when he was only doing his job. What a horrible thing to endure. OR maybe he provoked Michael and ignited the series of events that led to him eventually murdering the young man to prove a point.
I'M OFFENDED, because of the insulting comments I've seen that are not only insensitive but dismissive to the painful experiences of others.
I'M CONFUSED, because I don't know why it's so hard to obey a policeman. You will not win!!! And I don't know why some policeman abuse their power. Power is a responsibility, not a weapon to brandish and lord over the populace.

Update: read Ezra Klein's take on Officer Wilson's testimony (with which I agree -- Wilson's testimony is sort of broadly plausible, but seems like a guy making an angel out of himself), and then his comparison of officer Wilson's testimony w/ that of Michael Brown's companion. Of course both are speculation, but I agree with his assessment of what likely happened.

Update 2: Surveillance tape released of Cleveland police shooting 12-year-old Tamir Rice. The kid had a very realistic looking toy gun, and once something that looks like a gun is in your face, you have the right to defend yourself.  But... the person who phoned the police told them the gun was "probably fake." Wasn't there a way to investigate that first, rather than pulling w/n feet of the kid and coming out firing?

Michelle to Black People: Thinking Through Issues Not Necessary

The First Lady in a phone interview to black television:

"And for most of the people that we're talking to, a Democratic ticket is the clear ticket that we should be voting on, regardless of who said what or did this. That shouldn't even come into the equation."

Alrighty then.

"Once The Beating Was Over, We Were Free"

I never thought to take a moral lesson from DailyKos, but read this. An excellent thing for contemporary Christian Step-N-Fetchits to meditate on.

Update: While we're on Dr. King, this is incredible. MLK's "Instructions for Riding an Integrated Bus"

Content of Their Character?

At the March on Washington Anniversary, shamelessly pinched from here.

I wish it were possible to feel good about the March on Washington Anniversary, but they turned it into a pep rally for the Democratic party, not even inviting the only black U.S. Senator, Tim Scott. 

I still have a dream, but I look at this photo in the papers and ask myself if anyone in it actually wants to be judged on the content of his character?

(And then I see Lincoln and I say, ok, one. And how fitting it is that he dwarfs them all.)

If you can bear it, read Obama's and Clinton's speeches. They both pretend that the march toward racial equality is completely a product of the Democratic party -- as if it weren't the Republicans who crafted and passed civil rights legislation over the objections of the Dems. And as if there weren't a credible if disputed case that MLK himself was Republican. 

Then Obama has the gall to lecture us about jobs and the dignity of work -- he, the mighty job-killer on whose watch black unemployment and poverty has surged. And Clinton just did his classless stump speech crapola:

But a great democracy does not make it harder to vote than to buy an assault weapon. (Cheers, applause.) We must open those stubborn gates.

That made for some cheap facebook fodder, but I don't think it bears any reflection. Which requires more integrity or is more necessary for the survival of a free people? A person who commits voter fraud disenfranchises you just as much as a person who prevents you from voting. A person who will cheat at the ballot box will not restrain himself from any act of tyranny at all.  So, yeah, voter i.d. is more important to me than gun laws, because freedom itself depends not only on the integrity of the ballot box, but on everyone's confidence in the integrity of the ballot box.

And then a lot more claptrap about how progress is never-ending and America is always becoming. Which is, at bottom, another way of telling people that racial equality can never and will never be achieved. Some vision that is.

That's Refreshing

A group of black Conservatives talking together. I find this so refreshing...not their color and not anything specific they say, but just a bunch of intelligent people talking things through without cant and without being told what they have to think. More patriotic good sense here than you hear practically anywhere else.

Same-Sex Marriage Fallout V

Shamelessly pinched from @YoungCons twitter feed

Great picture! Went to the website on the t-shirts. Like the slogan: latin, black and white: must unite!  But the site seems to be a bit ...eccentric. The leader is someone who styles himself "Michael the Black Man" and has equal disdain for same-sex marriage, banks, the late Sen. Robert Byrd, child support laws and Obama. Don't quite get it, but still love the pic.

Same-Sex Marriage Fallout, IV

Watch this.

From Washington Times commentary section yesterday: Blacks are abandoning the Democratic Party. Just one activist's experience, but still:

All over the country, black churchgoers are now expressing disenchantment with the Democrats making “same-sex marriage” an official part of their platform. This may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. There are older black Christians who will vote Democratic no matter what, driven by emotional memory rather than spiritual commitment. Younger, committed Christians more readily see the contradiction and the irony. They are being asked to put aside their biblical and moral vision of the world and submit to the leadership of the Democratic Party because that leadership promises to do something for them. The Democrats’ policies since the 1960s have decimated the black family, perpetuated poverty and created failing schools that operate to benefit unions rather than children. In league with the National Education Association, they oppose every effort to give choice to parents to allow their children to escape failing schools.

