Archive for January, 2024

Anti Semitism Hasn’t Increased PUBLIC Antisemitism Has

Posted: January 10, 2024 by datechguy in culture
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One of the things that amazes me is how many folks are shocked SHOCKED at the “sudden increase” in antisemitism.

This surprise betrays one of the more basic facts of life.

To wit, consider the world in the 1930’s. There were plenty of people who thought what the Nazi were doing was a great idea. They held how they were running their country in general and how they treated the Jews in particular as a template others should follow.

In fact the supposedly anti-fascist left which took pride in fighting on the communist side during the Spanish Civil war suddenly did an about face as soon as the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was signed in 1939 and the Germans took Half of Poland and the Soviets took the other half along with the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) they were all in on defending Germany and keeping the US out of the war in Europe, right up until the Nazi’s invaded the Soviet Union and voilà, suddenly the Nazi menace had to be stopped by war.

Of course once the war began the people who had supported the Nazi’s didn’t suddenly change their minds, they either shut up and supported the war or found themselves interned just like the Japanese, only without the sympathy that history has granted them.

It’s no different than the 70’s and 80’s. All during those years when I was at school, high school and college there were very public intellectuals who were all in with the Soviet Union, with the system of communism and predicted that capitalism was flawed and would fall, right up to the day that the Soviet Union collapsed. It was amazing how many people who didn’t consider the Soviets an “Evil Empire” suddenly decided it was once it was gone. Suddenly it was passé and everybody KNEW that the Soviets were bad.

This is pretty much what is happening now.

The Jew haters out there have always been out there, it’s just post World War 2 and Post death camps it wasn’t considered socially, morally or legally acceptable to be a Jew hater in public. Suddenly there was a social and legal cost to discriminate against and publicly hate on Jews.

However the world war 2 generation is now if not completely dead in their late 90’s and 100’s and are no longer a factor. Furthermore the generations who followed them has embraced birth control sterilization, abortion and even the castration of their own kids while the Arab world whose hatred of the Jews goes far back and far beyond the creation of the state of Israel and been fruitful and multiplied.

Combine that with those who never stopped hating the Jews who suddenly sense that those who might object no longer have either the will or the moral courage to act and POOF here comes open antisemitism on a grand scale.

Bottom line, the west abandoned it’s moral compass and thus there is no longer a moral or social cost for hating Jews in general and the west in particular.  Combine that with a loss of the will to enforce the laws that might bring legal costs to illegal acts done in the name of Hating Jews and those who have waited three quarters of a century to publicly vent their hatred of the Jews and the west where they have succeeded can let their freak flags fly.

And those flags will fly until the cost of flying them is higher than the freaks are willing to pay and every day that we delay in enforcing those costs it will become geometrically harder to do so.

Five Jonathan and Jesus Thoughts Under the Fedora: Realty and Success, Previews of Coming attractions, Never Heard of Them, The Great Convention, and the Gilded Cage were celebs die

Posted: January 9, 2024 by datechguy in catholic, entertainment
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Via Wikipedia commons

Yesterday I talked about the mini-series Jonathan and Jesus today I watched it. Several takeaways from Part 1.

I mentioned in yesterday’s piece that Roumie has credits dating back with 2003. He commented that Harold Ramis told him it takes 20 years to be an overnight sensation and at the time he said that wasn’t going to be him. Reality just is.

I was not familiar with Dallas Jenkins previous short from 2013 Once we were slaves (retitled the two thieves) about St. Dismas on the Cross. Jonathan played Jesus in that short and Jenkins thought it be best film portrayal of Christ in film.

And this was five years before the Chosen.

That’s mysterious ways all over.

One of the things that happens in the 1st episode is that Roumie gets to meet the head of one of his favorite bands: “The Killers’ who are apparently one of the biggest rock bands of the 21st century and have been around for 20 years.

I had never heard of them until that moment.

Boy I’m old.

While in Italy they walk along actual Roman Roads dating back to the time of Christ and before.

Those Roman Roads were the internet of their times. They connected people throughout the empire in a way that was not possible previously because it made travel, trade and communication easier.

Those Roman Roads are one of the greatest single inventions in the history of mankind and it was across those roads that Christianity marched through the empire, at a time of general peace which made it possible.

Just a coincidence I’m sure.

If I had to choose the best moment of part one it was the visit with Alice Cooper who while I heard had converted to Christianity didn’t know that his family had been very Christian and that he came back to the faith late in life. He also talked about how he was told that putting his Christianity into his work would end his career, but of course it did not.

His description of what the price of incredible fame is the single best I’ve ever heard:

Fame is really dangerous, I mean, look what it did to Elvis. Here is a good example. If you take anybody and put him in the biggest mansion on the planet and say: ”You can have anything you want, you can have all the woman, you can have all the drugs, you can have food, you can have anything you want, but you can’t leave the mansion.” that person will find a way to kill themselves because they’ve lost the basic freedom be just to live.  Elvis couldn’t go to the movies. Elvis couldn’t play pool, Elvis couldn’t go out for a drive. He was a prisoner of his own fame. He was that big. Michael Jackson. Everybody that achieved that type of fame died early, because it’s so unnatural.

Of course the most important and true thing he said was: ”It’s your relationship with Christ that is the most important thing no matter what situation you’re in.”

He gets it.

COVID:  Déjà vu all over again

Posted: January 9, 2024 by chrisharper in Uncategorized

By Christopher Harper

As the 2024 election campaign begins in earnest this month, I am troubled that the rustlings of another COVID coup may be starting.

