On reading Luke during Lent

Last year during Lent I read the Gospel of John.  John is an amazing document—no meek and mild Jesus to be found. He’s so confident in his mission and dogmatic in his words with all the “I am” statements.  And Pilate!  What a piece of work—kept trying to pass the buck—and did he really want to know, “What is truth.”  Was he just like people today who question the kingship of Jesus?  But what grabbed me last year I’d never noticed before—only John mentions that the notice fastened to the cross which read JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS, was written in three languages Aramaic (for the Jews, God’s chosen people), Latin (for all the earthly powers for it was the language of the great and mighty Roman empire, the language of commerce and the military), and Greek (for all the educated people, for it was the language of literature and the arts, a linguistic passport to any city and profession that mattered). What perfect symbolism!

This year I read the Gospel of Luke.  This is really a two volume work, with Acts being the second volume.  Several thing pop out to me from Luke.  First, a section many probably passed right over to get to the story is 1:1-4 which explains how the information was passed down from eyewitnesses, investigated by Luke, then written down in an orderly fashion, so it could be passed on to me and you in Lent 2012.

Second, I noticed how many times the words CROWD or CROWDS or a paraphrase like PEOPLE CROWDING AROUND, A LARGE CROWD WAS GATHERING, or ALL THE PEOPLE are used by Luke to describe the huge number of people who were taught by or healed by or followed Jesus.  Luke  mentions that Jesus’ own family couldn’t get near him because of the crowds.  The word/phrase appears so often that I was left to wonder if there were any Jews, Romans or Greeks in that area, the cross roads of the civilized world, who hadn’t either met him, or talked to someone who had.  By the time you count women and children who witness the miracle of the bread and fish, there must have been at least 12,000 in that crowd alone.  Sometimes the crowds were warm and friendly, sometimes they were evil and nasty, like when they drove him out of town and tried to push him over a cliff.  Sometimes Jesus was very blunt: “This is a wicked generation,” he said the the crowd increasing in 11:29.

Educated, religious people don’t look good as Luke records the memories of the followers and crowds.  Pharisees, teachers of the law, experts in the law, synagogue rulers, elders, chief priests, authorities, rulers and even the 12 disciples and the 72 who were sent out who were with him everyday often appear clueless and hapless, some even evil and plotting to kill him.  To the experts he also didn’t have warm words: “You foolish people,” ”Woe to you (6 times in Ch. 11), “You hypocrites,” but he ate with them in their homes just like the other sinners.

Demons, demonic spirits and evil spirits are really big in Luke. Jesus created the world—I think he knew the difference between disease, mental illness and demon possession or demonic influences. The Greek word diamonia is used 60 times in the New Testament, and other forms of the word many more times, and demons or Satan are mentioned by every writer, but the concept, singular or plural just seemed really to jump out as I read Luke, particularly in Chapter 8.  If you care to investigate the language, there is a 42 p. document on demonology on the internet, plus many books.

But oh the women!  They followed, they listened, they were healed, they served Jesus food, they brought their children for him to bless, and there’s no record of them doubting.  Since women are big talkers, I think they held on to the stories until Luke interviewed them and recorded their memories.  The big reward for the most loyal women who had followed him first in life, stayed with him at the cross and and then went to the tomb, was they were the first to know about the resurrection, the first post-crucifixion group told to go and tell the called disciples, the cowering fumblers and deniers who thought all was lost.

Stevie Nicks is 63

Sigh. Looks good (just watched a video I won’t post from 1987), but says they have to do the lighting just right.  Doesn't want to look 20 something, just 40 something. Still has hot flashes, but no children to worry about. . . her. I know she's had a 4 decade career and is a multi-millionaire, but she always sounds off key to me.  Don't think she's made it to Lakeside yet. We get them on their way up and on their way down.

http://youtu.be/ri-euoXzpIA

Interview

Behind every powerful man. . . is a smart woman

                              

Some might call La Malinche a traitor, but if you were a slave, and slaves were destined for sacrifice to the gods when the winners changed in ritual wars, who would you side with?  Pretty it up as much as you want with cultural anthropological chit chat, but the woman may have been ahead of her time.  She is the mother of the mixed races of Mexico. And God only knows what the radical feminists do to this story.