Now black churchgoers are being told to suppress Christian conscience and remain beholden to a party that demands their loyalty while insulting their faith and blaspheming their God. For the first time in 50 years, there is a discussion going on in the black community as to whether their loyalty to the Democratic Party is deserved. Many black pastors are telling their members to stay home, rather than vote for a black president who has done more to advance the cause of homosexuality and abortion than that of black Americans.

A little more: 

We are hearing the rumblings of a fissure between black Christians and the Democratic Party. My organization, Staying True to America’s National Destiny (Stand), is calling for a mass exodus of Christians from the Democratic Party. We held a news conference at the National Press Club on Sept. 10 and produced several videos. This not only has prompted discussion, but perhaps has launched a movement. Mr. Obama’s commitment to the radical left’s anti-Christian, anti-God politics may cost him the election, because a constituency he has taken for granted has awakened to the truth that being the first black president is not enough.

Watch the video. See also their press conference announcing the Exodus Now campaign --they're not just appealing to blacks.

Condoleeza Rice on Civil Rights

Maybe you saw this exchange wherein Newt Gingrich rips into Chris Matthews for associating every word having to do with failure or dysfunction with African Americans.

What's even more ridiculous is Matthews and others complaining that when Mitt Romney said a week or two ago that the President should take his Chicago values home, that "Chicago" is now a racist term.

That's just nuts. When I think of the Chicago Way or the Chicago Machine, black people are the furthest thing from my mind. I think about the Daleys, Al Capone, and dead white folk "voting" from the grave. It's a lily-white dysfunction in terms of the images it conjures in my head. (Here's my sanity check.)

Good for Newt. Matthews' attitude in that exchange exemplifies why I so often say (jokingly, for the overly earnest among us), "Die, Boomers, Die." There's an utter inability to see things through any lens but that of the 1960s.

I've been thinking the past two days about Condi Rice's parents -- ever since her magnificent speech at the GOP convention two nights ago. I knew her biography, but I'd never heard her address the Civil Rights movement before, nor have I heard her speak about what America is: the land of the Declaration, not the land of grievance and envy. I appreciated her calling our failing schools the civil rights issue of our time. First she reminded us that equal opportunity  and equality before the law is the birthright of all Americans:

We have been successful too because Americans have known that one's status of birth is not a permanent condition. Americans have believed that you might not be able to control your circumstances but you can control your response to your circumstances.

Then she asked a devastating question:

today, when I can look at your zip code and I can tell whether you're going to get a good education, can I honestly say it does not matter where you came from, it matters where you are going?

 She continues:

The crisis in K-12 education is a threat to the very fabric of who we are. My mom was a teacher.  I respect the profession.  We need great teachers, not poor ones and not mediocre ones.  We have to have high standards for our kids, because self-esteem comes from achievement, not from lax standards and false praise.

And we need to give parents greater choice, particularly, particularly poor parents whose kids, very often minorities, are trapped in failing neighborhood schools.  This is the civil rights issue of our day. 

If we do anything less, we can damage generations to joblessness and hopelessness and life on the government dole.  If we do anything less, we will endanger our global imperatives for competitiveness.  And if we do anything less, we will tear apart the fabric of who we are and cement the turn toward entitlement and grievance.

That is a high-minded means of calling out both the cronyism of our teachers' unions and the "soft bigotry of low expectations" on the part of Chris Matthews and his ilk. She's dead right. This is not just an education problem; it's also the key to our race problem. And the fact that figures on both the Right and Left seem to be getting serious about this (I'm thinking about the triumph of Scott Walker; Waiting for Superman; Michelle Rhee; and the collaboration of Cory Booker and Chris Christie in New Jersey) is where I place my hope for the final fulfillment of King's dream.

 

Which brings me back to Condi's parents. Rice ended her remarks on a personal note that brought tears to my eyes. 

a little girl grows up in Jim Crow Birmingham.  The segregated city of the south where her parents cannot take her to a movie theater or to restaurants, but they have convinced her that even if she cannot have a hamburger at Woolworths, she can be the president of the United States if she wanted to be, and she becomes the Secretary of State.

How did Martin Luther King Jr. and people like Condi's parents come to believe so in America's creed when they were on the brunt end of what Condi called our national birth defect? I admire them so much. Why were they confident that things would and could be better? What could they see that Chris Matthews cannot?

