American Action Report

The Quaint Custom of Beauty Pageants, Part 3

2012-02-15T17:55:00.012+08:00

In the first two parts of this series, I showed that beauty pageants are exercises in futility. The system of judging all but determines that real beauty and talent will be eliminated from consideration, and that in all other respects, beauty pageants are a barbaric custom based on objectification of women.

The final round in the competition is judged on the basis of the contestants' personalities. The women are judged by such standards as shallowness, glibness of speech, and hypocrisy. Remember that some of these beauty pageants, to disguise their true intent, are called "scholarship" pageants, as though they are designed to choose scholars deserving of higher education.

This round has two parts. In the first, the judges will converse with each contestant in private. A conversation lasting no more than a few minutes is expected to reveal to the judges everything they need to know about whether the contestant deserves a higher education.

I couldn’t tell you the subject of the private conversation the contestant would have with a judge. Since the conversation is private, I think that the judges are not as interested in what she says as they are in what she can keep from saying. You can imagine what her chances would be if she told the judges that 9/11 was an inside job.

Once the contestants, in private, have assured the judges that they won't spill the beans about 9/11 or question global warming, the approved contestants move to the next step in this quasi-masonic process. I'm referring, of course, to the obligatory public display of insincerity. Each one of a certain number of finalists—probably five—will be asked a question which probably will have nothing to do with the scholarship candidate’s chosen field of study. Thoughtful answers will count against the contestant, for several reasons:

1. They might be controversial;

2. They probably would not be understood by the average person who watches that kind of event; and

3. The answers are supposed to be heartwarming rather than informative.

Her answer must be as pleasing as possible to as many of the judges as possible without going over anyone’s heads. Her answer must appeal to the lowest common denominator, and she must be glib in her delivery.

To demonstrate this, let’s revisit what is probably the most painful memory of a young girl’s life. I’m referring to the Miss Teen U.S.A. contest, in which Caitlin Upton, Miss South Carolina, was asked, “Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can’t locate the U.S. on a world map. Why do you think this is?” Her embarrassing answer is recounted in a video clip from the corporate-owned media program the Today Show.

Please notice two things in particular in this clip below. For one, Caitlin's face is not covered with more make-up than Bozo the clown, as it was in the Miss Teen USA Pageant. Looking natural, she looks great. For another, even though she had a day or so to come up with a different answer to the pageant interviewer's question, her answer is still shallow, vacuous, and obviously insincere. That is, her revised answer is the sort of answer that would have pleased the pageant judges.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQKNvPn3V-8

If you do a Google video search for "dumb blonde," her gaffe comes up in third place. Do an image search, and she's number one.

I really think that it was an unfair question and that she got a bum rap for not coming up with a heartwarming answer. Wouldn’t it be more productive if the judges bothered to do their homework and ask the contestants questions related to their areas of expertise? For that matter, if she had given an intelligent, informed answer, she would have been toast. Here’s what she could have said:

“I personally believe that Americans are unable to do so because most geography teachers are so boring that their students could learn more in a cave. Most school administrators have so little respect for geography as a course that they think that anybody can teach it. Instead of assigning geography classes to teachers with a real passion for the subject, they assign them to teachers who can fit the classes into their schedules. Most Americans really love geography even if they don’t know it. They really love books and movies about travel and people in other lands, and they’re eager to learn about other cultures. Unfortunately, when they enter a geography class, the teacher has them memorize national capitals, population densities, where stuff is on a world map, and a lot of other meaningless trivia they can easily find on line if they wanted to know it. Students’ eyes glaze over and they don’t learn anything that they don’t quickly forget. If geography teachers taught students what they really wanted to know, students would eagerly learn about other people and their cultures. They might even realize that some of the practices of so-called third-world cultures make more sense than this dumb-old contest we’re having tonight. They’d develop a deep appreciation for the different peoples of the world and their concerns, and this increased understanding would help to promote (sigh) world peace.”

You can imagine what a beauty contestant’s chances would be if she gave an answer like that one. Even the prattle about world peace wouldn’t sway them.

In case you're wondering whatever became of the would-be scholar Caitlin Upton, her Chickipedia biography isn't much more informative than her Wikipedia bio or any other bio. They all say that she "planned" or "plans" to attend Appalachian State University to study graphic design. Apparently, her failure to win the scholarship has put her educational plans on hold while she struggles to make a living as a fashion model, either in North Hollywood or (yuk) for Donald Trump in New York. Baseline said that she actually attended Appalachian State University, but I couldn't find any source saying that she had graduated. Maybe ASU's courses in geography, logic, and elocution are overly difficult.

One must wonder how many would-be Nobel Prize recipients missed out on educational opportunities due to their failure to give properly insincere answers in a "scholarship" pageant. Probably none. Somehow, I don't think she would have found a cure for cancer if she had won the "scholarship."

Beauty contests are a dumb idea from the get-go. Truly beautiful women don’t stand a chance of winning the beauty portion of the contest. Truly talented women don’t stand a chance of winning the talent competition. The “personality” portion of the show tends to reward personality traits that no human being should possess.

I wouldn’t favor abolishing beauty contests. Participating in them or watching them should be a private decision. My private decision is to change channels or turn off the television and spend my time doing something more productive. If the idea of having beauty contests were only recently introduced, wouldn’t you think it was bizarre?
(Back to Part 1) (Back to Part 2)

The Quaint Custom of Beauty Pageants, Part 2

2012-02-14T18:48:00.006+08:00

In the first part of this three-part series, I examined four features that most national and international beauty pageants have in common. In each area, the beauty pageant, or scholarship pageant, or whatever the promoters call it, fails to deliver what the promoters promise. In this second part of the series, I examine the "beauty" and "talent" competitions, which all but doom the chances of winning for most beautiful or talented contestants.

Seriously. Think about the famous women who are said to be world-class beauties. With few exceptions, most of them have some facial feature that a minority of people would call ugly. To most other observers, though, each of these features is the woman's most appealing feature.

Think of Anne Hathaway’s wide-set eyes, Elle MacPherson’s impenetrably dark eyes, Karen Mok’s large teeth, Angelina Jolie’s full lips, or Julia Roberts’s wide mouth. People who don’t find those features appealing might say that Anne Hathaway’s eyes were practically on the sides of her head; that Elle MacPherson’s eyes were spooky, like an android’s; that Karen Mok could eat an ear of corn through a picket fence; that Angelina Jolie’s lips look like two slabs of raw liver; or that Julia Roberts’s mouth reminds you of a crocodile.

A woman whose face had all those features would look like a monster. With just one of these features, she can be a world-class beauty. Given a panel of, say, seven judges, probably one of them would give any one of these aforementioned beauties low enough marks to cause a blandly attractive woman to win that part of the competition.

Let me give you an example of two former beauty contestants versus a beautiful young woman who wouldn’t stand a chance in a beauty contest.

In Taiwan, there’s a female singing and acting group called S.H.E. The name stands for Selina, Hebe, and Ella. Selina and Hebe were teenage beauty contestants, and they have the generic prettiness of beauty contestants. Ella was never in a beauty contest, and she’s noted for a tomboyish appearance; yet she was always the most popular member of the group, and many people consider her the most attractive of the three. Now that Hebe is 28 and the others are 30, Selina and Hebe are still generically pretty, but Ella is a radiantly beautiful woman. She still probably wouldn’t stand a chance in a beauty contest because her face is rounder than most judges prefer.

Now let’s come to requirement #6 of what it takes to win a (ahem!) “scholarship” contest.

Once the leg and cleavage part of the competition is over, the contestants have to compete on the basis of something else that has nothing to do with scholarship. With tongue-in-cheek, it’s called the talent competition. All the contestants display some degree of training or practice at what they do, but it’s quite a stretch to call it talent. Rarely is it even entertaining, unless you happen to have a perverse sense of humor—like the people who deliberately watch terribly made movies for the express purpose of laughing at how bad they are. The trouble is, these performances are not bad enough to be risible, but they don't show enough talent to be interesting. Let’s face it: technical proficiency is not the same thing as talent.

Among a panel of judges, true talent would be doomed to failure, and for the same reason that a world-class beauty would have no chance in a beauty contest. Talent involves creativity. True creativity will please some people but offend others. Low marks from just one judge out of seven would doom a contestant’s chances of winning. Only the least objectionable material—that is, the lowest common denominator—has a chance of winning.

If you think I’m kidding, compare the two videos below. In the first, a national beauty contestant with a piano is displaying the high degree of technical proficiency that passes for talent at these events.

Chances are, you didn't watch all of it. In the second video clip, Chico and Harpo Marx are displaying their talents on a piano. Chances are, you will watch all of it.

A beauty contestant playing with talent like Chico's and Harpo's would not have a chance of winning the talent competition. A low mark from even one of the judges would kill a talented contestant’s chances of winning.

In the third and final article in this series, I’ll treat the “personality” portion of beauty contests. The kind of personality that’s rewarded is not the kind of personality that most men would want to marry. I don't blame the contestants; I blame the judges. Their questions and expectations are unfair.

(Back to Part 1) (See Part 3)

* * *

The Quaint Custom of Beauty Pageants, Part 1

2012-02-13T17:39:00.005+08:00

This is the time of year that local and state beauty contests are held in preparation for national and world-wide beauty contests. I helped a civic group organize a statewide beauty contest back around 1980, so I got a chance to see the event from the inside. I kept asking myself, “Why am I doing this? It’s just a dog and pony show. It’s dumb.”

Swaziland's Umhlanga Reed Festival, which raises eyebrows in the West, makes more sense to me. At least it has a point that I can respect.

In this three-part series of articles, I’ll address seven features that most national and world-wide beauty contests have in common. I’ll show that world-class beauties have less chance of winning than blandly nondescript pretty women; that, in the “talent” contest, mediocrity is preferred over talent; and that, in the “personality” segments of the contest, the most winning qualities are shallowness, glib deliveries, and insincerity.

It’s a truism that ugly buildings, politicians, and bizarre customs come to be considered respectable if they stay around for a long time. That seems to be true of beauty pageants—only the organizers of many beauty pageants have become sensitive enough to changing times that they've come to call their event something other than a beauty pageant.

A certain well-known beauty pageant in the United States is called a scholarship pageant. That makes it sound as though it’s an educational process to determine which needy student most deserves to go to the college of her choice. If that’s the case, why are needy young men are disqualified from consideration?

Let’s pretend for a moment that the event is called a scholarship program rather than a scholarship pageant or a contest. As it is with the so-called scholarship pageant, this event is presented as a public service for educational purposes, and the event’s organizers wanted to choose the most deserving scholar. Of course, you would want do know what criteria they use for determining which scholar is the most deserving. Here is what they would tell you:

1. She must be female, single, under thirty years of age and pretty. (Right away, anyone in his right mind would get suspicious.)

2. She doesn’t even have to use the scholarship money to further her education. After a year of behaving virginally, she could—if she so desired—use the money to buy a franchise in a Central American drug cartel.

3. She must publicly compete with about fifty other would-be scholars. Only one of them will receive the scholarship. In the unlikely event that the winner falls under a bus or reveals her belief in reptilian shape shifters before the year is out, the first runner-up will receive the scholarship prize.

4. Her means of competition for the scholarship has absolutely nothing to do with anything scholarly. If fact, if she gives any indication that she has scholarly inclinations—such as showing that she is smarter than the judges or in any way has a mind of her own—it will be counted against her.

In full view of the judges and a national television audience, she must parade across the stage half naked, like the women at right. Then she must do the same thing in an evening gown. Her body movements and even her body itself will be judged by an motley panel such as cosmetics marketers, fashion magazine editors, and washed-up actors. Not just any standard of beauty will do. She must fit the standards of bland “beauty,” heavily larded with make-up, like the women on the covers of fashion magazines. Under all those layers of make-up, natural beauty must be indistinguishable from the painted-on variety. Likewise, there’s no room for facial characteristics that many people find appealing, such as overbites or freckles.

In tomorrow’s installment of this three-part series, I’ll show you that truly world-class beauties would have little or no chance of winning one of these "beauty" contests.
(See Part 2) (See Part 3)

Melting Glaciers, Rising Sea Levels, and—What—Global Warming?

2012-02-09T15:46:00.003+08:00

It’s no secret that glaciers are melting. It’s no secret that global sea levels are rising. Melting glaciers and rising sea levels are probably the most oft-cited “evidence” that global temperatures are rising.

Before we proceed further, let me stress that I consider myself an environmentalist. I’m strongly opposed to drinking poisoned water, breathing toxic fumes, and eating things containing ingredients or residues I can’t pronounce. Almost everywhere I go, I walk, bike, or take mass transportation. Back when I had a garden, onion plants served to deter pests; and compost served as fertilizer.

Recycling? I recycle, downcycle, upcycle, reuse, and loop close every chance I get. In my purchasing habits, I try to focus on the benefits I want rather than the products that the advertisers try to con me into buying. The latter idea is my own innovation, and I know of no one else who practices it.

Don’t expect me to hug a polar bear, though. Those critters are among the ten most dangerous species of animals on Earth.

Not one of the aforementioned practices, however, has anything at all to do with alleged global warming. You can do any or all of them without believing that it’s hot, especially during a record-breaking cold snap in which hundreds of people freeze to death. On the other hand, the Key deer, the Formosa landlocked Salmon, the Yonaguni Monument, and the Inuit people have much to do with melting glaciers and rising sea levels, though they are effects rather than causes of rising sea levels.

The Key deer, a sub-species of the white-tailed deer, is endemic to the Florida Keys. It developed apart from the white-tailed deer when rising sea levels transformed the Florida Keys into islands apart from the mainland. All this took place during the centuries following the end of the Ice Age, some 10,000 years ago.

Rising sea levels and tectonic shifts also brought into being the world’s only species of landlocked salmon. They’re found in Taiwan.

Although Taiwan (formerly known as Formosa) is part of the Philippine tectonic plate and not the Eurasian plate, there once was a land bridge between present-day China and Taiwan. Austronesian peoples, including the Ryukyu islanders of southern Japan, used that land bridge as they populated the Pacific islands. After the Ice Age, the land bridge became the Taiwan Strait.

The Yonaguni Monument was either built or modified (researchers can’t agree which) when that part of the Ryukyu island of Yonaguni was on dry land. In those days, there was no Yellow Sea; and the Sea of Japan was an inland sea. So, you see, it wasn’t just ice that joined Japan and Taiwan to the Asian mainland. Over the past 10,000 years, sea levels have risen about 130 feet (39 meters).

If you live in the Western Hemisphere, you learned in elementary school that the ancestors of our native peoples originally came from present-day northern China. During the Ice Age, there was a land bridge spanning what is now the Bering Strait. As the ice melted and sea levels rose, this land route was cut off. Among the last of these peoples were the Inuits.

Yes, glaciers really are melting, and sea levels really are rising. That has been happening for 10,000 years. That doesn’t mean, though, that global temperatures have been steadily rising for 10,000 years.

Let’s mentally try an experiment. Imagine a large block of ice in a freezer. Let’s say the temperature inside the freezer is 0 degrees Fahrenheit.

Let’s gradually turn the temperature up until it reaches 25 degrees. It’s getting warmer, but the ice isn’t melting. It’s not melting, because temperatures are still freezing. (The Ice Age is still with us.)

Around 3:00 P.M., let’s unplug the freezer and open the door. (The Ice Age is over.) Of course the ice will start melting. As night falls and temperatures also fall, watch what happens. The ice will continue to melt even as temperatures are falling. Why? It’s very simple. Ice melts when it’s no longer freezing. Even if temperatures fall, ice will continue to melt as long as temperatures remain above freezing.

That’s why glaciers are melting and sea levels are rising. We’re no longer in an Ice Age, and I thank the Lord for that. I wouldn’t like for the glaciers to come back and cover most of Argentina and Kansas—unless Argentina and Kansas would rather have glaciers than tornados. Dorothy might never have wanted to leave Oz.