“Before the Spanish conquest, the Aztec civilization controlled trade routes from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico and as far south as Guatemala.  Its rich and populous empire was helld together by marriage alliances and ritualized battles in which large numbers of enemy warriors were captured and sacrificed to honor and sustain the gods.  When Hernan Cortes sailed from Cuba to claim the Mexican mainland for Spain in 1519, he could not have anticipated the odds against him and his small force of 600 foot soldiers and 15 horsemen.

His ultimate success in subduing the Aztecs was in large part due to the help of a Nahua slave woman called La Malinche, who became his chief interpreter, advisor, and the mother of his firstborn child.  She advised Cortes on the weakness of Aztec alliances with other indigenous groups, their respect for ruthlessness, and their preference for capturing rather than killing their enemies in battle.  Cortes used his information to defeat an army that was better supplied and much larger than his own.  After God, he said, La Malinche was his most important ally.” 

Thomas B. Cole, MD, MPH, JAMA March 28, 2012 describing the cover of the journal named for La Malinche.

Trayvon Martin, what we know for sure

“What we know is that two families and a community are suffering and being ripped apart because of the incident. It is also a fact that race mongers and the anti-gun cabals will attempt to use this tragic situation as currency to further their disastrous agendas.”

Sharpton and Obama Prostituting Martin Shooting

"If Trayvon Martin was a victim of white racism (hard to conceive since the shooter is apparently Hispanic), his murder would be an anomaly, not a commonplace. It would be a bizarre exception to the way so many young black males are murdered today. If there must be a generalization in all this—a call "to turn the moment into a movement"—it would have to be a movement against blacks who kill other blacks. The absurdity of Messrs. Jackson and Sharpton is that they want to make a movement out of an anomaly. Black teenagers today are afraid of other black teenagers, not whites."
Shelby Steele, WSJ, April 4

CBS, Consistently Biased Source

I watched the “balanced” story on billionaires supporting super PACs on CBS last night.  95% of the content was based on an interview with appropriate snarky and straw man questions for Julian Robertson, father of hedge funds and founder of a Mitt Romney PAC.  He’s given $1.25 million to get Romney elected, the man he says is the best in the history of the presidency in terms of qualifications.  At the tail end, almost as an after thought, the reporter included a reference to an e-mail (we don’t see it) from Hollywood’s Jeffry Katzenberg who has contributed to Obama’s campaign $2 million and  justifies his donation as fighting the right wing.  He had no tough questions and no face to face on camera time—just a throw away paraphrase of an e-mail. Katzenberg said nothing about Obama’s qualifications and accomplishments, at least not for this report. Nor was he asked if he would seek special favors.

I’m not sure the reporter even mentions how mad Obama was at the Supreme Court over PACs, and then decided to get one for his own campaign.  Nor did he note what a big supporter of environmental issues Robertson is—usually a cause to make the MSM swoon.  The point of this interview was to cut down on Romney who is starting to look like the guy to go after.  Don’t believe me when I tell you that if you watch only broadcast news you only get news for Democrats slanted to make the GOP look bad?  Watch the video.

Prager University—the power of the visual

“Men and the Power of the Visual.” Well worth taking a few moments for a refresher of how gender differences used to be taught.   This is the way I learned it in college psych classes, and the way I heard it in parenting classes in the 70s.  What is being taught to young people today? Is it now capitalism's fault, and a problem of a paternalistic, male-dominated system?

Who or what motivates the first lady to show up at public celebrity events dressed like a 16 year old whose parents don't know she escaped the house in that skimpy outfit?  Should she become enraged if men notice her long legs and exposed crotch with a skirt that doesn’t cover her derriere?  Whose fault is that--the designer, hers,  her husband who gives her no attention, or the men taking a longer look?
http://www.prageruniversity.com/Life-Studies/Men-and-the-Power-of-the-Visual.html .

Prager University has some interesting offerings to counteract the socialist left theories taught today.