Just up the road from my home in Muncy, the vast University of Pittsburgh Medical Center recently required that masks be worn in all of its facilities throughout the state. UPMC employs 92,000 people and operates 40 hospitals with more than 8,000 licensed beds and 800 clinical locations, including outpatient sites and doctors’ offices.

At the same time, the media have picked up their reporting on COVID-19 and other winter diseases, leaving me with the uneasy feeling that various forces will turn the 2024 election by mail into a reality.

Remember all the changes in election laws in 2020 to make voting easier by mail, including extended voting periods and ballot collections by friends and family?

Most of those “democratic” laws remain in effect, making it much easier for Democrats to win. In 2020, 43% of all voters did so by mail versus 23% in 2016.

The laws also allowed for what has become known as “ballot harvesting,” or allowing someone other than the actual voter to submit ballots.
As America First notes in an analysis of current election laws, “Ballot harvesting is a ripe opportunity for individuals and organizations to cheat in elections. Allowing ballot harvesting is a mistake. States should prioritize transparency and accountability by banning the practice.”
Here are a few of the alarming facts uncovered in the America First analysis:
· Nine states allow a family member to submit a ballot instead of a voter, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
· Thirty-one states allow the voter to choose someone to submit the ballot in his or her place, although some states have set limits on who can collect the ballots or how many they are allowed to collect.
· Thirteen states say nothing about ballot collection, which allows unfettered ballot harvesting.

It’s essential to remove the changes made in 2020 to reestablish the integrity of elections.

At the state level, America First suggests that people support policies that:
· Eliminate drop boxes for mail-in ballots.
· Prohibit a person from returning more than two mail-in ballots and limit who can return a ballot to a familial relationship.
· Eliminate mass mailing of unsolicited mail-in ballots.
· Require an affidavit for mail-in ballot applications that affirms the voter cannot vote on Election Day and affirms eligibility under defined state law.
· Require a witness signature for mail-in ballots.
· Reform the mail-in ballot process by requiring the matching driver’s license number or last four digits of a social security number on absentee applications and inside the envelope of a returned ballot.

Implementing these measures is crucial to prevent another COVID coup, particularly as organizations and the media start taking control of the message.

Jonathan & Jesus Let’s Talk REAL Pressure

Posted: January 8, 2024 by datechguy in catholic, entertainment
Tags: , , , , ,

Abraham Lincoln: [speaking to a old freed slave who dropped to his knees before him] Don’t kneel to me, that is not right. You must kneel to God only, and thank Him for the liberty you will enjoy hereafter.

Richmond April 4th 1865 surrounded by a group of newly freed slaves

This trailer dropped from the folks at the Chosen:

In one respect this isn’t odd, you might recall from your movie history Cecil B DeMille’s silent movie King of Kings, the first movie adaption of the Gospels. It’s available at Youtube:

At the Turner Classic movies the lengths that DeMille took to keep things on the “right” path:

Cecil B. DeMille did not want to take any chances with the film. His two stars, ‘H. B. Warner’ and ‘Dorothy Cummings’ , were required to sign agreements which prohibited them from appearing in film roles that might compromise their “holy” screen images for a five-year period. DeMille also ordered them not to be seen doing any “un-biblical” activities during the film’s shooting. These activities included attending ball games, playing cards, frequenting night clubs, swimming, and riding in convertibles.

and Turner also reports that DeMille had some serious damage control to do:

Lead actor H.B. Warner, who played Jesus, was involved in an off-camera scandal with anonymous woman who was determined to blackmail Cecil B. DeMille by ruining the production. It is believed that DeMille paid the woman on the condition that she leave the U.S.

IMDB.com claims the woman was made to back off after being threatened with arrest. It also states that the pressure that Warner felt playing Christ was so intense that it brought back his drinking problem.

Now consider, this was one movie released in 1927 at a time when movies were not universal. Warner was already an established actor with a ton of credits behind him and decades of credits ahead of him (you might best remember him as Mr. Gower the druggist in It’s a Wonderful Life)  

The Chosen has now been around for over four years. It has been seen by hundreds of millions all over the world. It is a global phenomena. Furthermore if you look at IMDB you will find that while Jonathan Roumie has credits dating back to 2001 you will see nothing in a significant staring role that might cause him to be memorable before the Chosen. His entire fames comes from playing Jesus and there are, I suspect, many particularly in a post Christian culture that have not known the Gospel before and are rediscovering faith for the first time, for whom he is the only Jesus they have ever known in their lives.

Imagine the pressure of playing the son of God under those conditions and add to that the aditional pressure when you consider Jonathan Roumie is a devout Catholic who is very conscious of the dangers of the sin of Pride and that his performance and how he carries himself in public could have a huge oversized effect on people trying to find God. An actor might worry about the effects of his words and actions hurting a production, a devout Christian would worry about his actions and their effect on souls.

And we haven’t even touched on those who despise this message and the messengers who deliver it, both natural and supernatural. I’ve written and spoken about how the clergy and particularly the higher ups are targets for the devil, that comes with the job. Jonathan Roumie is an actor. I suspect that Satan has painted a target on his back bigger than the one on any Bishop.

That he is able to function at all, let alone as a man of faith and devotion speaks volumes and by the time the final season of the Chosen has wrapped, if he didn’t have a complete understanding of redemptive suffering he’ll know it first hand.

I admire him for this task which I would not want for all the gold in the world.

I haven’t watched this documentary yet, but you can bet I’m going to.

Update: Apparently it’s in four parts and available on Amazon. Watching now

Speaking of Gold in the world this is the final day of Christmas and thus the final day of our fundraiser: We remain stuck $2345 away from our goal. I suspect we won’t manage that today but I’d be really delighted if we could get that number below $2000 before I get home. If you would like to help please hit DaTipJar below or to the left:

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