Over the past few thousand years, there have been periods of warming and cooling. Several periods have been much warmer than it is today, and several others have been much cooler. Through warm spells and cool ones, glaciers have been melting and sea levels have been rising. Take a look at the chart below. (Source)

H. L. Mencken provided an explanation for the global warming hoax:

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

It’s the Problem Reaction Solution Paradigm. The problem and the solution are cooked up in the same laboratory. The social or political change agent supplies the problem, whether it is real or imagined. The target to be manipulated provides the reaction. Then the change agent provides the appearance of a solution. The “solution,” of course, is for the target to give more power or other resources to the change agent—a “solution” to which the target would never have agreed in the absence of the contrived problem.

If you have trouble accepting my harsh judgment of the global warming hoaxers, consider a couple of observations.

If man’s survival depended upon cutting back our consumption, why don’t global warming enthusiasts take it seriously enough to cut back on their consumption? Al Gore’s ocean-front palatial mansion in California (see photo), for example, consumes 20 times the electricity that the average Americans house consumes. He has installed solar panels on his Nashville, Tennessee, palatial mansion, which once used 24 times the average American levels of electricity. How many palatial mansions can a person have and still be called environmentally responsible?

On the average, food travels 1,500 miles from farm to table, polluting and using up resources along the way. Food from home gardens travels only a few yards. So why is the federal government making it more difficult to have home gardens?

Why is it that practical, non-governmental solutions are not even considered?

You can probably come up with a few other examples of the gap between the words and actions of the powers that be.

Toxic pollution, resource depletion, and other forms of environmental degradation are real. Global warming and other government schemes are hoaxes. Government scaremongers can not save us. We can only save each other, albeit with practical solutions. Here, here, and here are just a few of many.

The 9/11 Truth Deniers' Question that will not Go Away: Part 2

2012-02-06T20:50:00.003+08:00

As 9/11 truth deniers frequently tell us, if elements of the U.S. government and the Israeli Mossad carried out the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, it had to have involved thousands of conspirators. How, we are asked, could that many people have kept it a secret?

As promised, I explained in the first part of this series just how secrets of that magnitude are kept. In a nutshell, no one is told any more than he needs to know; and, in all but a few cases, those involved don’t have the faintest idea what the secret is. They may even be unaware that there is a secret.

Let’s take another look at the original question and its underlying assumption. The question was, “How could that big a conspiracy be kept a secret?” The underlying assumption is that the conspiracy really was kept a secret.

That assumption is completely false. That 9/11 was an inside job hasn’t been kept a secret from anyone but the willfully ignorant. Almost every major claim of the “official” story of 9/11 has been thoroughly discredited either by credible eyewitnesses or by highly qualified professionals examining the evidence. These facts are well known to anyone who cares to look.

The 9/11 truth deniers demand something that can never be. They’re demanding that we produce someone who is capable of revealing everything about how the attacks were carried out. Considering how secret projects of that magnitude are compartmentalized, it’s highly unlikely that any one person has all the answers. If he did, he’d face arrest, trial, and the death penalty for speaking out.

As it is, hundreds of eyewitnesses to 9/11 have spilled the beans, and some of them have died violent deaths since then. Additionally, tens of thousands of experts in various fields related to the “official” explanation for 9/11 have used facts well known in their respective fields to reveal the secret. While they can not “prove” how the false flag was carried out, they have accomplished two ends:

1. They have proven that almost every assertion in the “official” story is a lie; and,

2. They have proven beyond any reasonable doubt that 9/11 was an inside job.

It would not be possible to refute more than a few of the hundreds of claims of the “official” story, but I’ll mention some that prove that the conspiracy was not limited to nineteen hijackers and the “former” CIA asset Osama bin Laden.
William Rodriguez, a janitor at the World Trade Center North Tower, was the last survivor of the collapse. Having saved the lives of hundreds of people in the North Tower, he has no need of further glory or for lies. He testified that he heard and felt a tremendous explosion in the basement beneath his feet just before the first plane hit the North Tower.

Kenneth Johannemann, a part-time janitor at the North Tower, was on another lower floor when he had a similar experience. His version of events strongly supports the testimony of Rodriguez. On August 31, 2008, Kenneth Johannemann died of a gunshot wound to the head. It was ruled a suicide.

Barry Jennings, who worked for the City Housing Department, was trapped for several hours in Building 7. He heard explosions all during that time. In fact, he’d heard explosions before either the North or South Tower came down, and the explosions continued for the next several hours. Firemen who rescued him reported many explosions in the building. As they crossed the downstairs lobby to get out of the building, they saw many dead bodies and signs of explosions on the first floor.

The cause of Building 7’s destruction was not even mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report. After years of pressure from thousands of architects and engineers as well as other concerned Americans, the National Institute for Standards and Technology released its report on Building 7. The report was released two days after Barry Jennings died of “undisclosed causes.” Try as I did, I was unable to find any source that claimed to know what those “undisclosed causes” were.

Michael Hess, New York City’s corporate counsel was with Barry Jennings that fateful day in September. After the NIST Report was released, he said in an interview that NIST had lied in its report.
This is just a small sampling of the hundreds of eyewitnesses who have said, from experience, that the "official" version of events is a lie. Now let us turn to the tens of thousands of expert witnesses who have examined the "official" version of events and say that, from their training and expertise, they know that the "official" story is a lie.

Thousands of pilots examined the evidence for amateur pilots flying the planes and hitting the buildings and have disproven the “official” story. To give one example, some commercial airline pilots, impressed by what they had “seen” in the famous videos purporting to be Boeing 757’s crashing into the World Trade Center, decided to use a simulator to see if they could duplicate the feat. Ten commercial airline pilots with many years experience flying large commercial airliners took the test several times each. Not one of them was able to duplicate the feat, even after several tries.

Likewise, it has been impossible for the 9/11 conspirators to keep their inside job a secret from thousands upon thousands of professionals who have disproven countless points of the “official” story. A few of the groups whose areas of expertise have been instrumental in “spilling the beans,” include, but are not limited to, fire fighters, military officers, scientists, architects and engineers, journalists and other media professionals, political leaders, medical professionals, scholars (here and here), and Muslims and Jews.

The truth deniers’ question, “Why hasn’t anyone spilled the beans?” is entirely dishonest or incredibly lazy and gullible, especially since hundreds of eyewitnesses and tens of thousands of expert witnesses have come forward. Anyone who cares to research the facts can easily learn who had the means, the motive, the opportunity, control over the boundary conditions, and the ability to cover it up. Here is a start.
To read Part 1 of this series, click here.

The 9/11 Truth Deniers' Question that will not Go Away: Part 1

2012-02-05T20:29:00.007+08:00

Theories of how the September 11, 2001, attacks were carried out present us with a dilemma. Seemingly, two groups of mutually contradictory theories are impossible to believe.

In the official theory, nineteen poorly trained young men carrying out impossible feats of skill amid a dizzying array of coincidences and disproven excuses for the failure of every relevant part of the U.S. government to follow standard operating procedure. In alternative theories, hundreds or even thousands of people were involved in a massive conspiracy. How, we are asked, could that many people have kept something that big a secret from the American people?

Propagandists for the first theory have been so successful that it has become the default theory. Rather than following simple logic by rejecting this impossible scenario, almost everyone falls into the belief that it can’t be rejected until an alternative theory has been proven. No, logic demands that the impossible first scenario must be rejected outright and that the puzzling second scenario be examined further and explained.

Logic also demands that we question everything. In the first part of this series, I’ll cover well-trod ground by trying to answer the first question: How could that many conspirators keep that big a secret from the American people? In the second part of this series, I’ll question the basic assumption of that question and disprove it.

If 9/11 was an inside job, it would have to have involved President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, WTC owner Larry Silverstein, the Israeli Mossad, other Israeli officials, several private security firms, North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), the corporate-owned media, and many others. The number of people involved must have run into the thousands.

In answering the question as asked, whole systems thinking requires us to ask two counter questions: Are there other known instances of government successfully keeping that big a secret? If so, how did they manage it?

The Manhattan Project, to build the world’s first atomic bomb, was just such a secret. The above top secret Manhattan Project involved 130,000 people, and it was kept a secret until the time the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.

Everyone who has ever watched a spy thriller has heard a line similar to, “All information is on a need-to-know basis, and you don’t need to know.” That’s how the Manhattan Project was conducted.

Let’s look at only 1,196 people involved in keeping the big secret, and how little they actually knew. You can imagine how more than 100,000 other keepers of the secret were similarly given the mushroom treatment.

In mid-July 1945, a Portland-class cruiser named the USS Indianapolis (CA-35) delivered two atomic bombs within striking distance of Japan. Not one of the 1,196 officers and enlisted men aboard the Indianapolis knew what they were delivering. No one at the delivery point yet knew what the two crates contained. Even the location of the Indianapolis was top secret. When the Indianapolis was sunk by a Japanese submarine, its distress signal was assumed to be a Japanese trick, since no American ship was known to be in the area. When the Indianapolis failed to return to port, no one missed them because no one knew anything about them. The survivors spent the next few days going mad from hunger, thirst, and shark attacks. They were rescued only because a pilot on anti-submarine patrol accidentally noticed them in the water. Of approximately 900 men who had survived the sinking, only 317 survived the shark attacks. In the worst naval disaster in American history, 879 men took the secret of the Manhattan Project to their deaths, and not one of them even knew what the secret was.

That’s just one vignette from the big secret known as the Manhattan Project. I’ve just described hundreds of people involved in a top secret. Not one spilled the beans, because not one of them knew enough to spill anything. Not even President Truman knew about the Manhattan Project until he “needed to know.”

Look up from your computer for a moment. Suppose you had wanted to keep the building and furnishing of a home like yours a secret, and suppose it were hidden in a remote location. Do you think that the furniture manufacturers knew that they were making the furniture for your home? Did the appliance manufacturers know? What about the lumber jacks and hardware suppliers? Thousands of people supplied your home, but only a few knew the location of your home.

That’s how it was with the Manhattan Project and a number of other projects of the federal government. Use your favorite search engine to search the following: “Manhattan Project” secret “need to know.” You’ll find references to the stealth bomber, the CIA’s black budget, health issues, Area 51, and others.

For agencies of the federal government, keeping big secrets from the American people is the norm. Whole books, praise by highly respected sources, have been written on the subject. The book Secrets: The CIA’s War at Home, is given favorable treatment by the American Journalism Review. A Culture of Secrecy: The Government Versus the People’s Right to Know is praised by Seymour Hersh the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who uncovered such secrets as the My Lai Massacre and America’s Abu Ghraib torture chambers.

The federal government’s best-kept secrets, however, are the secrets that wishful thinkers keep from themselves. Though there are many, I will delve into only one: the 9/11 false flag attacks, which I’ll present in the second part of this series.
For more information on the September 11, 2001, false flag terror attacks, click here.

The Republican Presidential Nomination is Being Stolen! (Part 2)

2012-02-01T13:35:00.005+08:00

(This is part two of a two-part article about vote fraud and potential vote fraud in the 2012 Iowa caucuses, and the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries. Today, we treat the South Carolina primaries, repeating the last two paragraphs of yesterdays's article.)

We also know that around 90% of New Hampshire’s ballots are cast via a form of gambling called e-voting. Their machines are programmed by a company that has already been found guilty of criminal behavior and convictions. (here)

In South Carolina it was worse. The usual suspects programmed 100% of the voting machines. (here) That amounts to 100% faith-based voting.

The Internet is buzzing with talk that 953 posthumous ballots were cast in the recent South Carolina Republican Party primary. Actually, this news item was based on a letter that S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson wrote to U.S. Attorney two days before the primary. He wrote that, in recent elections, 953 such ballots had been cast in “recent elections.” Additionally, he wrote that 4,965 ballots had been cast by voters who were no longer qualified to vote because they had moved from the state. We’re talking about a total of 5,918 illegal ballots. Wilson was concerned that this may also happen in the 2012 Republican Party primary. (link to PDF)

Did it? It’s hard to say just yet, but several anomalies and irregularities have come to light.

In the video The Ron Paul Fix is In, the narrator points out that Newt Gingrich, who went on to “win” the South Carolina primary, had to cancel a Charleston engagement due to lack of interest. At the same time, Ron Paul attracted over 1,000 supporters in the Holy City (a sobriquet for Charleston).

That, by itself, would not be enough to convince me that something was rotten in the Palmetto State (another sobriquet). After all, the “lesser of two evils”—the other being Mitt Romney—doesn’t generate the same level of enthusiasm as “the President America needs.”

Admit it: The only reason I’ve ever heard anyone give for “supporting” Romney or Gingrich is the belief that one or the other has the best chance of beating Obama in the November presidential election. I’ve even heard people say with astonishing shortsightedness that beating Obama was their “ultimate goal.” Actually, it barely qualifies as a short-term goal. A long-term goal should be to elect the kind of President that America needs. A longer-term goal should be to bring about a better future for America. The ultimate goal should be of a religious nature.

What I found particularly suspicious was the reported behavior of the people who “tallied” the vote. At poll watcher Christopher Lawton reported many suspicious irregularities at many precincts all over the state, as it was with the count in Iowa and New Hampshire, if irregularities were the rule in one precinct, it’s reasonable to wonder about the other precincts. (link)

No one is saying that the Gingrich campaign had anything to do with the voting irregularities in South Carolina. Voter fraud could have been more strategic than that.

As long as Ron Paul is in the race, two other candidates must also be in the race for vote fraud to be harder to detect. No one would have believed that a majority of South Carolinians would vote for disaster capitalist Mitt Romney, a nose-in-the-air elitist who amassed a $240 billion fortune by buying up businesses and crashing them—the sort of thing Goldman Sachs does to whole countries such as the U.S. and Greece. (here)

Enter Newt Gingrich, whose platform on virtually every issue is the opposite of his actual self—kind of like Zorro in reverse. Zorro feigned weakness to disguise his heroic self. Gingrich feigns a heroic persona to disguise the opposite.

Military adventures overseas? When Gingrich was of draft age during the Vietnam War, he avoided having to take a moral stand for or against the war. In short, his actual self is a selfish coward.

Family values? Ha! That’s like Jeffrey Dahmer posing as a vegetarian.

A super patriot? Not the way he genuflects before the Israeli government and vigorously advocates using American servicemen as janissaries for that regime.

Limited government? Not the way the military-industrial complex borrows and spends our money with his blessings.

Fiscal responsibility? He was a hired hit man for Fannie Mae. If you liked the 2007-2008 housing and credit collapse, you’ll love Newt Gingrich.

Honesty? He lies so much that he has to get somebody else to call his dog for him. Not even Congress, in which so much corruption takes place that it's scarcely noticed, could stomach his conflicts of interest. They censured him for corruption in 1997, when he was Speaker of the House.

Because Newt Gingrich talks a good game, even with all his noxious faults, he makes a more convincing designated winner than the patronizing, high-pressure salesman Mitt Romney. Romney comes across as so stuck up that he runs the risk of drowning when it rains.

At this writing, the Florida primary has just ended, and—if "news" reports are to be believed—the silver spoon cruncher trounced the Grinch 46.4% to 31.9%, with Sanitarium and St. Paul trailing behind with 13.4% and 7.0% of the vote, respectively.
Since no more than 5% of the delegates have been gathered, we can be sure that Romney and either Gingrich or Santorum will remain in the race, if only to maintain the illusion that Ron Paul isn't getting enough votes to be taken seriously. After all, if it were a two-man race between Romney and Paul, the vote fraudsters would have only two alternatives—either of which would wreck their well-cultivated myth that Ron Paul is just a fringe candidate. Either they could award Romney more than 90% of the votes, which even the most gullible citizens would question; or they could make it a 70%-30% split, which would place Paul too close to the mainstream to be ignored at the national convention during the final week of August.
For this reason, we can be sure that either Santorum or Gingrich will stay in the race to provide protective camouflage for vote thieves. Those of you who live in states that have not yet had primaries or caucuses must watch them carefully. It’s not enough to read their lips; watch their hands.