The Redeemer (movie) 1965

This morning I turned on EWTN about 5:30 a.m. and the movie “The Redeemer” was just starting.  It appeared to be the story of the last hours of Jesus beginning with Judas’ betrayal, and since this is Good Friday, I sat down to watch it.  Something seemed familiar, but also odd, then I realized the face of Jesus was never shown and the faces of the actors weren’t familiar. So I looked it up on Google and learned it was a Spanish film from 1959, directed by Joseph Breen and Fernando Palacios, dubbed for American audiences in 1965.  Macdonald Carey was Jesus’ voice and the narrator was Sebastian Cabot, which is probably why something seemed familiar to me. In the style and mood of the 1950s, the well-known, but always fresh story of the cross and resurrection moves more slowly and thoughtfully with pauses for thinking—much less whip lash than modern films.

Here is a blog entry from Bible Films Blog which provides some information, but also in the comment window there is additional information with links to two other films in the series,  "The Savior" ("El Salvador") and "The Master" ("El Amo" or "El Maestro"). Some parts have been recut for use in Sunday School. The links to those other films no longer work, and one website that promoted them said “no longer available.”  The Amazon link is called “The Life of Christ the Amazing Trilogy,” and are for used DVDs.

Dependency on the Government at an all time high, but read the small print

One of the problems with a lot of right wing/conservative web sites that cite the Heritage Foundation Special Report of Feb. 8, “The 2012 Index of Dependency” is they don’t note that for purposes of reporting, Social Security and Medicare are included as government assistance programs—as in, my husband and I are lumped in with 67.3 million Americans who depend on the federal government for housing, food, income, student aid and other assistance.  “These programs [SS, Medicare, Medicaid] currently make up 42 percent of all non-interest federal program spending. . . Jointly, these programs will enable the government dependence of nearly 80 million baby boomers.”

Those of us who have paid into Social Security and had Medicare payments deducted from every paycheck don’t like being included in that. We just sent in our 2011 tax returns, and 85% of my husband’s SS check is taxed, as is my STRS pension. So we’re not exactly free loaders when it comes to paying taxes.

Index [of Dependence] measurements begin in 1962; since then, the Index score has grown by more than 15 times its original amount. This means that, keeping inflation neutral in the calculations, more than 15 times the resources were committed to paying for people who depend on government in 2010 than in 1962. In 2010 alone, the Index of Dependence on Government grew by 8.1 percent.

Bloggity bits about health

In Nauru, an island in the Pacific, the prevalence of diabetes has reached more than 40%, one of the highest in the world.  Nauru is the fattest country in the world, with over 95% of the population obese.  I can’t find any record of a McDonald’s or Wendy’s on the island, however.  (NEJM, Dec. 22, 2011)

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The “best buy” health interventions for non-communicable diseases according to NEJM, Dec. 22, 2011, is 1) tobacco, 2) alcohol, 3) bad diet—high sodium, high fat, and 4) lack of exercise.  The most bang for the buck and we not the professionals are the ones who make the difference.

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Overdoses from prescription opioids (painkillers) result in 40+ deaths a day, and 1.2 million emergency department visits a year, a 98.4% increase since 2004.  Isn’t that around the time drugs were added to many health insurance policies?  JAMA, Jan 4, 2012

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Brain food—eat fish that is baked or broiled at least once a week to protect your brain. It’s easier to protect your brain than repair it.

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I was reading about Charles Burchfield’s The Sun Through the Trees on the cover of April 4 JAMA and discovered he was a Lutheran.

In the early 1940s, partly prompted by his conversion to Lutheranism, his wife's faith, Burchfield returned to the natural landscape with renewed conviction. He reworked his early watercolors, often incorporating them into larger compositions by painting on strips of paper added to the edges. These monumental, visionary paintings evince a quasi-religious embrace of nature.  Link

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26.7 million adults aged 50 years or older have a clinically significant hearing loss, but fewer than 15% use hearing aids.  And now age-related hearing loss has been found to be independently associated with poor cognitive functioning and dementia.   Needs more research to find out why.  JAMA March 21

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When I was young, births at home were becoming increasingly rare. A friend of mine was named after the doctor who delivered him at home in our little town (also delivered me but in a hospital). Now there is an uptick among white women having home deliveries.  An increase of 36% among whites, and a decrease among blacks and Hispanics and other minorities. JAMA April 4.

