Tag Archives: Pontius Pilate

America the Beautiful is NOT a Hymn.

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Bite me.

What got me onto this, of course the very Anglo-American persecution of their fellow Americans, including and especially American Indians, like the Ward Churchill (metaphoric) Lynching…

But after I published the bit about Malaysian students being forced to learn English by their Corporate Masters, a show came on and just ended about a half hour ago, comparing America to the Bible.

Claiming, and rightly in some cases, although as you can well imagine they didn’t use quite the same phrases or even the same concept, that some of the worst criminals in History and especially American History, men like Captain John Smith and Cotten Mather, Kings Henry VIII, Queen Elizabeth 1st, King James etc etc… were inspired by the ENGLISH versions of the Bible, and that the Bible is the Sole Inspiration for Imperialism, American Style, that we’re (again with Cotten Mather, gotta love that jerk, he makes it EASY to hold my fellow Christian’s feet to the fire) “the Shining City on the Hill” with our Manifest Destiny to bring the Poor, Benighted Dark Skinned world to Americanism. oh, that’s right, they said “Christianity”.

America is NOT God and is not even a lower case “g” god.

It’s two continents.

Just because certain highly placed United States government officials believe that the term “America” applies exclusively to us, they also by coincidental occurrence believe that Christianity belongs Exclusively to the English as a RACE.

I’ve been in MAINSTREAM churches where this is often preached.

They preach that America is actually the “New Jerusalem” and the English RACE has taken over the position (through the silliest use of Transmogrification Magic that I personally have ever heard of) The New Chosen People of God.

Sarah Palin’s church, for instance, preaches that. Not the entire Assemblies Of God denomination but her church in particular.

Evangelic churches have one doctrine, the Priesthood of the Believer.

Like there’s no Baptist Pope.

In their mindset, criticizing American Foreign Policy or American Corporate Imperialism or American Racism, interchangeable concepts actually,

Is tantamount to Blaspheming against God Himself.

Feh.

I can turn that on it’s very illogical head and say that people who think that resistance to Imperialistic Racist Corporate Tyranny is Anti-American and Anti-Christian are defiling the Name of Christ with their dogmatic insistence on equating their Murderous Evil with His Name.

Taking God’s Name in Vain, in other words, the first instrument of any act of Blasphemy.

It figures prominently in what’s referred to as “God’s Top Ten No-No List”.

But the T.V. show, it was playing “America the Beautiful” in the background.

And preaching that the English language is the Savior of the World.

Funny thing about that is, Jesus didn’t speak any English and the English Language wouldn’t evolve into anything recognizable to anybody who doesn’t have at least a High School grasp of English for well over a thousand years.

The English people of His time had this really nasty practice of capturing Roman soldiers, putting them in wicker cages and lighting them on fire.

Legion X spent time in Anglia and Judea…

A LOT.

Tenth Legion. A Punishment Brigade.

Pontius Pilate himself was made governor of Judea because he pissed off the Emperor.

He was on Punishment Detail, too.

For those readers who’ve never been in the service, those would be the guys who you see picking up cigarette butts and raking the rocks on base.

Worse than that even, Legion X was usually your last chance as a soldier before being sold as a slave or simply crucified.

They’re THE only legitimate connection that can be claimed between Jesus and England in His time.

Does NPR have a hiring impediment?

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Louisa Lim National Public RadioNATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO- I can laugh at speech impediments with the best of them. But I’m less comfortable if there’s no laugh track. Specifically, when it’s a speech-challenged news reporter, I utterly object to being made to decipher from mispronunciation. On the radio, poor diction is as unacceptable as inaudible recording, and disabled- enunciation is as appropriate as a paraplegic delivering your piano. Take NPR’s Louisa Lim.

Give someone a job they can handle, but don’t celebrate equal opportunity without consideration for the task required.

Louisa Lim can’t pronounce her Rs. Might not someone have thought to counsel Lim fwom puhsuing a caweeuh on the wadio? Dropped Rs represent an alphabet 1/26th deficient. More, if you adjust inversely by Scrabble point value.

Monte Python’s Pontius Pilate of Life of Brian was mocked by the chorus for not being able to say his R’s. And yes, his Roman audience found the hilarity unending. It’s why he was urged to release Bawabas and not Jesus. Gilda Radner similarly mocked Barbara Walters. Mispwonouncing her Rs didn’t keep Bahbwa Wahwah from a lengthy career, but that’s the point I’m coming to.

If speech impediments were congenital, it would still be no reason to exhibit them center-stage like cultural accents.

Aren’t most speaking disorders remedied in the primary grades, given extra attention from speech therapists? Why do the exceptions seem to become Communications Majors? It’s as if students who have reason to work on their locution, end up becoming the professionals.

But choirs don’t tolerate tone-deafness, why would broadcasters burden themselves with mis-speakers?