The Republican Presidential Nomination is Being Stolen! (Part 1)

2012-01-31T13:39:00.000+08:00

(This is part one of a two-part series on vote fraud and potential vote fraud in the Iowa caucuses, the New Hampshire primary and the South Carolina primary, all of which took place in January 2012. Today, we report on Iowa and New Hampshire. Tomorrow's article will treat probable vote fraud in South Carolina.)
Beyond any reasonable doubt, the 2012 Republican nomination is being stolen from the American people. The law requires that the votes be cast in secret but counted in public. The reality is often quite another matter.

In some cases, as with touch-screen voting, not even the individual voter knows how the machine records his vote; and then the actual vote count is concealed from the public. In other cases, according to sworn affidavit, the vote is counted honestly but recorded dishonestly,

Let’s begin with part of the count in the Iowa caucuses.

Edward L True attended the caucus in Washington Wells, Appanoose County, Iowa. His tally sheet showed the following vote totals: Bachman: 3, Perry: 13, Paul: 7, Huntsman: 1, Santorum: 21, Romney: 2, Gingrich: 6. Other participants would confirm to True that their vote tallies gave the same totals.

Officials instructed the poll watchers not to share their vote tallies with anyone. They also said that there was no “rush” for the precinct to submit their totals.

As it turned out, Romney was officially recorded as getting 22 votes from Washington Wells precinct. True testified that he called the county Republican Party chairman Lyle Brinegar to report the discrepancy. He gave Brinegar the telephone numbers of other observers and was told that the discrepancy would be corrected when the totals were certified “in about two weeks.”

The correction, according to True, was never made. If the tally from one precinct was changed, tallies from the other precincts are suspect.

The results of the caucuses were later changed in a recount to show that Santorum had won Iowa by 34 votes—29,839 to 29,834. The change may have come partly as a result of Edward True and others raising a legal stink about the count in his precinct. Nonetheless, we still have to wonder whether the count in Iowa’s 1,773 other precincts were correctly counted and whom an honest count would have shown to be the winner. (link)

With paperless voting, there’s of course no paper trail to honestly and transparently certify election results. Anyone with access to the computer program that supposedly counts the votes can steal an election. Of this system, it has been said, “It’s not a door without locks; it’s a house without doors.”

In the 1996 article “A House without Doors: Vote Fraud in America,” James J. Condit, Jr., addressed the question, “Can you prove voter fraud?” Without a paper trail, voter fraud can’t be proven. More important, though, is that without a paper trail an honest vote count can’t be guaranteed. When the vote counters can’t guarantee an honest count, there’s something wrong with the system.

How sure can we be that the vote in New Hampshire was honest? I was astonished to find how easy it was to answer that question. In New Hampshire, no identification is required. In the video below, a man named James O’Keefe, with a concealed camera, asks for ballots in both Democrat and Republican primaries. In each instance, he gives the names of New Hampshire residents who had died. According to O’Keefe, that would have been perfectly legal in the 2012 Republican presidential primary.

New Hampshire Attorney General Richard Head said that he had launched a comprehensive investigation of these allegations and, thus far, has found no evidence of this type of voter fraud. The news article, however, doesn’t raise the possibility that snowbirds—New England residents known reside in the American South during the winter—were impersonated by vote fraudsters. (link)

In South Carolina it was worse. The usual suspects programmed 100% of the voting machines. (here) That amounts to 100% faith-based voting.

Thinking the Unthinkable and Speaking the Unspeakable to Prevent another 9/11

2012-01-27T15:38:00.010+08:00

I had not intended to write another 9/11-related article this soon after a four-part series on the 9/11 hijackers. Current events, however, have made 9/11 of current importance. This article can scarcely wait.

I've always heard that there’s no such thing as a stupid question. One of my students taught me otherwise. The best example of a stupid question is one that was answered immediately before the question was asked. A monumentally stupid question is one that has been answered so many times that the answer should be obvious to even the densest of questioners. So it is with the following question: “How can we believe that officials of our own government would kill thousands of their countrymen for the sake of starting a war for money and power?”

In this article, I’ll cover well-trod ground by showing that officials have done so throughout American history. Then I’ll issue a warning that, if unchecked, officials of our government will be party to doing the same thing in the Strait of Hormuz in the near future.

First of all, some rethinking is necessary. Contrary to popular belief, there’s no moral difference between illegal wars and other illegal killings of our fellow human beings. Putting the imprimatur of government on murder doesn't make it something less than murder.

Put yourself in the position of someone who is criminal enough to publicly lie more than ninety times to provide a pretext for sending his countrymen into war for the sake of power and profit. You would know in advance that thousands of your countrymen would die as the result of your decision. Hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians would die as a result of your decision.

Using the word war to describe the situation places the government stamp of approval on your actions and somehow seems to make it okay. Instead of being called murder, it’s called unwise policy. Once the war is started and the fraud is discovered, the proffered solution is not to stop murdering people but to “stay the course” because we’ve “committed” ourselves, and "national honor" is at stake. It's considered more honorable to continue the carnage than to stop it. Failing to remove our fellow Americans from mortal danger is hypocritically cast as failing to “support our troops.” What the troops desire, which is to go home, doesn't enter the equation.
Let's get real. Whoever desires the cause desires the results. Whoever desires the course of action that causes thousands of American deaths and hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths is desiring the very thing that he's causing. There is no moral difference between causing deaths after starting an unjust and illegal war than there is in causing deaths in order to start an unjust and illegal war. Any person who would do one would do the other.

Since the War of 1812, the greatness of American Presidents has been judged by the magnitude of the wars they’ve started, the power gathered to the presidency, and the human rights the Presidents have been violated. The greater the evils committed, the more the President is admired for his presumed greatness.

Since 1861, every major war the United States has fought has been as a result of the other side being maneuvered into firing the first shot, or as the result of a false flag. Since 1861, more than a million Americans have died in wars that America has entered on false pretences. This is murder on a vast scale.

At this point, some readers are aghast that I should suggest that America's most admired President had started a war on false pretenses—one that claimed the lives of 600,000 American servicemen and countless thousands of innocent civilians who were starved into submission. From the time South Carolina seceded from the Union on December 20, 1860—a right that Lincoln, when he was a young congressman, had supported—South Carolina sought a peaceful means of occupying Fort Sumter, which was on South Carolina soil. For months, local civilians provided food and other necessities to the Union garrison there, though instruments of war were not allowed to get through. Almost as soon as Lincoln was sworn in as President, he announced the Big Lie that the Union garrison was starving. In April 1861, the South was maneuvered into firing the first shot when Union forces attempted to move additional instruments of war to Fort Sumter, under the false pretenses that they were delivering food to a "starving garrison."

Once the war was started, Lincoln allowed the terrorist leader William T. Sherman to use deliberate starvation as a weapon by destroying the ability of innocent civilians to grow food. The photo above shows the remains of Columbia, South Carolina, after Sherman ordered it burned to the ground. Giving lie to the pretext that they were "liberating" the slaves, Grant and Sherman kidnapped able-bodied male slaves and even freedmen, forcing them to do labor for the Union army. Though they were forced to wear Union uniforms, neither Grant nor Sherman trusted them to bear arms. Many able-bodied blacks hid in the woods until the yankees had left; then they went back to their families and back to work.

Coming to the present date, it is now well-known except to the willfully ignorant that America and a criminal elite started or entered the present wars in Afghanistan, North Africa, and the Middle East on false pretenses. Of course, the sociopaths who started these wars knew beyond doubt that tens of thousands of American servicemen and hundreds of thousands of civilians would die as a result of their actions. This, too, is murder on a vast scale.

Some 2,700 more deaths in Manhattan, Washington, and Pennsylvania would make little difference to such criminals as they. With trillions of dollars in profits to be made, and emergency powers to be declared, citing trumped-up enemies, a few thousand more deaths would cost them little sleep.

Retired Major General Smedley Butler hit the nail on the head when he said, “War is a racket!” For a re-enactment of a portion of his speech, see the video below, or read his book War is a Racket.

For a PDF free download of the book War is a Racket, click here.

A few days ago, I read in the paper that the USS Enterprise (CVN-65, seen above) would be given another year of active service due to the seriousness of events in the Strait of Hormuz. The events in question were created almost entirely by the American government, the Israeli regime, and faded allies such as England. NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) is threatening a blockade against Iran, which is nowhere near any North Atlantic nations. This action, if carried out, would be an act of war against a nation with whom we’re technically at peace. Iran hasn't attacked another nation in over 360 years; America has attacked over a half dozen nations in the past ten years, so who's the aggressor?

Just as it was with the Lusitania (a luxury liner that also carried troops and armaments for the British) before America’s entry into World War I and with the embargo against Japan immediately prior to America’s entry into World War II, the U.S. is provoking Iran into a conflict. Informed sources believe that either the Israeli regime or the U.S. will deliberately sink the Enterprise to provide a pretext for a U.S. led invasion of Iran.

Israel (the modern irreligious regime, not the Chosen People mentioned in the Bible) has a lengthy history of false flag events against allies in order to get those allies to fight Israel’s enemies for them. The King David Hotel Massacre, the Lavon Affair, the (very un-Jewish) Israeli attempt to sink the USS Liberty, the Berlin disco bombing (a joint CIA and Mossad black bag job), and probably the attack on the USS Cole are only a few of the many examples of Israeli perfidy.

If the USS Enterprise is sunk, we will know it was not done by Iranians but by America's so-called "best friend in the Middle East," with the cooperation of the Wall Street-dominated Obama Administration. If enough Americans are forewarned, however, the false flag attack on the Enterprise may be called off, and war with Iran may be averted. The next few months will tell.

It's worth taking another look at the Corbett Report video When False Flags Don't Fly (above). I've probably watched that video more times than Corbett has.

The 11 Most Compelling 9/11 Conspiracy Theories

2012-01-21T12:28:00.015+08:00

I was fortunate to have found the time to write and post four 9/11 articles and one other article in the space of five days. Chinese New Year is coming up in a couple of days, and I won't have time to write anything anytime soon.

I would, however, like to share with y'all a superb site called The 11 Most Compelling 9/11 Conspiracy Theories. It consists of eleven short video clips from sources ranging from moderately reliable to highly reliable.

Some of the information presented contradicts things I wrote in my series on boundary conditions for the 9/11 hijackers, but I'm not the least bit embarrassed about that. I'm still looking for the truth, as many of y'all are, and I believe that humility and uncertainty are two of our most valuable allies in that search. The truth is out there, but so are lies.

The sixth video clip is somewhat mislabeled. The heading suggests that it's mainly about the miraculously surviving passports of which you're already familiar. Most of it, in fact, is about the conflict of interest between some of the congressmen on the 9/11 Commission and the business interests of the same congressmen. I hadn't heard that one before.

One of the videos was deleted "due to third party claims." I'll try to replace that video with another. Another video, related to the claim that the Israeli regime did 9/11, is really nothing but a lot of name calling with no presentation of evidence. I'm replacing that wretched specimen with the video All the Proof in the World: Israel did 9/11.

The 11 Most Compelling 9/11 Conspiracy Theories

When I return to my laptop, I intend to write other articles concerning boundary conditions such as, "What are Boeing 757's capable of doing and what are they incapable of doing?" As before, I don't intend to limit my writing to 9/11-oriented articles. I hope you read them.

(For more 9/11-related articles in the American Action Report, see the links on the stand-alone page, September 11, 2001.)

Here's the article, with my comments added:

Many 9 11 conspiracy theories surfaced shortly after the September 11th attacks, some bringing compelling arguments, and some not holding up at all. Theorists believe that the World Trade Center buildings were demolished by bombs, phone calls from the planes were made up, and the former President George W. Bush secretly profited from the attacks.

I have compiled a list of the 11 most compelling 9 11 conspiracy theories that exist:

1. Inside Traders Knew About Attacks Before They Happened

Right before the September 11th attacks some fishy business happened within the stock market and insurance firms. An “extraordinary” amount of put options were placed on United Airlines and American Airlines stocks, the same airlines that were hijacked during the attacks. Many speculate that traders were tipped off about the attacks, and profited from the tragedy. The Securities and Exchange Commission launched an insider trading investigation in which Osama Bin Laden was a suspect after receiving information from at least one Wall Street Firm.

2. Air Defense Was Told To “Stand Down”

In the event that a airplane were to be hijacked, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), is prepared to send out fighter jets which can debilitate or shoot down an airplane. On 9/11/01, NORAD generals said they learned of the hijackings in time to scramble fighter jets. Some skeptics believe NORAD commanded defense systems to “Stand-down”, because of their lack of presence during the attacks.

3. Planes Didn’t Make Twin Towers Collapse, Bombs Did

The World Trade Center collapse appeared similar to a controlled demolition. Many speculate that the towers were in fact blown down with explosives placed in selected locations. Some witnesses accounted hearing explosions inside the building as they attempted to escape. Many architects and scientists even maintain that a planes fuel cannot produce enough heat to melt the steel frame of the two buildings that collapsed.

4. The Pentagon Attack Scientifically Doesn’t Hold Up

The Pentagon crash may be the most puzzling event of the day. Theorists maintain that the impact holes in the pentagon were much smaller then a commercial American Airlines plane. They also question why the plane was not shot down prior to impact, as well as why the plane impacted into a section of the Pentagon that was vacant due to renovations.

5. Flight 93 Was Completely Staged

The fourth hijacked plane, Flight 93 crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. It is believed that the passengers fought back, and crashed the plane into a field. Skeptics believe that Flight 93 landed safely, while a substitute plane was shot out of the sky. Other theorists believe that the passengers were murdered or relocated, and will never be found.

6. Hijackers Are Alive. How Did Their Passports Survive Explosion?

After the September 11th attacks, the “Loose Change” documentary stated that all of the hijackers were in fact alive in other countries. Rather presumptuous since it is possible for two different people to have identical names. But they did raise a good point; how did the passports of the terrorists survive the explosion? In the aftermath of the attacks, passports and identification were found as evidence. Many skeptics question how identification made out of paper survived an explosion, which destroyed buildings.

7. Cell Phone Calls Made From Plane Were Faked

In-flight calls were made from cell phones in hi-jacked airplanes. Scientists and skeptics maintain that cell phones could not receive reception from the altitude the planes typically fly. Other skeptics questioned a phone call from a son to his mother, in which he referred to himself by his own first and last name.
[American Action Report note: The reader should take into account three types of phones: air phones that may have been available to airline attendants, seat phones which some models of 757's made available to passengers, and cell phones. In 2001, it was impossible to make a cell phone call from that altitude. Flight 77, the plane that allegedly hit the Pentagon, did not have seat phones, though I don't know about the other planes. See the American Action Report article "What Happened to Flight 77's Passengers?"]

8. Jewish People [Correction by the American Action Report: Israeli apostates and their cronies in the United States] Knew Attack Was Going To Happen, Took Off Work On September 11th.

Theorists noticed that 4,000 Jewish employees took off from work on September 11th 2001. Some of the first people to record the attacks on camera were Jewish [American Action Report correction: They were Israeli Mossad agents.] also. Many became suspicious of there actions, and put them on the radar as suspects in the wake of the attack.

[American Action Report note: As a companion piece to this video, see the article Israel did 9/11: All the Proof in the World]

[American Action Report note: The writer refers to Israeli agents recording the attacks on the World Trade Center. I've posted a video concerning this fact.]

9. Black Boxes Found By Search Crew Kept Secret

During the ensuing weeks after the attacks, the Black boxes were one of the most important items to find. They were the only evidence into what happened inside the cockpits of the plane. 3 of 4 black boxes were found, and only one was in good enough condition to listen to. The tape was not initially released, but was shared with the families in 2002. Skeptics believe the tapes were not disclosed in order to support the secret scheme.