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And finally, not in any magazine, but a miracle of sorts on my husband’s face.  About three weeks ago he had a tiny spot of malignancy removed from his face.  Probably from sunburns as a child.  Although it was tiny, it required a huge incision, and he looked like he’d been the loser in a sword fight.  Today, I can hardly see it. Our daughter, who works for a doctor, gave us his name after advising us not to let the dermatologist do it. She’d seen his work on their patients.  What excellent advice. She also can download photos to my computer without losing them, and glue our microwave back together.

Obama is giving community organizers a bad name

Is he lying, deceptive or ignorant? Commentary says he has jumped the shark (a term coined to apply to TV when the program had outlived its freshness and viewers had begun to feel that the show's writers were out of new ideas.)

“Set aside the fact that the House, despite a huge Democratic majority, passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act by a margin of 219-212, hardly a “strong majority.” In fact, it barely qualifies as a plurality. Let’s turn instead to the substance of what the president said.

Obama, a former community organizer who is perhaps unaware of the finer points of the law, might want to acquaint himself with an obscure 19th century case, Marbury v. Madison, which established the doctrine of judicial review and grants federal courts the power to void acts of Congress that are in conflict with the Constitution. What Obama describes as “unprecedented” has, in fact, been done countless times since 1803.

Then there’s Obama’s confusion about judicial activism. It is not, as he insists, simply the act of overturning an existing law; it is when judges allow their personal views about public policy, and not the Constitution, to guide their decisions and often invent new rights out of thin air. For Justices to invalidate a law they deem to be unconstitutional is precisely what the Supreme Court is supposed to do. (“No legislative act … contrary to the Constitution, can be valid,” is how Alexander Hamilton put it in Federalist #78.) If one takes Obama’s words literally, he believes an unjust and unconstitutional law, if passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress, cannot be overturned.”

Fudge phrases—rich, thick, gooey

“Experts agree. . . “

“The new model recognizes that. . .”

“While data are limited. . . “

“The answer probably has to do with. . .”

“While outcomes data on alternatives are limited. . . “

“Consistent with this proposal, . . .”

“It is also possible. . . “

These were all in Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel’s (Rahm’s brother and Obama’s house doctor) first third of a paper arguing for shortening medical training by 30%.  I have no opinion on this. However, once he’d warmed up to the topic with vague generalities, he then became very dogmatic and authoritarian about values and ethics.  On that, I do have an opinion.  It’s dishonest.  It should be noted that these are his opinions not based on data or a high power from which ethics flow.

“Efficiency has its own value.”

“Waste, especially wasting the time of some of society’s most highly educated and talented people, is unethical.”

“Changing the structure of training would force medical leaders to eliminate unnecessary and repetitious material and emphasize training physicians to become part of a care team.”

In the first half of his article he lists 3 medical schools, University of Pennsylvania, Duke University, and  Harvard, that have rearranged different parts of medical training, and one, Texas Tech that offers a 3 year program.  Then at the conclusion, he confidently states, “many medical schools and residency and fellowship programs have already shortened their training in various ways. . .” 

You can tell he’s worked in government (for both Obama and Clinton) can’t you? But that isn’t noted in the JAMA, March 21, 2012 “Viewpoint,” only that he’s in the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at University of Pennsylvania.  His NIH web site: “Ezekiel J. Emanuel is Head of the Department of Bioethics at The Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health and a breast oncologist. He is on extended detail as a special advisor for health policy to the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. “ According to a quote at Wikipedia, he believes you and I have an obligation to participate in biomedical research as a civic obligation.

Obama has been wrong about a lot of legal points . . . and this is the latest flap

These judges can pass on ever getting appointed to anything by Obama!  What would be the point of taking this to the Supreme Court if it had no power to examine a federal law?  And it is not judicial activism, Mr. President.  That’s when your appointed guys make up things that aren’t in there.