Black Political Power Vanishes Across the South

That's the dramatic headline of a piece lamenting political "re-segregation." But isn't that the logical and predictable result of gerrymandering by race?

"Black voters and elected officials have less influence now than at any time since the civil rights era," David Bositis, an analyst at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, wrote in a stark analysis late last year. It is the culmination of nearly a half-century process that began with the dismantling of Jim Crow, the empowerment of black voters and an explosion in black representation, but that now finds its ironic coda in a once-dominating Democrat Party transformed into a largely African-American enterprise that is only occasionally able to scrounge enough white votes to compete effectively outside black districts. The result has been the loss of legislative control in every Southern state save Arkansas.

"In most Southern states, the 46-year transition from a multiracial Democratic political dominance is almost complete," Bositis wrote. "At the heart of this transition is racially polarized voting. Black state legislators, generally elected in black majority districts and long used to being in a majority coalition, are now almost entirely isolated in the minority. Republicans likewise dominate the statewide political offices in these states. Virtually all black elected officials are outsiders looking in."

Accepting for the sake of argument the racist premise that all blacks think alike and are best served only by black candidates, what did you think would happen if you concentrated all your votes in a few districts rather than forming coalitions to become a political force in every district?

Same-sex Marriage Fall-out III

The Coalition of African American Pastors (1300-member strong) is calling on African-Americans to withhold support from Barack Obama.

"We were once proud of you, but our pride has turned to shame that you, the man holding the most powerful position in the world, would stoop to leading the country down an immoral path," says the Coalition of African-American Pastors' Bill Owens.

Hmmmm.

See also: Defections; Same-sex marriage fallout II; fallout

The African American Vote

Wouldn't it be fascinating if the first African American president turned out to be the wedge that pried "the black vote" loose from the Democratic party? I'm not suggesting there will be a wholesale exodus anytime soon, but in elections margins count. Bush didn't win the Hispanic vote outright, but he won enough of it to prevent Kerry from winning, eg. Wedge issues cause people to think anew.

Therefore the opening graf of WaPo's Obama Decision on Gay Marriage Divides Local Residents is interesting.

Willie McMillan and Charlie Hudson are buddies, African American men who were thrilled beyond compare when they had the chance to help make Barack Obama the nation’s first black president. They both believe same-sex marriage is an affront against God, a sin that simply cannot be condoned. As of Wednesday evening, McMillan has switched sides and will vote for Mitt Romney for president, whereas Hudson is sticking with Obama.

Some Racism More Equal Than Others

Shamelessly pinched from The Ryskind Sketchbook

Ward 8 Councilman-for-Life and former Mayor Marion Barry lets his anti-Asian bias show, yet no one tweets his home address. Some racism, apparently, isn't ugly at all, but just quaint and colorful and folksy.

Die, Boomers, Die --Hollywood & Race Edition

Disappointingly, Morgan Freeman made dippy remarks about racist opposition to Obama a little while ago. Now he's been invited to a tea party by one of the movement's original organizers, Ali Akbar. Behold how he reveals the race question to be a sub-set of the Boomer question in an open letter:

I do believe that you are wrong in what you said about the tea party, but I would rather prove it to you than castigate you for your comments.
I also understand that your reflexive comments came from experience. You grew up in a different America than the one that I was blessed to be born into. We both grew up in the south, but I never saw ‘White Only’ signs. I’ve been called a name or two in my three decades, but racism has always been the exception in my life, not the rule, as it probably was in your youth. I understand your suspicion of conservative political movements. It is rooted in pain and fear and memory, and though I never saw the horrors of segregation that you did, we share that cultural heritage.

Akbar has looked to Freeman as a father-figure:

I idolized you as a boy. Growing up without a father, you were one of the strong black men in my life who gave me a model to follow. Each of the characters you played had dignity and confidence. I tried to emulate the strength you projected. While many of my friends headed down the all-too-familiar path of drugs, unwed pregnancies and crime, I’ve striven to live a life with dignity, be an example for my brothers and make my mother proud.

And that makes the stupid comments painful:

Your comments about the tea party have caused me physical pain. You’ve rekindled the old painful paradigm of Uncle Tom – that any black man who votes Republican is some kind of sellout. It’s not true. I work hard, pay my taxes, love Jesus, and I’m good to my family and community. In effect, your comments have stereotyped an entire group of people. And I know in my soul that you must regret that on some level.