[American Action Report note: This is the video that's no longer available. I'll keep looking for a substitute.]

10. The Bin Laden Tapes Are Fake

Initially, Osama Bid Laden denied any responsibility or involvement with the attacks. Soon afterwards, numerous tapes came out claiming that he took full responsibility on the attacks. Many skeptics believe that Bin Laden was targeted because of his stakes in the stocks as well as former President George W. Bush’s personal business ventures in the Middle East.

11. Aluminum Planes Can’t Penetrate Steel Structure Of World Trade Center

Commercial airplanes’ frames are constructed with a very light aluminum material, in order to make it easier to fly. Theorists maintain that there is no possible way an airplane can do as much damage as it did to the Twin Towers as it did. Theorists believe that missiles or explosives were used to ensure the buildings collapsed.

END

For more 9/11-related articles in the American Action Report, see the links on the stand-alone page, September 11, 2001.

Boundary Conditions for the 9/11 Hijackers, Part 4: Aftermath

2012-01-20T04:23:00.003+08:00

In the first three parts of this series, I described the boundary conditions for the tasks laid out for the September 11, 2001, hijackers. This, brief as it is, is the aftermath.
Within hours of the terror attacks of that day, Florida Governor Jeb Bush had Huffman Aviation's records confiscated and sent to Washington, D. C. (link) In case you're wondering whether Jeb Bush was related to someone whose name you've seen in the papers, the answer is, "Yes."

Jeb Bush is the brother of George W. Bush, who was President of the United States at the time of the 9/11 terror attacks. He was also the man responsible for the way the votes for the 2000 presidential election were counted in Florida. That particular vote count, and how it was carried out, decided who would be elected President in 2000. George W. Bush was also responsible for stonewalling the creation of a congressional investigation of 9/11 for fourteen months. (link) (link)
Jeb Bush is also the brother of Marvin Bush, who was in charge of security at the World Trade Center from the day after George W. Bush was inaugurated President until the day before the planes crashed into the twin towers. (Source: Yahoo Answers)
Jeb Bush is also the son of former President George H. W. Bush, a business partner of the bin Laden family. (transcript of BBC expose)
In investigating the events of September 11, 2001, you may not find a terrorist behind every bush, but isn't it odd that you seem to find a Bush behind every terrorist?

* * *

You've probably seen the cartoons in which someone has deliberately left a clear trail for rescuers to follow. The September 11 terror attacks were possibly the only criminal case in history in which the criminals were extremely generous in leaving evidence for investigators to follow. By my count, there were at least fourteen stories featuring different treasure troves of evidence incriminating the 9/11 hijackers, most of which was left in plain sight on the day of the hijackings. (Source: History Commons)

To give one example, one hijacker's luggage was left at the airport when he went aboard the plane. The luggage included the hijacker's identification, a copy of the Koran, and a videotape on how to fly a Boeing 757.

Why did he need luggage? Why did he need the videotape on the way to the airport? There was no way to watch it on the way to the airport. Or was he hoping that whoever found it would return it to Blockbuster for him to avoid a late fee? I hope he was thoughtful enough to rewind it first.

You're probably already aware of some of the September 11 miracles. In one, the plane completely evaporated from the heat of jet fuel, yet the hijacker's passport somehow survived in legible condition. Just hours after the attack, a passerby happened to spot it among several thousand tons of rubble and several hundred thousand scraps of paper. The passerby immediately recognized it as the passport of one of the hijackers and reported it to the proper authorities.

* * *

Much has been written about the seven alleged hijackers who turned up alive after the attacks, and of the fact that CNN failed to mention Arabs in its lists of people aboard the four hijacked planes. Both errors have the same origins.

Within hours of the attacks, the four passenger lists were broken down into two lists: four lists of hijackers and four victims' lists. CNN published what they called a victims' list, which bloggers immediately assumed were flight manifests. That there were no Arabic names on the supposed manifests led people to believe that there had been no Arabs on the planes.

As for the list of hijackers, the FBI was highly scientific in its methods. If the passenger had an Arabic-sounding name, he was initially assumed to be a hijacker; otherwise, he was a victim.

If former basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Oklahoma City bomber Terry Nichols, and mass murderer Charles Manson had been on those planes, Kareem would have been listed as a hijacker, while Terry and Chuck would have been listed as victims.

Mohamed, which has multiple spellings in the Roman alphabet, is the most common given name in the world, and there are a lot of Arabic family names that sound as similar as Smith and Schmidt. The FBI, with the same adroitness that they had previously used when dealing with pre-9/11 warnings, compared their lists of Arabs on the planes with lists of suspected terrorists that they'd been keeping for no apparent reason. When they found a near match, they assumed it was a match. That method is about as useful as the spell checker when you key in the name Nancy Pelosi; it suggests that maybe the name should be Plosive, Peloponnese, Pelvic, or Pelagic.

Anyone who tells you we shouldn't question the official story should be made informed of the unscientific methods by which the official story came about.

* * *

In 2002 and 2003, the owners of both flight schools in Florida attended by 9/11 hijackers were involved in suspicious airplane crashes. Here's a quote from History Commons:

"Within the space of seven months, the owners of two Venice, Florida flight schools attended by several of the alleged 9/11 suicide pilots are separately in serious air accidents. On June 26, 2002, Arne Kruithof, whose Florida Flight Training Center was attended by Ziad Jarrah, survives a crash at the Venice Municipal Airport. He is a passenger in a twin-engine plane, which suddenly pulls to the left when about 50 feet off the runway and the pilot is unable to regain control. All the passengers are uninjured, but the plane is damaged extensively. [VENICE GONDOLIER SUN, 6/29/2002] On January 24, 2003, Rudi Dekkers, whose Huffman Aviation was attended by Marwan Alshehhi and Mohamed Atta, crashes his helicopter. He is flying to work early in the morning for a meeting with a competitor, to sell his flight school to them. Ten minutes after takeoff, his engine cuts out and he crashes into a river. He is rescued from the ice-cold water by a friend and fellow helicopter pilot who pulls him to shore. He arrives in Venice later in the day, and is able to proceed with the sale of Huffman Aviation. Two days earlier, the Associated Press had announced that Dekkers was to be arrested on felony fraud charges (see August 23, 2001-April 2004). [ASSOCIATED PRESS, 1/22/2003; ASSOCIATED PRESS, 1/24/2003; VENICE GONDOLIER SUN, 1/25/2003; NAPLES DAILY NEWS, 1/25/2003; SARASOTA HERALD-TRIBUNE, 1/28/2003] In 2011, Dekkers will say that he is convinced someone tried to kill him, although he doesn’t know who. 'The fuel lines were cut.'"

* * *

As I pointed out in a previous article in this series, the plan described in the official version of 9/11 events did not meet the boundary conditions for Osama bin Laden. In fact, many of the boundary conditions were completely outside bin Laden's control. We must therefore conclude that events must have been conducted according to a different plan.

Identify the people who had control over 9/11's boundary conditions, and you have identified the perpetrators.
Boundary Conditions, Part 1: Overview
Boundary Conditions, Part 2: The Pilot Hijackers
Boundary Conditions, Part 3: The Muscle Hijackers
Other September 11, 2001, articles in this blog

Boundary Conditions for the 9/11 Hijackers, Part 3: the Muscle Hijackers

2012-01-19T08:43:00.009+08:00

As far as I know, no one has attempted to ask what qualifications the 9/11 muscle hijackers had for doing the grunt work on the hijacked planes. Let's look into it.
In the first part of this series, we discussed the concept of boundary conditions. A strategic planner doesn't just "make do with what he has" and hope for the best. He determines what conditions must exist for his project to succeed. If even one condition fails to exist, or is outside his control, he either alters his plan or abandons it altogether.
In the second part of this series, we examined the boundary conditions needed for the pilot hijackers to succeed in their respective missions. The boundary conditions simply did not exist, but we're expected to believe that the 9/11 planner(s) went ahead anyway and the plan succeeded by dint of a series of highly unlikely accidents.
Now let's turn our attention to the muscle hijackers. A muscle hijacker was someone who, as the term suggests, provided the muscle for the hijacking. A muscle hijacker's job was to scare the bejeebers out of the passengers and flight attendants and keep them in line.
What qualifications would be most reasonable for muscle hijackers? Let us return to the image of Osama bin Laden pecking away at his laptop, making decisions that would bring about the most sophisticated terrorist act in history.

Hmm, he thinks, I've already picked terrorists who'd make good pilots for a Boeing 757: four guys, none of whom has ever sat at the controls of an airplane—not even a Cessna. Now who would make good muscle hijackers?
Consistent with his earlier decision to recruit pilot hijackers who weren't pilots, Osama bin Laden decided to recruit muscle hijackers who weren't muscular. Far from filling the role of muscle hijackers, those fifteen young men would have been better qualified to play Munchkins in a remake of The Wizard of Oz. Even Newsweek reporter Fareed Zakaria, actors Art Malik and James Belushi; and CNN reporter Christiane Amanpour would have been more intimidating than those guys.
Would you have picked puny runts with boyish faces, of whom the 9/11 Commission Report would say, “Despite the phrase widely used to describe them, the so-called muscle hijackers were not at all physically imposing; most were between 5' 5" and 5' 7" in height”? Would you have picked men so lacking in English skills that they needed to be taught “a few basic words and phrases”? (link to 9/11 Commission Report, Chapter 7)

Remember that English skills were required for a wide variety of tasks needed to make the plan a success. To give just one example, how did they make reservations on four planes that would be leaving three different airports, hundreds of miles apart, within 47 minutes of each other (two from Boston, and one each from Washington and Newark)?
Oh, and let's not forget that the ironically termed "muscle" hijackers needed weapons to supplement their scrawny frames. They were supplied with plastic serving knives and box cutters.
I mentioned boyish faces. I realize that Audie Murphy, of World War II fame, had a boyish face, but he also had a machine gun. A boyish face and a machine gun will get you more respect than just a boyish face.
In bold type below, I've emphasized the ages of the muscle hijackers:

Mohamed Mohamed el-Amir Awad el-Sayed Atta (alleged hijacker pilot AA11 WTC North Tower, age 33) Muscle hijackers: Waleed al-Shehri (22), Abdulaziz al-Omari (22), Satam al-Suqami (25) Wail al-Shehri (28)

Marwan al-Shehhi (alleged hijacker pilot of UA175, WTC2, age 23) Muscle hijackers: Fayez Banihammad (24), Mohand al-Shehri (22), Hamza al-Ghamdi (20), Ahmed al-Ghamdi (22)

Hani Hanjour (alleged hijacker pilot of AA77, Pentagon, age 29) Muscle hijackers: Khalid al-Mihdhar (26), Majed Moqed (24), Nawaf al-Hazmi (25), Salem al-Hazmi (20).

Ziad Samir Jarrah (alleged hijacker pilot of UA93, Shanksville, age 26) Muscle hijackers: Ahmed al-Haznawi (20), Ahmed al-Nami (23), Saeed al-Ghamdi (21).
They ranged in age from 20 to 26. The average age of a 9/11 muscle hijacker was between 22 and 23. Nine out of the fifteen muscle hijackers were 22 years old or younger. Four of them were 20.
How do we explain the curious behavior of muscle hijacker Khalid al-Mindar (age 26)? Chapter 7 of the 9/11 Commission Report says, “The last muscle hijacker to arrive was Khalid al Mihdhar. As mentioned earlier, he had abandoned Hazmi in San Diego in June 2000 and returned to his family in Yemen. Mihdhar reportedly stayed in Yemen for about a month before Khallad persuaded him to return to Afghanistan. Mihdhar complained about life in the United States. He met with KSM, who remained annoyed at his decision to go AWOL. But KSM's desire to drop him from the operation yielded to Bin Ladin's insistence to keep him.”

How’s that again? He abandoned the project because he disliked “life in the United States.” (How long did he think he'd be living in the United States?) Then he fled to the bosom of his family before being coaxed into going back to the United States and getting killed. In a nutshell, just because he got a case of culture shock, he ran home to his mama. Then he was coaxed into going back and deliberately getting himself killed. Ruminate on that one for a moment.

Just as the pilot hijackers were allowed to wait until they'd arrived in the United States to take basic flying lessons, the muscle hijackers were allowed to start building muscles after they'd arrived in the U.S. That is, they were sent even before they were qualified.
The more closely a person looks at the terror attacks of 9/11, the more impressed he is with how meticulously planned almost everything was. No matter how careful the planning was, though, the success or failure of the plan—assuming that it went according to the official story—depended on the hijackers.
Everything about the recruitment, training, and equipping of the hijackers, however, seemed astonishingly slipshod. They seemed to be little more than props. That's the weakest link in the chain.
Further, the weakest link in the hijacker story was that these unimpressive-looking young naïfs were provided with "weapons" that are commonly used as children's toys. The only source of information for the story that the hijackers used cardboard box cutters and plastic serving knives was the word of Theodore Olson, the lawyer involved in the Florida vote count that helped secure the presidency for George W. Bush. His wife Barbara was a neo-conservative commentator and another Bush operative. (link)
Olson claimed that his wife had made a cell phone call from Flight 77 and said that the hijackers had used plastic serving knives and box cutters. Olson's word was discredited by phone company records, cell phone technologists, and the testimony of FBI agents in open court. (link) If that one point in the 9/11 story is discredited, then we must question everything else in official story of 9/11.
Everything I’ve read about the alleged 9/11 hijackers indicates that they were patsies who didn’t know they were going to get killed. Not one of them had any special qualifications. Everything about them suggests that they were naïve cannon fodder who were recruited only because they were expendable.

As Lewis Carroll wrote in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, "It just gets curiouser and curiouser." Next, we'll look at the curious aftermath in the fourth and final article of this series.

Part 1: Boundary Conditions, Overview
Part 2: Boundary Conditions for the Pilot Hijackers
Part 4: Boundary Conditions, Aftermath
Other September 11, 2001, articles in this blog

Honor the Veterans by Listening to What They have to Say: Bring them Home and Don't Start More Wars for Them to Fight

2012-01-18T12:37:00.002+08:00

(I had intended to post part three of the four-part series on the 9/11 hijackers. With the several important presidential primaries coming up in a few days, I thought it best to post this article now and postpone the 9/11 article until tomorrow.)

Supporters of endless wars of aggression in the Middle East and elsewhere have no defense for their warmongering, so they try to use America's war veterans as human shields. The line goes, if you don't support the war, you're not supporting the veterans who have sacrificed for our freedoms—period, end of sentence, no more discussion.

So how are we told to support the veterans? Put a yellow sticker on your car, hold parades in their name—supposedly in their honor, but actually in honor of the banksters and other chicken hawks who sent them to fight—but don't by any means listen to what the veterans have to say about the wars they're sent to fight.

Fully 70% of the campaign contributions from combat troops to presidential candidates is sent to the only presidential candidate who wants America to end the wars, bring the troops home, and not start another war. Below is the link to a video asking American voters to honor the troops by listening to what they have to say.

You Like Ron Paul, Except on Foreign Policy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4a__tcfFug&feature=youtube_gdata_player

With few exceptions, the corporate-owned media can't bring themselves to mention Ron Paul without a smirk or some remark to the effect that he can't win. From the ways they conduct themselves, it's clear that they're scared to death that he will win. Comedian Jon Stewart uses actual news clips to illustrate that point:

John Stewart Shows How Ron Paul Is Feared By The NWO Mafia Controlled Mainstream Media

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb5aGgQXhXo&feature=related

Barack Obama gets undeserved pats on the back for ending the war in Iraq—the war that George W. Bush started on false pretenses, and which Obama, as a presidential candidate, promised to end immediately after being sworn in as President. When Mr. Obama "ended" the war in Iraq, he left in place an Iraqi puppet ruler and 15,000 Blackwater/Xe mercenaries. Further, his administration has made it abundantly clear that the troops that were pulled out of Iraq are slated to be redeployed in a war with Iran.