“(CBS News) In the escalating battle between the administration and the judiciary, a federal appeals court apparently is calling the president's bluff -- ordering the Justice Department to answer by Thursday whether the Obama Administration believes that the courts have the right to strike down a federal law, according to a lawyer who was in the courtroom.

The order, by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, appears to be in direct response to the president's comments yesterday about the Supreme Court's review of the health care law. Mr. Obama all but threw down the gauntlet with the justices, saying he was "confident" the Court would not "take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress."”

Overturning a law of course would not be unprecedented -- since the Supreme Court since 1803 has asserted the power to strike down laws it interprets as unconstitutional. The three-judge appellate court appears to be asking the administration to admit that basic premise -- despite the president's remarks that implied the contrary. The panel ordered the Justice Department to submit a three-page, single-spaced letter by noon Thursday addressing whether the Executive Branch believes courts have such power, the lawyer said.  . .

In asking for the letter, Smith said: "I want to be sure you're telling us that the attorney general and the Department of Justice do recognize the authority of the federal courts, through unelected judges, to strike acts of Congress or portions thereof in appropriate cases."

CBS Link

Obama appointee had pledged responsible and ethical term

Why did it take so long to get her resignation?  This happened about a year and a half ago. In my working days I probably attending 20 some “team building” type exercises.  IMO, they are worthless.  They do employ trainers, caterers, janitors, speakers, etc., however, and Obama was all about getting people employed, wasn’t he?

“The General Services Administration is undergoing a total administrative overhaul after throwing an $823,000 conference in Las Vegas in October 2010. The four-day affair included "a clown, a mind reader and a $31,208 reception," as well as countless pillaged minibars.

GSA chief Martha N. Johnson resigned yesterday, in the wake of a year-long investigation and report by GSA Inspector General Brian D. Miller. The report, which provides hilarious details of the four-day event ("300 items of $5.00 'Boursin Scalloped Potato with Barolo Wine Braised Short Ribs'") called the conference "over the top" and blamed "excessive spending" on travel, catering, and vendor costs. Miller also targeted a series of "semi-private 'parties'" hosted in GSA employee suites and "catered at taxpayer expense." “

http://gawker.com/5898673/gsa-chief-resigns-after-hiring-clown-mentalist-for-greatest-govt+funded-vegas-party-ever

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-leadership/post/may-the-gsa-resignation-serve-as-warning-to-all-leaders-considering-lame-training-conferences/2011/04/01/gIQAvKgBtS_blog.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gsa-chief-resigns-amid-reports-of-excessive-spending/2012/04/02/gIQABLNNrS_story.html

The $50 light bulb

Apparently it wasn’t supposed to go over $22. 00.  Well, that’s comforting.

The Department of Energy awarded lighting giant Philips the $10 million L Prize despite the fact that the winning energy-efficient bulb failed to meet several contest criteria requirements, according to documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

Philips raised eyebrows when it debuted the winning bulb with a $50 price tag. That is far beyond the $22 cost recommended by the department, which is now working with utility companies to cut back on the upfront cost through rebates.

Department documents, however, cast doubt on whether the expensive LED bulb was even worthy of the prize.

Story.

1,070 days without a budget?

What’s up Democrats?  Isn’t this your job?

Dirty Harry’s little secret.

God had a better idea

Blue is nice for sky, but for trees, I prefer the original plan.

http://mydesignstories.net/profiles/blogs/blue-trees-by-konstantin-dimopoloulos#comments

Faith AND Works

“John Wesley died as he had lived from his conversion. For 53  years, he had faithfully preached that men need and are saved only by faith in Christ, but the corollary of that was that they would be judged by works—by how they live.  He  often  prayed, "Let me wear out, not rust out. Let me not live to be useless." Until a week before his death, when fever incapacitated and forced him to take to his bed, he had in his 88th year, continued to preach, write, supervise and encourage. He died on the morning of March 2nd 1791, and no sooner was his spirit released than those who had come to rejoice with him "burst
into an anthem of praise. "No coach, no hearse were needed for his funeral, for he had given instructions that six poor men, in need of employment, be given a pound each to carry his body to the grave.” “ from England Before and After Wesley, By Donald Drew