He winds up with this:

Mr. Freeman, I’m not asking you to adopt my political views. You’re in your seventies, and a political shift is not in your future. I’m reaching out to you because I want you to think better of your fellow countrymen. Barack Obama is in the White House, and Herman Cain just won the Florida straw poll. America is the land of opportunity for black Americans like never before.
I’m hoping that you’ll come to a tea party in Tennessee — the place of your birth. Really anywhere in the country that works for you; I’ll set it up with the one of the thousands of activists I know around our great country. I’d be delighted to introduce you to good people who will welcome you with open arms, disagree with you, and then feed you some of the best barbeque you’ve ever tasted.
Racism is an ugly thing, but I assure you that it is part of our past, not our present.

Good on 'im, and RTWT.

So Much For Post-Racial Society

Blogger Ann Althouse shot this video at a debate over affirmative action at UW Madison (and Instapundit has an interesting take). I guess I should be pleased that there is a debate, however rough the reaction, and that is the line I am going to try to take with myself in order not to sink into a Dark Mood.

Althouse's commenters take various personal digs at the young lady in the video, and point out flaws in her logic. Try to put that aside for the moment, though. Althouse is right, the anti-affirmative action side is in the awkward position of suggesting to some students' faces that they don't belong there, and that's not a pill that's going to go down easily....there's no telling what effect it has in consciences over time, however. And few people are perfectly eloquent in the spur of the moment when they're angry, so let that slide.

Here's what depresses me. The young lady's "stinging rebuttal" -- and the assumption of most of the room shouting agreement with her, embodied by the young man who cries out, "Think of your children!" is that when whites are the minority, we'll need affirmative action for whites. This is never going to end.

They don't think racial equality and fairness is a possibility or even a moral standard for which to strive. These students are not looking for a just society, they are assuming perpetual race warfare and a coming turn of the tables. The assumption is whites will never give them a fair shake, and they've no sense of obligation to give whites a fair shake. There is no equality, only power games. They laughed at the very idea of judging people for the content of their character!

That's enlightening for me. I thought we were all agreed that we should strive for a colorblind society, that affirmative action was on the course of ultimate extinction, and the real debate was over when: when will we agree that the playing field is leveled?

It has not occurred to any of these people that there will ever be a level playing field, nor do they care to strive for one. They have abandoned all hope for and commitment to justice, and they are not attached in any way to the fundamental moral sentiment of the republic: All men are created equal and endowed by their creator with inalienable rights, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Not to be dire, but we know what Lincoln said, quoting his Master, about the house divided. We cannot remain free if our citizens no longer believe in the ideal of freedom.

The Welfare Quip Is Bonus

It amuses me when inclusive language is not only tedious and unnecessary, but actually absurd. As in this splendid example. The political point at the end is lagniappe.

U.S. President Barack Obama is reported to be attending church again, and shows a "fresh start," by persistently misquoting from the Book of Genesis, chapter four. "I am my brother's keeper; I am my sister's keeper," he suggests it says. Check out the original. It is a scene in which no sisters appear, and the brothers in question are Cain and Abel. In particular, the intellectual leap from "you must not murder your brother," to "you must create and sustain a vast and ponderous welfare system, that is funded by taxing him and borrowing the rest from China," is not Biblical.

"Am I my brother's keeper?" may or may not have some relevance to the welfare state not considered heretofore, but add in a girl and you're inventing a second murder. Curtsy: American Digest

Shockingly, The Press Has It Wrong

John Allen on how the Synod on the Middle East has not been the anti-Israel-fest some headlines would have you believe. All kinds of problems, such as: poor translation, taking one guy's comments for a "Vatican" line, and the guy didn't mean it quite the way the press heard it in any case.... but the nub is:

I realize that there’s a tendency to leap to Machiavellian assumptions about everything that happens in the Vatican -- that everything is somehow scripted from on high and no official or visiting prelate would dare speak out without explicit papal approval.
In truth, however, things are far more loosey-goosey. There’s no “war room” in the Holy See where spin doctors meet at 8:00 a.m. to work out the day’s message; there’s no script approval when senior officials or bishops meet the press.
In that sense, the real story here may be more about the Vatican’s continuing PR problem than any change in its theology of Judaism.
In any event, if one wants to know the official teaching of the Catholic church vis-à-vis Judaism, there’s a wealth of material to draw upon -- beginning with the Vatican II document Nostra Aetate and the Catechism of the Catholic Church. A one-off comment from a single prelate does not, and by definition cannot, carry anything like the same weight.

Isn't it the press that's supposed to champion the free and open exchange of ideas? Yet it's always angry when the Vatican allows people at synods and conferences to say what they actually think -- with the concomitant debate, criticism and acceptance or rejection of the argument.

"I Am A Runaway Slave"

This looks interesting. Curtsy: AmDig