Do we honor our combat veterans by bringing them home to win the peace, or do we send them to sacrifice in yet another war that most of the troops do not support and which is none of our business? Rachel Maddow reports:

Maddow: "Ron Paul Is The Only Presidential Candidate That Doesn't Want To Start Another War!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTHrbYllfk4&feature=related

Oh, we're told that we should support the candidate who the corporate-owned media tell us has the best chance of beating Obama in the 2012 election. Why should we? Is it because of Obama's numerous and endless wars, most of which were started by a Republican President; by his assault on the Constitution, which is but a continuation and expansion of a Republican President's actions from 2001-2009; or is it because of Obama's ties to Wall Street looters such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley?

Follow the money trail:

Mitt Romney may, as the corporate-owned media tell us, have the "best" chance of beating Obama in November, but do we really want to replace one Obama with another? The biggest difference between Romney and Obama is that Romney doesn't need a teleprompter. The second biggest difference is that Obama is controlled by Wall Street insiders, while Romney, for all practical purposes, is a Wall Street insider.

Every endorsement of Romney I've ever heard or read has been based solely on the notion that we should vote for him because he has the best chance of beating Obama. In telling us this, Romney's endorsers are telling us to vote our fears when we should be voting our hopes.

Combat troops in the Middle East and elsewhere have to face their fears every day. They, whom we put in harm's way, have to master fears far greater than any fears we face in the voting booth. Americans can best honor our combat veterans by exercising a fraction of their courage and casting votes that show that we truly support our troops.

Support our combat troops. Bring them home to their families and don't start any more wars.

Boundary Conditions for the 9/11 Hijackers, Part 2: The Pilot Hijackers

2012-01-17T13:09:00.006+08:00

In the first part of this four-part series, I mentioned the boundary conditions faced by the mastermind of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks. The plan called for four pilots when not even one pilot was available. Instead of altering the plan, which is what most strategists would do, this strategist recruited four young men who had never sat at the cockpit of even the smallest of airplanes.

What follows is the training they received, supposedly in hopes that it would be enough to qualify them to fly complex and difficult maneuvers from the cockpits of Boeing 757 airliners. Judge for yourself whether Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Hani Hanjour, and Ziad Samir Jarrah met the boundary conditions for a successful completion of their respective operations. Bear in mind that, unless stated otherwise, all the information in this article came either from 9/11 Commission Report, Chapter 7, from Wikipedia articles, or from other established sources.

Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi (the alleged pilot hijackers of AA11 and UA175, respectively) arrived in the United States in June 2000 and took flight training on small airplanes at Huffman Aviation from July 6 through August 7, 2000, as part of Huffman's "Accelerated Pilot Program." The term is misleading, because their training was exclusively on a Cessna 172, for which they received instrument ratings in November. On December 29, they went to Opa-Locka Airport, also in Florida, and practiced on a Boeing 727—not 757—simulator. That, apparently, was the extent of their flight training.

Between the two of them, Atta was clearly the pilot. Huffman Aviation witnesses told the 9/11 Commission that they’d never seen Marwan al-Shehhi at the controls of an airplane. Huffman Aviation employee Anne Greaves said in an interview, “It was always Atta.”

Here’s what Wikipedia, the Readers Digest of the dot-com generation, says about Hani Hanjour, the alleged hijacker pilot of UA77:

“[I]n January 2001, Arizona JetTech flight school managers reported him to the FAA at least five times because his English was inadequate for the commercial pilot’s certificate he had already obtained. It took him five hours to complete an oral exam meant to last just two hours, said Peggy Chevrette. Hanjour failed UA English classes with a 0.26 GPA and a JetTech manager said “He could not fly at all.” His FAA certificate had become invalid late in 1999 when he failed to take a mandatory medical examination. In February, Hanjour began advanced simulator training (for a Boeing 737) in Mesa, Arizona.”

Here's what History Commons has to say of Hani Hanjour's training on the 737-200 simulator:

"9/11 hijacker Hani Hanjour practices on a Boeing 737-200 simulator for a total of 21 hours at the JetTech International flight school in Phoenix, Arizona. Hanjour also attends ground school and pays just under $7,500 for the training. Despite only completing 21 of his originally scheduled 34 hours of simulator training, according to the FBI this is the best-trained of the four hijacker pilots (see Spring-Summer 2001). However, an instructor comments: 'Student made numerous errors during performance… including a lack of understanding of some basic concepts… Some of the concepts involved in large jet systems cannot be fully comprehended by someone with only small prop plane experience.' [US DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA; ALEXANDRIA DIVISION, 7/31/2006 ] The school contacts the FAA to warn it of Hanjour’s poor English and flying skills (see January-February 2001)." (emphasis added) (link)

In August 2001, only a few weeks before the 9/11 hijackings, Hanjour tried to rent a single engine Cessna 172 from Freeway Airport in Maryland. He was declined when they saw that he had difficulty controlling and landing the plane. (link to source) Bear in mind that Hani Hanjour was alleged to have executed a perfect 380-degree turn during a steep dive and flown a Boeing 757-200 barely twenty feet above the ground for over a mile before crashing into the first floor of the Pentagon without messing up the neatly manicured lawn.

Ziad Samir Jarrah didn’t require any flying skills to crash a plane into a few square miles of open field in Pennsylvania. I could have done that myself, and probably would have, though not intentionally. Still, let’s not leave out his pilot training.

Jarrah took flying lessons at Florida Fight Training, not far from Huffman Aviation, from June 2000 until January 2001. Even today, Florida Flight Training’s fleet of airplanes range from the Cessna 152 to the Piper Turbo Seneca II.

Now I ask you the question I asked in the first part of this series, and ask you one more question:

1. If you were planning the most sophisticated terrorist act in history—one that required superb abilities in piloting a Boeing 757—would you have picked as your pilots people who didn’t know how to fly, and try to train them to fly a Boeing 757 in time for the operation to succeed?

2. Given what you now know about the alleged 9/11 hijacker pilots, do you think they had the skill to handle Boeing 757s as described in the official version of events?

If your answer to either of those questions is, “No,” then the official version of events is a lie. The terror attacks on September 11, 2001, were an inside job.

A person looking back on historical events tends to see them as though they were inevitable. One may therefore argue that Osama bin Laden had to "make do with what he had." In reality, though, that's not the way successful projects are planned and carried out. Every successful project takes boundary conditions into account.

As I pointed out in the previous article in this series, boundary conditions are conditions that must exist for a project to succeed. Boundary conditions may also be seen as the conditions that influence whether a project can succeed. If your resources fail to meet even one of the boundary conditions, you must either alter your plan or abandon it altogether.

In the official version of 9/11, Osama bin Laden needed pilots for the project to succeed. He didn't have pilots. In fact, many of the boundary conditions for the official version of the 9/11 attacks simply did not exist. Most of the boundary conditions for events that we know of that day, such as NORAD standing down for over an hour, were completely outside bin Laden's control.

In any area of research into the events of 9/11, ask yourself two questions:

1. What were the boundary conditions?

2. Who had control over the boundary conditions?

Answer those two questions and you'll know who was responsible for the events of September 11, 2001.

Part 1: Boundary Conditions, Overview
Part 3: Boundary Conditions for the Muscle Hijackers
Part 4: Boundary Conditions, Aftermath
Other September 11, 2001, articles in this blog

Boundary Conditions for the 9/11 Hijackers, Part 1: An Overview

2012-01-16T15:01:00.007+08:00

Every article about the qualifications of the September 11 hijackers I’ve ever seen has been an attempt to answer the question, “Could they have done everything they were accused of doing?” In this article, I take the position of a strategist and ask, “How could anyone with their lack of qualifications have been trusted to do it?”

In the process of developing a successful strategy, the strategist always considers the boundary conditions. Boundary conditions are conditions that must be present in order for a strategy to become successful.
If, for example, you wanted to make lemonade, you'd need water, lemon juice, a sweetener, a container, and a means of mixing the ingredients. If you lacked even one of those conditions, you'd have to alter your plans or abandon them altogether. When plans for the September 11, 2001, terror attacks were being formulated, this principle could not have been ignored.

In this four-part series, we'll examine the boundary conditions for just one aspect of the 9/11 terror attacks: the hijackers themselves. What were the boundary conditions for how the hijackers were recruited? What qualifications did they have when they were recruited? How were they trained to meet the boundary conditions necessary for carrying out their respective tasks? Finally, did they in fact meet those boundary conditions?
(Except where otherwise noted, most of the information for this articles came from 9/11 Commission Report, Chapter 7 or from Wikipedia articles on 9/11 or the biographies of the alleged hijackers. I've chosen not to reference specifications for planes, tour buses, or Volkswagens.)
Discussion of the pilot hijackers' qualifications, can be confusing because only a small minority of the people on Earth are pilots. Fewer still are commercial airline pilots. As such, we have little frame of reference for comprehending what the alleged 9/11 hijackers were said to have done. It’s like the saying, “One death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic.” For that reason, let me start with an analogy that should make this mind-boggling question more manageable.

Suppose you were starting a tour guide service to be officially launched in less than two years. The tour bus will need a driver. Whom would you hire? Would you hire someone who has never been behind the steering wheel of a car and hope that, within two years, he’d be skillful enough to operate a tour bus? If the answer to that question is, “Yes,” how would you train him to operate a tour bus—by sending him to a driving school to practice with a Volkswagen?

Now put yourself in the position of Osama bin Laden, the supposed mastermind of the 9/11 conspiracy. You’re sitting in a cave in Afghanistan, hunched over your laptop, planning the most sophisticated terrorist act in history.

It’s not an easy feat, especially considering the distractions. The most skillful intelligence agency the world has ever known, the CIA, is looking everywhere for you. Luckily for you, CIA agents never consider that, since you regularly need dialysis treatment, they could be monitoring area hospitals that are properly equipped to perform dialysis treatment. Meanwhile, a CNN reporter just saunters into your cave, sees you concentrating on your work (with knitted eyebrows and tongue sticking out, no doubt) and says, “Whatcha doin’?” You give him a scoop, send him on his way without disemboweling him, and go back to your laptop.

Hmm, you think, who would make good pilots for a Boeing 757? Would you pick four guys, none of whom has ever sat at the controls of an airplane—not even a Cessna? Would you have them trained exclusively on light aircraft and flight simulators for light aircraft? Then would you just hope for the best? Is that how you would plan the most complex terrorist operation in history?
Who would be suitable as muscle hijackers? Would you have chosen scrawny, boyish-looking men with an average age of 22, most of whose heights were in the range of 5' 5" to 5'7", and who spoke no English? Would you have let them wait until they'd arrived in the United States to begin their language training and weight training?
In the second article of this series, we’ll examine the pilot hijackers—that is, the hijackers who were given responsibility for flying the Boeing 757s. In the third article, we’ll examine the muscle hijackers—the ones whose job was to cow the passengers and flight crew into submission. In the fourth and final article in this series, we’ll look at some post-9/11 events regarding the hijackers.
Part 2: Boundary Conditions for the Pilot Hijackers
Part 3: Boundary Conditions for the Muscle Hijackers
Part 4: Aftermath
Other September 11, 2001, articles in this blog

The Cordova House Screaming Fit: A Heartwarming Epilogue

2012-01-09T04:05:00.004+08:00

Where do old, formerly exciting protests and other trumped-up news stories go when they die? Is there something like an elephant grave yard to which they just wander off and are forgotten? Or do they just get lost like old socks in a hungry washing machine?

I paused to reflect on this imponderable when I read a single paragraph in my church bulletin this morning. It gave mention of Cordova House, which, a year ago, had Internet trolls tickling their laptop keyboards with angry messages of protest. In this brief blurb, however, the news of Cordova House was written as a heartwarming tribute to Christian tolerance.

For those of you who no more than faintly recall the controversy, or who somehow missed it entirely, Cordova House is a Muslim worship center under construction “near Memphis, Tennessee.”

At the time of the controversy, Islamic experts informed us of why the Muslims chose the unusual name of Cordova for their place of worship. You see, during the Middle Ages, Muslims controlled much of Spain, and the city of Cordova was their main city in Spain. According to these experts, these modern-day jihadists selected the name Cordova as a means of getting in the faces of beer drinking rednecks who also happened to be medieval scholars. (Actually, some people I know are quite medieval, though I'm not sure I'd call them scholars.) The bomb throwers wanted to be “walking on the fightin’ side of” aging Merle Haggard fans. The Internet trolls were drawing upon Hollywood stereotypes such as these.

The blurb I saw in my church bulletin aroused enough of my interest that I checked the Internet for further information. I stumbled upon a startling coincidence. The town in which Cordova House is being built is also named Cordova—yes, Cordova, Tennessee. What are the odds of that happening? Or has Sharia law already become so entrenched that the town fathers were cowed into renaming their town to suit Muslim radicals?

As it turns out, there never was much controversy over the construction of Cordova House. The alleged controversy existed almost entirely in cyberspace. Somewhere along the line, Cordova House became known as Memphis Islamic Center, or maybe it was never really called Cordova House except in cyberspace.

As soon as the Muslims announced their plans to build a worship center in Cordova, Pastor Steve Stone of Heartsong Church took positive action. He placed a sign in front of his church reading, "Heartsong Church welcomes Memphis Islamic Center to the neighborhood."

Here are some of the comments Pastor Stone made to WMC-TV:

"Once we put up the sign, within three days people from Memphis Islamic Center contacted us and were overwhelmed with emotion that we would be so welcoming."

"I don't know a lot about Islam and I only know one fellow who is a Muslim," said Pastor Stone. "So I knew it was going to be a learning process for me, but we follow Jesus and he tells us to love our neighbors."

"People that associate Christians with folks that are afraid of or don't like Muslims, I can't judge those people that are Christian. I believe that to take the name of Christ and do hateful things is a real insult."

"Their facility is not quite finished and they came and asked us if they might be able to use our facility for Ramadan prayers which we took as a high compliment."

There’s actually more to that last quote than meets the eye. According to the blurb in my church bulletin, the imam had asked Pastor Stone if Muslim worshipers could use “a room” in his church for Ramadan prayers. Pastor Stone offered them the sanctuary.

About 20 members of the 550-member congregation quit the Heartsong Church in protest. Pastor Stone says he tried to work with the dissenters, but they left anyway. He now says he's "kind of glad they left," as his church was better off without members who hated Muslims.
Of late, the members of the mosque and the church are working on a homeless ministry and have made plans for a shared park.

(You may watch the above video on YouTube at this link.)

Returning to the WMC-TV news article, “Stone said it's the beginning of a friendship he hopes will inspire others to love their neighbors.”

Ron Paul's Chances: Seeing is Believing

2011-12-30T16:27:00.011+08:00

Supposedly, everybody "knows" that Ron Paul can't win, but nobody seems to know how he "knows," and we're not even supposed to question this assumption. It's my experience that, when everybody "knows" something, and so forth, the assumption is the result of deliberate manipulation and is probably wrong.

When was the last time you heard someone say, "I really like Herman Cain, but he can't win; so I'll vote for (name)"? Oh, you never have? Well, when was the last time you heard someone say that about Michele Bachmann, Jon Huntsman, Gary Johnson, Fred Karger, Andy Martin, Jimmy McMillan, Tom Miller, Buddy Roemer, Rick Santorum, Matt Snyder, or Vern Wuensche? Oh, you never have?

Way back in 1979 and early 1980, I heard that all the time about Ronald Reagan: that we needed to vote for George H. W. Bush because Ronald Reagan didn't have a chance of beating Jimmy Carter. Have you noticed that the only time you hear that canard at the national level is when a popular candidate poses a credible threat to one of the Establishment's hand-picked candidates?