Global warmist is thief and forger

Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute and a believer in the religion of (AGW) man made global warming, stole documents from the Heartland Institute, a conservative, free market think tank the left loves to hate and attack.  At least any time I cite it you would think I’d just written, “Rush Limbaugh has personally baptized this.”  Gleick, according to various conservative news sources who know what the code word “sustainable” means, “obtained the documents under false pretenses and then passed them on to liberal blogs. Now a computer analysis by Dr. Patrick Juola at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, concludes that one the documents, the so-called “climate strategy memo,” is a fake, most likely manufactured by Gleick himself. “  CRC Green Watch, April 2012

The mischief is now known as “Fakegate,” and Gleick has taken a leave of absence from his position as President. I have no doubt his institution which is doing the investigation will find he has done nothing wrong because his heart was in the right (left) place.

Dr. Gleick has admitted that he impersonated a board member of the Heartland Institute in a series of emails to obtain confidential documents, a criminal practice known as “phishing.” Gleick, apparently, had hoped to obtain funding documents that he could use to discredit Heartland and scare off its donors by showing that it was simply shilling for Big Oil and Big Coal and other “dirty” corporate interests. . . the documents Gleick obtained from Heartland contained no smoking gun, so Gleick, or one of his over-zealous AGW alarmist confederates, had to spice things up by concocting a fake document entitled, “Confidential Memo: 2012 Heartland Climate Strategy,” which Gleick then mixed in with the purloined Heartland documents and sent off to blog sites of fellow activists. (New American)

These people need scandal and intrigue (hellfire and brimstone) to continue getting donations from the private sector and grants from the government.  Gleick’s supporters and fellow religionists consider him a hero and a martyr for the pantheist cause (global warming). The truth matters not.  Their science is weak and their politics is global, even if the warming isn’t. The regular “free” press doesn’t vet them anymore than they vetted Obama, so most Americans will never find the truth. Besides this is April, and it was news in March.

When Gleick is tried in a court of law for stealing and fraud and found innocent, I’ll post that—but these kinds of thefts rarely get that far.  Unless you’re on the right and pretty small potatoes.

Seniors encouraged to take college loans in 2010, and blamed in 2012 for doing so

One could get whip lash reading about senior citizens and college loans.  Is is a good idea or not?

In August 2010, this article appeared in USAToday. "There are more opportunities than in the past for senior citizens to take college classes and get help paying for them," says financial aid expert Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FinAid.org and Fastweb.com.

Many community colleges and some four-year colleges allow seniors to audit classes for free and significantly reduce tuition for those who take them for credit. The financial arrangements vary widely by school and so do the age requirements — generally 60, 62, or 65 and over.”

Yes, in 2010, before the news about the next bubble burst, people were being encouraged to borrow money for college.  But in today’s USAToday, Washington Post and other sources buying the boilerplate from the NY Federal Reserve research, there’s a different story, although much overblown, since the small print says 5.8% of the college loan debt is for seniors, and 10% are in arrears.  That’s a pretty small portion of college debt.

“New research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows that Americans 60 and older still owe about $36 billion in student loans, providing a rare window into the dynamics of student debt. More than 10 percent of those loans are delinquent. As a result, consumer advocates say, it is not uncommon for Social Security checks to be garnished or for debt collectors to harass borrowers in their 80s over student loans that are decades old.

The fact that even seniors remain saddled with student loans highlights what a growing chorus of lawmakers, economists and financial experts say has become a central conflict in the nation's higher education system: The long-touted benefits of a college degree are being diluted by rising tuition rates and the longevity of debt.”

Think Progress, a leftist bloggity news/opinion site, uses the phrase “crushing America’s Senior citizens.”  Anything to avoid talking about what a bad job this administration has done with the economy, and to suck more people into a mentality of victimhood to be saved by BO. Obama is taking credit for an economy that could have rebounded in spite of the him, faster and healthier, by dragging us further trillions into debt.

Why recovery has taken so long

“If someone wants to build a new coal-fired power plant they can, but it will bankrupt them because they will be charged a huge sum for all the greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.”
-Candidate Barack Obama, Jan. 17, 2008.

Just for Democrats.  Republicans haven’t forgotten.