Louisa Lim can’t say R, but she’s only one of a majority of female voices on NPR hobbled by flawed presentation. Don’t you find that strange? Considering that Amy Goodman’s delivery is criticized for being shrill. It’s as if NPR thinks strong feminine voices would come across as too authoritative, unless a physical weakness is empirically discernible. Would this explain why most the female voices on NPR are nasal, or supported by the weakest lung capacity? Their tiny voices sound like they could extinguish themselves without the next breath. Audiences like it too obviously.

Accents too, foreign and domestic, work to temper the projection of authority. Male presenters traditionally have sported commanding voices. Today, those who don’t moderate for sporting events most often have voices in the higher registers, or modulate their voices with rises in pitch which communicates timidity.

Polly put the kettle on

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Greg Mortenson in KhandayThere is nothing more thrilling than being the wild one on the outer edge of the pack, seeing the horizon more clearly than those safely ensconced in the middle of the herd. It isn’t easy being a lonely maverick, relying on animal instinct to find hidden dangers, while other more domesticated souls happily munch nuggets of truth dispensed by politicians and mainstream media. But someone has to lead the way.

I thought I’d found an opportunity to indulge my inner maverick. I had high hopes that the Three Cups of Tea avalanche was hiding lots of neocon propaganda, a pitiful campaign to convince those of us with bleeding hearts that, indeed, our government is engaged in noble warfare against terrorism in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the training ground for Islamic fundamentalists determined to wipe out Western culture. After all, who would know the terrorist’s heart better than Greg Mortenson who has spent much of the past fifteen years in remote Himalayan villages developing relationships with local leaders and gaining an understanding of these tribal cultures?

Well, I’m disappointed to admit that, after finishing the book, I am smack in the middle of the Mortenson love fest. Other than forgetfulness, disorganization and a chronic lack of punctuality, I can find no fault with this man (I feel like Pontius Pilate). After the 9/11 attacks, the book gets a whole lot better. The writing, literally painful to read in the first half, begins to flow in such a way that you are not constantly mindful of the fact that you are reading.

Political intrigue, physical danger, unflinching bravery, and an uncanny ability to discern the good guys from the bad guys–always in pursuit of his mission of educating the rural poor–does make Mortenson seem larger than life. So much so that co-author David Oliver Relin stops mentioning his physical stature in every paragraph.

The complexity of tribal societies makes for interesting reading. Puppet governments in big cities have no standing in remote mountain villages. Tribal councils and religious leaders in Iran interpret and enforce the law. Mortenson makes an interesting distinction between warlords who take tariffs from opium smugglers to create private militias and commandhan who plow the profits into the people’s welfare. One bad, the other good. He makes few moral judgments of the mountain people and their ways, poppy production included. He saves his scathing indictments for the US government and its minions, and seemingly refuses to cooperate or be used by them in any way.

I hope I can find a front row seat tonight and catch Mortenson’s eye. I want to give him the oft-sought-but-ever-elusive Mango wink of approval. Some maverick, she.

Not so historical Jesus

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Seeing a preview for the upcoming release of DAVINCI CODE: THE MOVIE, I was reminded of the time a friend of mine was quite excited about the book. “Check it out” she said. She told me about the various conspiracies, most notably the subjugation of women. “Doesn’t it make you curious to do some research?”
 
“What kind of research?” I asked, baiting her a little.

“Look into the facts surrounding Jesus’ life she said. For example, what did the records show as opposed to what the bible says happened.”

I told her I was pretty sure there weren’t any records of Jesus’ life. But that idea sounded so improbable that I certainly had to confirm it.

Here it is. There is no mention of Jesus in any of the historical records of the time. What we know of Jesus comes to us exclusively from his own PR: a bible compiled over a long period of time by a church already a century old.

From a historian’s perspective, one can only say: “according to a text published by the Catholic Church in Rome, a person called Jesus the Christ of Nazareth once lived in the land currently occupied by Israel, etc.”

There are no Roman records of a person named Jesus, neither of his birth, nor of any property he may have owned, nor even of his crucifixion. There are no documents or narratives of a visit to Herod, or Pilate, nor of any exchange with a criminal named Barabbas.

Since it would be hard to believe that an entire Christian cult arose without some real personage as its catalyst, no one disputes that a person named Jesus did at some point exist. But there are no external corroborative accounts of his life.

None of the three wise men for example left a travelogue of their pilgrimage to Bethlehem. No Jewish high priest took note of an altercation between an angry young man and money-changers in a temple. Neither Herod Antipas nor Pontius Pilate, actual administrators to be sure whose lives and activities are well documented, reported to Rome of a young upstart among their Jewish subjects.

Nothing at all. If today’s Christians want to get technical, Jesus is a lesser proved theory than evolution.