Now we're hearing it about Ron Paul. To test whether there was any truth to this canard, I consulted Google Trends. No, Google Trends is not by any means a national polling service.

You see, polling services ask people who may or not be interested in voting that year just how they intend to vote. At least a third of them aren't going to vote, over two thirds of them won't vote in a primary, and fewer than that will go to the trouble of participating in caucuses, but they respond to surveys anyway. Why not? It doesn't cost them any effort to answer a question over the telephone.

No, Google Trends measures only two things: how much news coverage a person or topic gets during a given period, and how much Internet interest a topic or person generates during that same period. People answer surveys whether they're interested in a candidate or not. They search a candidate on the Internet only if their interested in him or her.

Internet interest doesn't necessarily mean support, but there can be no support without interest. Use discretion in reading these charts. If there are fewer searches on Barack Obama than on Ron Paul, for example, Obama already generates enough reading material via the newspapers.

Below, in order of the dates for Republican primaries from January 3 until Super Tuesday on March 6, are charts revealing Internet interest (over the last 30 days) in Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, Barack Obama, Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich in each of the primary and caucus states through Super Tuesday. Sorry. Google Trends measures only five entries at a time. The first chart is for the United States as a whole. The rest are for individual states. The upper sets of lines are for Internet searches. The lower sets are for news reports.

Ron Paul should make an impressive showing in New Hampshire, but I'm not prepared to predict a win.

I'm from South Carolina. South Carolina is definitely Ron Paul country.

Because Maine is a caucus state, and Ron Paul tends to do well in caucuses, I think he'll do well in Maine.

Colorado

Minnesota

Michele Bachmann will probably do well in Minnesota, but I'm confident that Ron Paul will win.

The Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses are not winner-take-all contests. Delegates will be assigned in proportion to the percentage of the votes each candidate receives.

Because there was not enough Internet traffic for Alaska, I'm putting it on the same page as the results for Georgia. The chart refers only to Georgia. Alaska is a caucus state. Ron Paul will win. He'll also win in Idaho (below).

Chalk up a win for Ron Paul in North Dakota. The chart below is for Ohio.

Unless the political climate in Vermont (below) has changed over the past four years, Vermont is not Ron Paul country. Paul has the added disadvantage of Vermont being a primary state.

On the surface, Virginia looks very good for him, in spite of the big support for Romney in the Arlington area. Since Romney and Paul are the only candidates on the ballot for Virginia, we can expect that Romney will pick up the Establishment vote (such as Gingrich's supporters), while Paul will garner the anti-establishment vote. It should be interesting.

I chose not to look at traffic for states after Super Tuesday because the primaries and caucuses prior to (and including) March 6 will heavily influence the dynamics of the remaining primaries. Draw your own conclusions.
How do you account for the stunning lack of interest in Romney, Perry, and Gingrich, even as opinion surveys show major support for these three candidates? It appears that their "support" is mainly due to voter desire to find an alternative to Barack Obama, and that the corporate-owned media have these shallow "supporters" convinced that Ron Paul can't win. If this is the case, then Google Trends is a far more reliable measure of Ron Paul's popularity than the opinion polls could ever be.
Just ask yourself, when was the last time you heard an average voter say that he's voting for Romney, Gingrich, or Perry because he thinks that person will be good for the country? Chances are, you never have. That would explain why so few people seek information about them on the Internet.
To secure the nomination, Ron Paul has only one further need. People who say, "I like Ron Paul, but..." should get off their "buts" and place their votes where their hearts are.

Voters Rebel against Treasonous Congressmen

2011-12-28T18:37:00.004+08:00

Montana has fired a shot that is likely to be heard across the United States, as irate voters move to recall senators and congressmen who have betrayed their trust. In early December a majority of United States senators and representatives voted for the highly controversial National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which even its supporters say will suspend several provisions of the Bill of Rights.

The NDAA, signed by Barack Obama on December 15, 2011, presumes to authorize military troops and federal officials to arrest and hold indefinitely and without charges or trial, anyone—including American citizens—suspected of being a terrorist. The legal definition of the word terrorist is left undefined and is up to the discretion of the military, federal officials, or anyone acting at the behest of the military or federal officials.

Most supporters of the act say that it merely “codifies” what the federal government has been doing since the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act—meaning that it provides a fig leaf of legality for shredding several provisions of the Bill of Rights. The NDAA is a flagrant violation of the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Amendments to the United States Constitution, and it puts a chilling effect on the free exercise of the First, Second, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments. (To read the Bill of Rights for yourself, click here.)

Many of the NDAA's supporters have taken pains to conceal their authoritarian intentions. One of the NDAA’s major supporters, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), has come out of the closed and openly revealed that the NDAA will do everything its critics say it will do. Graham announced that it was necessary to “bring the War on Terror to American soil.”

Several top supporters of NDAA openly defend the provisions for secret torture techniques. In their rationale for abolishing of the Bill of Rights, they imply that anyone who is held and tortured is automatically guilty even without being charged with a crime. Here's what these sadistic fiends have to say in their defense of tyranny:

As for whether Americans suspected of being terrorists should be tortured, Graham talks out of both sides of his mouth.

When Senators Lieberman, Graham, and others posture about detaining “members” of “al Qaeda,” they make it sound as though al Qaeda really exists—other than a CIA front for false flag terror attacks—that al Qaeda issues membership cards, and that the detainee provisions of NDAA are limited to al Qaeda. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Civil libertarians of all political stripes are concerned at the wording of the act—and the wording is what counts, and not the excuses the authors of the act offer for the NDAA’s detainee provisions for American citizens. Here is what conservative Judge Andrew Napolitano has to say:

Some of the most blistering criticisms of this policy come from the far left. Here are MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow’s comments on Obama’s speech justifying—I’m not making this up—“prolonged, preventive detention.”

Notice the date of the broadcast; Obama had been planning this travesty at least as early as four months after he entered the Oval office.

I hope you listened to Obama’s remarks in the Rachel Maddow broadcast. He and his handlers want to put people in prison indefinitely and without charges, not only because of what they may have done, but because of what they may do in the future.

More recently, commentator and Obama supporter Keith Olbermann condemned the measure, pointing out that it was opposed by libertarian Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) and liberal Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA). Feinstein ended up voting for the bill anyway. The bill was also opposed by the top leadership of the FBI, the CIA, and other security and intelligence agencies. Nonetheless, the Senate approved the bill 63 to 38, and Obama signed it into law.

What qualifies as you as a possible future domestic terrorist? According to the FBI Joint TerrorismTask Force, you may be a domestic terrorist if you “make numerous references to the Constitution.” (PDF)

You may also be a domestic terrorist if you buy something from a military surplus store and “insist on paying with cash.” (PDF)

Other suspected terrorists include libertarians, home schoolers, and people who “fear Big Brother government” or are “concerned” about their “privacy.” (link)
In response to the passage of the NDAA, citizens of Montana have started a recall movement against Senators Max Baucus (D) and John Tester (D), and against Representative Denny Rehberg (R), who voted for the bill.

Currently eighteen states allow recall initiatives, usually if the voters offer compelling reasons for the recall. They are Alaska, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, Wisconsin, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, California, Arizona, Colorado, New Jersey, and North Dakota. Here’s how.

A vote for the NDAA is reason enough for a recall, according to Article 3 Section 3 Clause One of the United States Constitution. It reads, “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.”

Every member of the U.S. House of Representatives is up for reelection in 2012. To see whether your congressman voted to make war against the American people, see the official tally. (here)

For a list of senators who treasonously voted for the NDAA, see the official tally according to the United States Senate: (here)

One third of the United States Senate is up for reelection in 2012. Of that number, here’s a list of traitors hope to be reelected in 2012. In bold type, you'll find the ones from states allowing recall initiatives: Roger Wicker (R-MS), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), John Barrasso (R-WY), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Richard Lugar (R-IN), Bob Corker (R-TN), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Scott Brown (R-MA), John Ensign (R-NV), Texas (Open Seat), Nelson (NE), North Dakota (open seat), Tester (MT), McCaskill (MO), Nelson (FL), Webb (VA), Brown (OH), Manchin (WV), Casey (PA), Kohl (WI), Stabenow (MI), Cantwell (WA), Bingaman (NM) (pending retirement decision), Open Seat (CT), Akaka (HI), (pending recruitment), Whitehouse (RI) (pending recruitment), Menendez (NJ) (pending recruitment), Feinstein (CA), Gillibrand (NY), Cardin (MD), Carper (DE), Klobuchar (MN).

Addendum to Ebenezer Christian and the Three Christmas Spirits

2011-12-24T20:48:00.003+08:00

By request, I'm posting the final chapter and addendum to Ebenezer Christian and the Three Christmas Spirits. If you want to read the story from the beginning, click the link to the table of contents here.

Addendum

I showed this story to a writer friend of mine who goes by the pen name Edgar Allan Hemingway (and wonders why he still hasn't become successful as a writer).

He says that Ebenezer Christian has "too happy an ending" for everyone involved. It would "crystallize" the story if the ending contained something that would cause the readers to yearn, "If only such-and-such!" He says that real writers call it pathos. Until he explained to me what it meant, I had thought that Pathos was one of the Three Musketeers.

In case you're wondering, as I did, what "pathos crystallizing , I'll give you two examples. Ivanhoe's inability to marry Rebecca in the book Ivanhoe wistfully crystallized the ending of that story. In the movies, Melinda Dillon's heart-rending scene in Absence of Malice crystallized the otherwise satisfying ending of that movie.

Actually, there was some bad mixed in with the good in this tale you've just read, but until my friend told me the ending needed some pathos, I had chosen not to mention them.

One day, when Miss Sarah was out shopping, her favorite dog missed her and decided to go looking for her at her former residence. The poor animal failed to look both ways before crossing the street, and a car came along and—well, you can imagine the rest. Requiescat in pace.

Pastor Ananias convinced his flock that their outreach ministry wasn't being spent wisely enough and proposed a high-tech remedy. They would purchase air time on a cable television station. Since then, the church pronounced the new, improved outreach ministry a resounding success. They defined success as reaching many times the number of people that they previously had reached; and, due to weepy, televised appeals for donations (to keep the program on the air, of course), the ministry became self-sustaining. This wonderful work justified raising Pastor Ananias's salary.

Joan Lundon's popularity increased immeasurably after her interview with the Santo family. As a result, the network gave her a promotion and a hefty salary increase; thereupon, her ex-husband hauled her into family court, where he demanded and received a hefty increase in her alimony payments to him.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), as it was called in those days, was equally impressed with Joan Lundon's interview with the Santos; and the INS subsequently “interviewed” the Santo couple to make sure their records were in order. Adios, amigos.

Less than a year after Robert Mobley's marriage to Sarah, he suffered a massive stroke and required round-the-clock attention. Mr. Mobley spent his remaining days at the William Shatner Nursing Home. His life was shortened by the fact that television fare at the nursing home was dominated by reruns of Star Trek, T. J. Hooker, and Boston Legal.

* * *

The author of this work, Jerry Mills, asserts his copyright under moral and common law and retains all rights to it, as of this date: April 4, 2001. This copy of Ebenezer Christian and the Three Christmas Spirits is the result of emendations made on July 28, 2009, on May 9, 2010, and December 2011.

In Ebenezer Christian and the Three Christmas Spirits, the author presents a certain charitable organization in a highly favorable light. That organization had no knowledge that these words would be written about them, and they did not in any way encourage the author to write about them. The views expressed in this story are the author's own, and they are not necessarily the views of any person or group of persons allegorized, satirized, or literally described in this story.

Most of the events in the first thirteen chapters of this work are based on actual events, real people, and real places, though some of the people are composite characters and some of the places have been moved from their actual location so that the entire story could take place in a single city. The Santos family represents a homeless man who froze to death in the snow after being turned away from a church near Sharon, Pennsylvania, over forty years ago. The stable stood in Timmonsville, South Carolina. Miss Sarah's old house, restored to its former glory, is in Columbia, South Carolina.

Ebenezer Christian and the Three Christmas Spirits, Chapter 14

2011-12-24T20:42:00.002+08:00

(By request, I'm posting the final chapter of Ebenezer Christian and the Three Christmas Spirits. If you want to read the story from the beginning click the link for the stand-alone page listing the table of contents for this story, here)

Chapter Fourteen

Finding a Room for Jose and Miriam

Ebenezer Christian stopped his narrative when he reached the point in the story that the spirit had told him that Jose and Miriam Santo were going to freeze to death in the snow. He and Mary Martha had the same thoughts at that instant: Was it true, and could they be saved?

They dressed as quickly as they could and headed for the door.

In less than fifteen minutes, they reached the icy bridge. Apart from the stones that had been piled at either side underneath the bridges—stones that now were covered with snow—they saw no indication that anything was wrong.

Ebenezer Christian bolted from his car and rushed to the creek bank at the side of the bridge. With a little tugging, the rocks rolled from their position as he pulled them, one after another. They tumbled into the frozen creek, cracking the ice as they fell. Ebenezer Christian called out, "Jose! Miriam! Are you okay?"

There was no answer.

He pulled a few more rocks away and saw the couple lying asleep next to each other. He shook Jose Santo. "Jose! Wake up!"

Jose Santo groggily stirred. He was too groggy. Ebenezer Christian recognized his condition as an early stage of hypothermia and began rubbing the man's arms and legs. He called to Mary Martha, who rushed under the bridge to help warm Miriam Santo.

Miriam first, then Jose, Ebenezer and Mary Martha Christian helped the unfortunate couple into their car.

A visit to the hospital on Jericho Road revealed that they were in no need of hospitalization. Father, mother and baby would be fine. A visit to the local inn proved a waste of time. Because of the influx of holiday travelers, there was—excuse me—no room for them in the inn.

Fortunately, Buffy was kind enough to offer the Santos her room until they were fit to travel again.

In the early morning hours of Christmas day, Miriam Santo gave birth to a boy.

I won't disappoint you. They named the child Jesus (pronounced, "Hey-SOOS") Manuel (pronounced “Man-UEL,” in case you needed help on that one). Since, in Spanish culture, the mother's maiden surname is tacked onto the end of the child's name, the newborn son of Jose Santo and Miriam del Rey Santos became Jesus Manuel Santo del Rey. He would become known as Jesus Santo.

(Before you try to draw too much theological significance from the name Jesus Santo, I caution you that allegories have their limits. In other words, don't try; just enjoy the story.)

At a Christmas candle lighting service, the First Baptist Church of Bedford Falls learned the story as you've read it thus far. That same evening, Cooper Grady learned of it by telephone. As there was a reporter for the Bedford Falls Chronicle present at the candle lighting service, all of Bedford Falls learned of it the day after Christmas. A week later, the Jose and Miriam Santo were interviewed through a translator on the television program Good Morning, America.

Donna van Doren, the owner of Van Doren Stables, saw the interview and wondered why no one had told her all this. In the incident involving her livery stable, she saw a way to save the building from the wrecker's ball and, at the same time, properly memorialize her grandfather Philip van Doren.

With the help of donations from all over the Bedford Falls area, plus a hefty sum from her own bank account, Donna van Doren was able to convert the Van Doren Stables into a transient shelter. She further protected the building by mustering public support to have it added to the list of historic buildings.

Unlike almost all other transient shelters, the Van Doren Stable would accept families without breaking them up. The "s" was dropped from the end of the name of the building. Though it was not legal to make even this small a change to a historic structure without something called a "variance,” few noticed, and no one objected, and no one told the Historical Commission. They were allowed to top the Van Doren Stable with a giant, illuminated star, provided that it didn't "constitute a permanent change" in the appearance of the building's exterior.

Of course, the place would need resident managers 24 hours a day, which would necessitate the hiring of qualified people. That was no problem. Jose and Miriam Santo were available and spoke fluent Spanish (a skill which would sometimes be needed). Robert Mobley had had years of managerial experience and spoke English (two other skills that would be needed). The three would learn from each other.

Then Robert Mobley, who had been a widower for several years remarried, and his bride Sarah moved into the shelter. The shelter then had four managers and 14 dogs.

Leo Lockhart, the chairman of the spaying and neutering clinic, had Mrs. Mobley's dogs spayed and neutered. Eventually, several of the younger dogs found homes in the community; and some of the older dogs were adopted by transients who had grown to love them and later brought them to homes of their own.

Sarah Mobley's son moved his young family into the mother's old residence and proceeded to restore it to its former elegance. This home, brightened by the family who now lives there, and no doubt cherishes Miss Sarah's memory, can still be seen today.

Ebenezer Christian, having blown his chances of ever playing Santa Claus again, was able to volunteer extra help during the busy Christmas season. He wouldn't accept payment for his services, but always felt as though he was fully recompensed.

Mary Martha Christian had begun to notice that her fellow choir singers would look at her askance whenever she had to sing a high note. She took this as a subtle hint and dropped out of the choir to spend more time doing volunteer work at the Van Doren Stable.

Thousand-dollar suits and Parisian dresses have a way of staying home when their owners visit transient shelters. Ebenezer Christian's manner of dress became increasingly casual, and when his car reached retirement age, he sold it outright and discovered the conveniences of walking, bicycling, or taking a bus.

When a man becomes casual in his dress, it's called casual. Mary Martha's casualness came to be called frumpy. She didn't mind, though. She was so absorbed in the joys doing the Lord's work among the needy that she scarcely noticed what anyone wore—least of all herself.

Buffy spent more of her free time helping her classmates who were having trouble in college. Not limiting herself to helping the Chinese classmate we mentioned earlier, she cheerfully helped others, including fellow Americans. After all, it wasn't the nationality that needed help; it was the person, regardless of nationality.

Their son Enoch needed time to adjust to having his father around, but, in time, Enoch and Ebenezer Christian developed a close father-and-son relationship.

The Christian family became more careful in their purchasing habits, and searching the Internet for necessary information became an enjoyable family activity. After making themselves aware of the sources of the products they had been buying, the family often sat down to discuss which ones they should boycott and which they should favor.

They also came to realize how they could raise their standards of living, live healthier, spend less money, and have less of a negative impact on the environment all at the same time. How? They did it by learning to think for themselves instead of letting advertisers limit their choices in life. Instead of asking, "Which brand or product should I buy?" they asked themselves, "What benefits do I want, and what's the most reasonable way of getting those benefits?" Of course, this strategy meant that they had to anticipate their needs, while their choices were broader, instead of waiting until the needs arose.

How reliable was the information they had found on the Internet? That was always an important question. Is paper more "green" than plastic, or vice-versa? Does a certain writer's definition of a sweatshop apply to the factory he's accusing, or does it represent a step up from the life the worker had been living? Does that question really matter; that is to say, is there another factory somewhere producing the same kind of product under more humane conditions? As for slave labor, the Christian family needed little discussion: slavery is an unmitigated evil and must not be supported with consumer dollars under any circumstances.

For discussing such matters as these (and many others), some people chose to condemn the Christian family as eccentrics, kooks, or even conspiracy theorists—that is, people whose biases are not in accord with yours, especially if the beliefs require responsibility on the part of those who hold those beliefs.

"I can't become a Christian because it has too many rules," non-believers often complained. "Now you Christians come along and add more rules."

Ebenezer Christian's answer was direct. "Isn't it odd," he asked rhetorically, that you have two reasons for not becoming a Christian. Your second reason is that, if God is all-powerful, all-wise, all-knowing and all-loving, He would do away with all suffering—human and animal—with a wave of His hand, by forcing people to do what we Christians do out of love? How can you be against doing these things voluntarily, while saying that God should force people to do them?" As the reader can see, Ebenezer Christian's experiences with the spirits had sharpened his insight.

The Christian family's sharpest criticisms came from the people who rush into the church building every time the door swings open.

"By your strange behavior," they fretted, "you're causing people not to want become Christians. People don't want to become involved in anything strange. If you show them that you're the same as they are, they'll want to become more like you." Read that sentence again. That's the way some professing Christians talk, and, to them, it sounds perfectly reasonable.

Meanwhile, many people seeking rest trekked into the stable beneath the Star of Bethlehem; and there they found the rest Our Lord and Savior has promised.

The Christian family cancelled their plans to visit a nationally-famous theme park during their summer vacation, opting instead to spend the money on season tickets to the George Bailey Memorial Cultural Center.

No doubt, some readers who still haven't gotten the message may be wondering what tickets to cultural activities—however beneficial they may be—are doing in a Christian-oriented novella. The answer is simple, though, for some people, it may be difficult to accept.

There is no area of human existence that is outside of God's concern.

Music is a universal language; as such, it serves as a teacher for the soul. Some forms of music teach us compassion; others, beauty; and some forms of music teach us rebellion. Others animate us to some form of action. Still others teach other lessons, and we usually absorb those lessons unaware.

Enoch was quick to notice a parallel between ballet and kung-fu; Buffy saw it as a form of figure skating without skates; and Ebenezer Christian it as a combination of gymnastics and fine art. They all marveled at what the human body was capable of doing; and they learned a deeper respect for the body and its Creator. Through the medium of ballet, they learned (without being aware of it) the social, cultural, and moral lessons implicit in a well-crafted story.

The Broadway play Man of la Mancha was presented that year. Like most plays, novels and other productions, it was secular; but like all great productions, it was consistent with the wisdom of a long-established culture. When it is watched through Christian eyes, one can see even deeper meaning in it. Perhaps the creators of great works "speak better than they know,” or perhaps God speaks through the soul of a poet regardless of the medium the poet is using.

Every Sunday evening, they spent at least an hour discussing what they had read during the week, regardless of what they had read. They called this hour their literary digest.

During one of their discussions, Ebenezer Christian chuckled over a phrase he'd often seen in the newspaper: that, in a certain country, the country's new leader was "swept into power,” as if the overthrow of her predecessor and the new leader's subsequent rise to power had been totally beyond her control. "Reality doesn't happen that way," Ebenezer Christian remarked. "The mere expenditure of excitement and energy doesn't get things done, although they may be used as a pretext. In politics, nothing happens by chance. Things rarely happen as planned; but nothing happens without a plan."

Ebenezer and Mary Martha Christian rediscovered the classics, and Buffy and Enoch discovered them for the first time. They enjoyed making their own nominations for the "great national novel.”

Undoubtedly, The Iliad and The Odyssey, taken as a single work, should be called the Great Greek Novel, notwithstanding that the works are epic poems rather than novels. War and Peace, The Divine Comedy (a three-volume epic poem), Don Quixote, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Journey to the West, for the Christian family, were recognized as the great novels of Russia, Italy, Spain, France, and China, respectively; although Ebenezer Christian argued that Les Miserables should be recognized as the Great French Novel. The collected works of Jules Verne received honorable mention.

What about England and the United States? There was no agreement.

For England, Ivanhoe was favored by Enoch; The Compete Sherlock Holmes was favored by Ebenezer Christian. Mary Martha Christian and Buffy favored the collected works (nine volumes) of Jane Austen. Enoch's counter-argument was that, among those considered, only Ivanhoe qualified as a single novel. Ivanhoe, the others rebutted, was written by a Scotsman. Ebenezer favored Peter Pan for the distinction the great Scottish novel, although none of it was set in Scotland.

None could think of a book that qualified as the Great American Novel, although Huckleberry Finn and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz were seriously considered. They allowed The Complete Short Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe to stand as "the greatest work of American literature." In that category, Walden received honorable mention.

They discussed the social, religious, and other implications of each thing they reported having read, without regard for whether it was poetry, a novel, an article on seashelling or some other type of book or article. Each member of the Christian family learned from the others.

The Christian family continues to love Christmas. In fact, they love it now more than ever.

They have come to realize that you don't "celebrate Christmas” because Christmas is itself a celebration. They don't have to impose upon themselves the contrived joy that, for some unfathomable reason, people believe you're supposed to have during the Christmas season. Their joy is real because they're filled to overflowing with God's love, and they want to share His love with others.

Two thousand years ago, God sent His Son to a sinful world, not to condemn it but to save it. God loved the world so much, that He sent his only begotten Son [emphasis added, since Christians are His sons and daughters by adoption]; that whoever believes in Him will have everlasting life and life more abundantly.

Amen

It's a Hoot: Blitzer and Cafferty Display the "Professional" Media's Incompetence

2011-12-23T20:29:00.004+08:00

Probably everyone who is not living in Plato's Cave is quite aware of the dishonesty of the corporate-owned media. In a CNN broadcast a few months ago, Wolf Blitzer and Jack Cafferty displayed laughable incompetence on top of dishonesty. (Aren't we told that the "professional media" are more reliable than people who aren't paid witnesses?)

In the following clip, corporate shills Wolf Blitzer and Jack Cafferty display what poor liars they are, and how little they know of the topic on which those two "professionals" are commenting: (video link)

I see no need to comment on whether it is reasonable for a person to take a gun to a political rally. Maybe you think it's okay; maybe not. Regardless of your position on this issue, don't you think that you could have given a better informed and more intelligently worded rationale for your position than these two clowns did? Never mind that the unintended comedy team of Blitzer and Cafferty can't speak English any better than Dubya Bush; they don't know any more about their topic than a hog knows about Sunday.

Here's a sample with my comments:

Wolf Blitzer: Those assault weapons, as you know, Jack, they have a pretty long range. You can fire them at a distance, and those—those rounds, they go pretty far [How far is that, Furface?].

Jack Cafferty: They go pretty far [Cafferty hasn’t bothered to find out the effective range either. Don’t those clowns know how easy it is for their viewers to access Wikipedia? No wonder the globalist crowd hate the Internet!], and you can fire them fully automatic [a lie often repeated by the corporate-owned media], which means they can squeeze off a whole bunch of shots [How many shots is that? By the way, fool, guns don’t squeeze off shots—people do.] in a very short period of time [How short a period of time is that?]—and the concern that I expressed yesterday when we ran the tape the first time yesterday was, what if some Looney Tune® in the crowd spots one of these weapons and decides to take it away from this guy? Not unheard of [Oh, when did you hear of it happening?]—it’s possible [Please tell us how], and then what kind of—even if the President is not in danger, what kind of tragedy can ensue from something like that? [Probably none at all, since it’s next to impossible to snatch a rifle from someone when it’s strapped to his shoulder. It's easier and less risky to snatch a spare rib away from a Rottweiler.] It just doesn't make any sense to me. [That’s because he hasn't thought it through; and since when should public opinion be formed on the basis of whether something makes sense to a babbling idiot? Hasn't he heard the Roman proverb, "Amor populi praesidium regis":(“The love of the people is the king’s protection”)? The last time a popular President was assassinated in the United States, it was an inside job orchestrated by government officials.]

A quick look at Wikipedia reveals that most states limit AR-15s to 10-round magazines. Since AR-15s can be fired no faster than the person handling the rifle can squeeze the trigger, it's a complete falsehood that a person (let alone a rifle) can "squeeze off a whole bunch of bullets in a very short time." To further reveal the absurdity of Cafferty's remark, anyone who knows anything about firearms knows that you don’t hit a target by spraying a whole bunch of bullets in a very short time, hoping to hit something. You aim. As witness to the truth of this, during the Vietnam War, some 3,000 bullets were fired for each Viet Cong who was killed by gunfire.
The average ten-year-old boy in South Carolina knows the difference between an AR-15 and an M-16, but an Emmy Award winning "news" reporter and a talking head in a suit doesn't. It kind of makes you lose respect for Emmy Awards, doesn't it? And to think that those buffoons actually expect us to believe that the “professional” media is more reliable than the Internet. Sheesh! I'll stick to the Internet.

Taiwanese Student Abducted by Aliens—Misses Class

2011-12-21T16:18:00.006+08:00

According to an official government document filed in Taiwan, a National University of Tainan student recently missed class on December 15 because he was abducted by aliens. The student’s excuse for his absence was marked, “Approved.”

Classmates of the student—whose name was withheld from the media—posted the approval form on the Internet and said it was “cool.” Some of them said he should be invited to appear before the entire student body to describe his experience with the extraterrestrials.

Unfortunately, the aliens erased his memory of these events; and he has apologized to his professor.

University officials (who, for all I know, may have been reptilian shape shifters) said that the official who had approved the abductee’s absence from class was “new” and had “carelessly” approved the request for approved absence. (Suggested translation: “The official who had approved the form was human and not privy to reptilian secrets.”) A school official, who for all appearances seemed as human as you or I, ominously intoned that “there are certain things that should not be joked about.” (Suggested translation: "Reptilian shape shifters have no sense of humor.")

We are told that the university employee who had inadvertently spilled the beans about aliens at the university was orally reprimanded but not punished. (Suggested translation: "She was forced to take the blue pill but was not disintegrated.") The person now occupying her position seems to be the same person as before and not a shape shifter impersonating her; but, with reptilian shape shifters, it’s sometimes hard to tell.

Some students reported an earlier incident in which a student filled out a sick leave form claiming that she suffered from princess syndrome, but that the request was disapproved. Princess syndrome is Taiwanese slang used to describe a girl who thinks of herself as a “princess” and is therefore exempt from responsibility or hard work.

If I understand the term correctly, a lot of male politicians and Wall Streeters in the United States suffer from princess syndrome. Perhaps a good example would be the NWO front man Newt Gingrich—a Vietnam-Era draft dodger who is now eager to send others’ sons and daughters fight in illegal wars, as well as an admitted adulterer who campaigns on a platform of “family values.”

Would it be too much to hope that most of our presidential candidates get abducted by aliens? It probably would. Most politicians are shape shifters anyway: They appear to be just like the rest of us when they’re running for office; but, as soon as they get in office, their reptilian traits become evident.

Horses in Politics—Rules of Thumb

2011-12-19T16:26:00.000+08:00

Various forms of the word horse are often used as metaphors for different types of people in politics or government. In fact, the use of the terms has become so codified that even novices—especially novices—can use these metaphors as rules of thumb in understanding political leaders.

Might they also be used to help undecided voters how to vote? Hmm. Let’s take a look at the horses in politics and what recognizable traits they have. I’ll mention by name only the political horses from the past. Identifying the horses of the present will be the responsibility of you, the voter. Please note that a politician can be more than one kind of horse. For example, a show horse can also be a Trojan horse.

In probably all legislative bodies, workhorses do from 80-90% of the work, but show horses get 80-90% of the publicity. Work horses, by the way, make up perhaps 10% of all legislators.

U. S. Congressman H. R. Gross (R-IA, 3rd District, b. 1899, d. 1987) was one of the few workhorses in Congress. He was said to have read every spending bill that was introduced in Congress. By a special exception to the rule that bills should be numbered consecutively, he introduced HR 144 (as in gross) each year, demanding a balanced budget. He never went on a congressional junket at taxpayer expense, he and his wife lived frugally and never went to lavish parties; and his wife managed his office without pay. Time magazine called him “a useful pest.”

Reading the newspapers today, it’s hard to believe that a congressman like H. R. Gross ever existed.

Most politicians, to some degree, are show horses. That’s how they get elected. A show horse is one who sees every political issue, not as a human need but as a public relations opportunity.

For that reason, show horses are almost always incompetent. Whenever the public sours on a show horse’s policies, the show horse doesn’t see it as a failure to meet human needs; he sees it as a public relations failure. He changes his public relations strategy, usually with window dressing or shallow gimmicks. None of this changes the fact that he’s “all show and no go.”

Then there are race horses. A race horse is a politician for whom political campaigns are an end in themselves, and who have no patience for governance. They seem to prefer the cheers of crowds to actually getting things done. Two examples of race horses are the late George Wallace in the United States and the incarcerated Chen Sui-bian in Taiwan.

George Wallace was a perpetual candidate for various political offices. Although he was governor of Alabama several times, he spent more time running for the presidency and for reelection to the governorship than doing the job of governor.

Chen Sui-bian was president of Taiwan for eight years. Instead of building a nation, as his supporters had hoped, he wasted the entire eight years staging rallies and other attention-getting gimmicks to rally the party faithful.

A stalking horse is a candidate who has no interest in winning the election, but he’s in the race to help another candidate or potential candidate. A stalking horse usually lies and says that he’s a serious candidate.

A perfect example of a stalking horse was the independent presidential campaign of H. Ross Perot in 1992. The two main candidates were President George H. W. Bush and Arkansas’s former governor Bill Clinton. Perot’s candidacy took more support from Bush than it did from Clinton. When it became clear that Clinton would win even without Perot’s splitting the Republican vote, Perot dropped out of the race. When the Bush campaign started to rally and threaten the Clinton campaign, Perot re-entered the race.

Sometimes a stalking horse will enter a race just so his party can have a name on the ballot. When another candidate of his party enters the race, he drops out.

A dark horse is a candidate who the corporate-owned media say has little or no chance of winning. The term originated with a nineteenth-century short story about two horses running a race neck-and-neck for the entire race. During the last few seconds of the race, a dark horse came from behind and won. The corporate-owned media may be unaware of the story. In any case, we can draw hope from the story any time the media shills tell us that a given candidate is a dark horse.
At the 1860 Republican National Convention, Abraham Lincoln was a dark horse candidate. In 1980, Ronald Reagan was a dark horse.

The terms gift horse and Trojan horse are sometimes used in connection with one another. A gift horse is usually a political policy. A Trojan horse may be a person or a policy. A Trojan horse is a politician or a government policy that is designed to look like something beneficial to the electorate but which is intended to betray the people to their enemies. When the Trojan horse is a person, then the gift horse is the treasonous package he is offering people who are foolish enough to trust him.

We know about jades, or jaded horses. They are the politicians whose time has come and gone. If, as Shakespeare wrote, life is a stage, the jades are the poor players who keep coming back for encores long after the cheering has stopped. (Excuse me for mixing metaphors, but sometimes mixed metaphors are fun—like the feller who could “hear the distant rumbling of the handwriting on the wall.”) Jades are such sad apparitions that I won't embarrass anyone by naming names

Many jaded horses amble about the halls of Congress years, or even decades, after their constituents have put them out to pasture. As lobbyists, many of them are like disembodied souls returning to their former places of abode, as if unaware that they had died. (To see which former congressmen have become lobbyists, click here. At last count, there were 370 of them.)

Many other jades continue in office long after they've outlived their usefulness. Their constituents continue to vote for these pitiful souls, as though embarrassed to inform them of their demise.

During political campaigns, many a candidate—especially if he’s a show horse—likes to present himself as a horse of a different color or a knight on a white horse. A knight on a white horse is entirely mythical, though many people are gullible enough to believe in political saviors that this symbol represents. A horse of a different color represents the sort of change that the voters desire. In most cases, the candidate’s colors change once again after he’s elected—only then for the worse. You then see his true colors, which are the same colors as the ones you thought you’d been replacing.

So how do you know before the election whether the candidate truly is a horse of a different color, or if he’s only wearing camouflage? To use another horse term, you look at his track record. If whatever you see in his past over a period of years is what you can reasonably expect from him after he’s elected.

In many decisions we have to make, it’s hard to sift through the all the information, misinformation, and disinformation to find the few grains of truth we seek. When making a decision on whom to vote, you may try asking yourself, “What kind of horse do I want?” Then try to identify the candidates by the horses they most resemble. If nothing else, it beats flipping a coin.

Ebenezer Christian and the Three Christmas Spirits, Chapter 13

2011-12-19T16:20:00.006+08:00

(If you wish to read Ebenezer Christian and the Three Christmas Spirits from the beginning, click here for the table of contents.)

Chapter Thirteen

The Stable and the Cross

Ebenezer Christian faced what appeared to be the ground floor of a two-story home. Just inside the darkened entrance he saw a small corral, crudely built of whatever branches could be scavenged from the few nearby trees that had wood hard enough to serve the purpose. It seemed to Ebenezer Christian that most of the trees nearby were date palms.

A few donkeys rested within the corral. This primitive spot was a stable. Ebenezer Christian was surprised that the ground floor of someone's home should be used as a stable; but these were different times in a different culture.

"Is this where it all began?" Ebenezer Christian asked.

"Yes, it is."

Ebenezer Christian involuntarily looked up. "Where's the Star?"

"The Star of Bethlehem is over there to the west of us." She pointed to a star that shined somewhat brighter than the surrounding stars.

"I thought it was supposed to be directly over the stable."

"No, not for another seventy days, when the Wise Men arrive. At this time, the Earth is tilted on its axis in such a way that the Wise Men in the East now see it directly west of them—and west of us, too, I might add. Follow me." She passed through the rails of the corral and entered the house, and Ebenezer Christian followed her.

"It sure stinks in here," Ebenezer Christian said.

"Well, it is a stable," the spirit replied.

"I know that, but you'd think somebody would have cleaned it out for the Holy Family."

"They cleaned it out as well as they could, but it's still a stable. They couldn't make it smell good."

A minute or so after Ebenezer Christian had entered, his eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness. At his feet, he saw a man of about thirty sleeping on a bed of straw. Beside him, awake and pensive, sat a girl of about fifteen years of age. "Mary was that young?" he asked.

"Mary would have found little in common with the American teenagers of today," the spirit replied. "Life was hard in those days, and it demanded much of people. At fifteen, Mary was a mature young woman."

He became aware of another odor. "Something smells like body odor," he remarked.

"It is human body odor," the spirit replied. "It was a long way from Nazareth. Since there was no room for them in the inn, they couldn't take a bath. They bathed in the Jordan River on the way down here, but that was days ago."

Ebenezer Christian looked to Mary's left. There against the wall was a feeding trough for animals. Lying in the manger, wrapped in strips of old cloth, the newborn Baby Jesus slept peacefully.

The images echoed through Ebenezer Christian's heart: a Baby, born in a stable, amid animal dung and body odor, wrapped in strips of old cloth for baby clothes, using hay for a bed. Our Lord and Savior was born in this miserable place under these miserable conditions.

The Christmas stories that had always been presented to Ebenezer Christian had been highly sanitized and sentimentalized. What he saw before him scarcely seemed the like same story. One version of the story was like a parody of the other. Ebenezer Christian was sure he knew which was the parody and which was reality.

Ebenezer Christian turned his eyes upon the face of the sleeping Baby Jesus. "He looks just like any other baby," he whispered.

"And this looks just like many other stables in this area," the spirit replied, then added, "and David, who later became King David, looked just like any other shepherd."

The Baby stirred and began to cry a little.

Mary gently lifted Him from the manger and laid Him on her lap. She drew her bodice aside and presented her breast. Jesus' first feeding began.

"Should we be watching this?" Ebenezer Christian asked.

"Ordinarily, no," the spirit replied, "but it's important for you to know the truth—all of it. The Gospel of Luke 11:27, (KJV) graphically mentions what you now see. Bible translations published since the Victorian Age have become increasingly squeamish in their choice of words. For now, though, there's something else you must watch." The spirit waved her hand in a wide, circular motion, as though erasing the scene of the Madonna and Child from Ebenezer Christian's view.

Through the patch of space the shade had cleared, Ebenezer Christian saw the backs of several Roman soldiers. Between them, he saw that they were holding someone's arm flat against a wooden beam. One of the soldiers placed a six-inch nail to the victim's wrist. The other soldier swung a mallet, driving the nail through the wrist and into the beam. The victim screamed loudly enough to shatter Ebenezer Christian's emotions and momentarily knock the breath out of him.

Ebenezer Christian caught his breath and said, "He must be one of the thieves who were crucified with Jesus. Jesus wouldn't have screamed like that."

"The two thieves were roped to their crosses," the shade replied. "When the nail pierced Jesus' wrist, it passed through the median nerve: the main nerve to the hand. It was no sin or sign of weakness for Him to scream. His pain was real."

He watched as the soldiers lifted the crossbeam up to the part of the cross that stood erect in the ground and fixed the crossbeam into place. It was then that Ebenezer Christian saw our suffering Lord.

The soldiers still had to put the third and final nail in place. As they went about their work, Ebenezer Christian was not able to see anything below Jesus' knees, but what he did see was shocking and wretched. Jesus was bloodied and bruised from His head to His knees.

The crown of thorns (which was more like a cap than a crown) that had been placed on His head earlier that day had torn the skin in several places. A small trickle of blood forming a backward "3" had formed across the furrows over His left eyebrow. His right eye was blackened and swollen shut from the blow He had received from a Roman baton, and the bruise next to His eye was over two inches wide.

Almost every square inch of His body had been lacerated by Roman whips. Each whip had four tails, and each tail had been tipped with a small, barbell-shaped bit of lead designed to tear into the flesh of its victim. Each laceration dripped with blood. Blood flowed from His wrists down each of His arms.

The ordeal of carrying His crossbeam to Golgotha also had left its marks upon His body.

"Even today," remarked the shade, "people walking along that rocky road find their footing so unsteady that a healthy, well-fed, well-rested person can not carry they weight Jesus carried without stumbling many times. Jesus had not slept or eaten since the Wednesday night before His arrest; and he had been tried and tortured within an inch of His life all day Thursday and into Thursday night."
"I thought He had been arrested on Thursday night or early Friday morning," Ebenezer Christian pondered.
"That's what most people think," the spirit replied. "The many events between Jesus' arrest and crucifixion were spread out over a period of more than a few hours. It was actually a day and a few hours."

The act of carrying the crossbeam had caused ugly abrasions on Jesus' right shoulder. Stumbling and caused contusions on both knees and His right elbow. His nose was bleeding and looked as if it had been damaged—possibly as the result of a fall.

Ebenezer Christian caught his breath and sighed, "I'd never realized how much He suffered. He looks awful." A moment later, he caught his breath again. "He's naked," he breathed, as though he had been punched in the chest. "I thought He had a cloth to cover His nakedness."

"No, he didn't. People have a hard time accepting a suffering and naked Christ. A thousand years ago, painters found the idea so revolting that paintings from that day actually showed Him in purple robes, wearing a kingly crown and looking triumphant. Even today, people try to hide from the reality of the cross.

"Some people want to have Jesus without the cross, and others want to have the cross without Jesus—as a mere ornament. But why don't people wear replicas of electric chairs or guillotines? They're all instruments of execution. It's because of Jesus that people wear the cross, although many people prefer to forget this.

"Unless we comprehend the enormity of our sins, we can't comprehend the immensity of God's justice. Unless we comprehend the magnitude of Jesus' sufferings when He was crucified, we can't comprehend the magnanimity of God's love.

"A little earlier, you may have gotten the impression that great Christian art is a thing of the past. The truth is, a few contemporary artists effectively portrayed the suffering you see before you. Unfortunately, very few Christians want to see it. They prefer to sentimentalize the crucifixion."

As the shade was saying this, the Roman soldier who had nailed Jesus to the cross turned and looked at Ebenezer Christian, full in the face. Both the soldier and Ebenezer Christian gasped when they saw one another. The Roman soldier's face was the face of Ebenezer Christian.

The scene vanished.

Ebenezer Christian saw that Mary had returned Jesus to the manger. He was aware of a presence over his left shoulder, but by the time he turned around, it was gone. He had the vague impression, though, that the visitor had been one of the shepherds to which the angels had appeared.

A few minutes later, four shepherds smelling strongly of sheep stepped cautiously and reverently into the stable. Mary shook Joseph awake. Joseph stirred a little uncertainly at first, and then he saw the strangers and sprang to his feet.

In the Aramaic tongue, the shepherds (judging from their gestures) excitedly told Joseph about the angelic visitation. Ebenezer Christian noted that, just as the angel had said, Jesus was swathed in strips of cloth and lying in a manger. If the shepherds had arrived only a few minutes earlier, the scene would have been slightly different, and the shepherds would not have had their “sign.” Mary drew her sleeping Baby from the manger and held Him in her arms.

The shepherds at first seemed at a loss as to what to do. They knew He was their Savior, as the angel had told him; but they also saw that He looked like any other baby. Just how do you react to Someone Who is the Savior and at the same time a Baby?

They saw and believed. So did Ebenezer Christian.

Not that he had ever doubted, mind you; but not doubting is not the same thing as fully believing. Previously, he had believed for the same reason that most people believe almost anything that most people believe (such as the proposition that the Earth is round) because belief worked better than disbelief. It had been a matter of utilitarian convenience.

Now that Ebenezer Christian had come face-to-face with Jesus Himself, his belief was a matter of unshakable conviction. Moved to tears, Ebenezer Christian fell to his knees beside the shepherds and worshiped the Christ Child.

As he struggled for the words to express his adoration, Ebenezer Christian's tongue wavered between silence and words he felt were far too inadequate. He began to stammer and babble; and as a joyous Spirit rushed into him, his stammering and babbling were transmuted into what he later was to describe as the pure language of the spirit. Far removed from the arbitrary sounds invented by men, the words Ebenezer Christian uttered in those moments expressed the very essence of the things he felt in his heart.

As Ebenezer Christian wept and prayed, an arm wrapped around his shoulder and began shaking him. A woman's voice called his name several times.

Ebenezer Christian woke up, kneeling on his own bed. His wife Mary Martha Christian said, "Wake up, Eb! I thought you were going crazy! You were having a bad dream!"

"No," he corrected her. "I was having the best dream I've had in my life!" From the beginning, he started telling her about it.

* * *

(This novella, Ebenezer Christian and the Three Christmas Spirits, has proven to be the least popular series I've ever posted. Since Tuesday of last week, I've seen readership of the American Action Report dive from a modest 185 page views a day to an embarrassing 74, and a drop to only 7 returning visitors. I have long believed that spiritual renewal was essential to the restoration of our liberties and our republic, and I had hoped to encourage this renewal through the medium of fiction; but I don't know if anyone is reading it. Unless someone wants to read the conclusion of this Christmas story, I see no reason to further burden anyone's patience by posting it.)

Ebenezer Christian and the Three Christmas Spirits, Chapter 12

2011-12-18T14:41:00.001+08:00

(If you wish to read Ebenezer Christian and the Three Christmas Spirits from the beginning, or read chapters you may have missed, click here for the table of contents.)

Chapter Twelve

The Last of the Three Spirits

Ebenezer Christian stood in total darkness.

The unrecognizable voice of a woman said to him, "I must prepare you for what you're about to see."

"Is it that terrible?"

"What you're about to see is both terrible and wonderful. Your brain is equipped to accept things you experience through the eyes, the ears, the nose, the taste buds and your sense of touch. Since you are about to experience some things that are beyond the five senses, the only way your brain will be able to accept them will be by reinterpreting them. You will see things beyond human sight and hear things beyond human hearing."

Ebenezer Christian sensed that the owner of the voice had waved her arm in a wide sweep because, when he could see, he noticed the final flourish of the arm. The woman who stood before him resembled she who had stood on the street: the one to whom he had given twenty-dollars (or should that be $320?), when he'd intended to give her only a quarter.

With another wave of her arm, she gestured to his left. "Look!" she instructed.

The place they stood was obviously a shepherd's field. Across the rolling, grassy field, close to a hundred sheep had settled down for the night. About ten to fifteen feet from Ebenezer Christian, three shepherds warmed themselves before a fire. One, who spoke to the other two, was standing; the others sat listening. Somewhere off to the right, another shepherd was walking toward them.

Ebenezer Christian couldn't understand their language, let alone tell what they were saying. It was clear, though, that the one standing was telling a joke that either was bawdy or which would have been considered offensive by the person who was the butt of the joke. The others laughed the laugh of people who inwardly know the wrongness of their humor. Each vied with the others to celebrate his own crudity.

"These aren't the shepherds of the Christmas story, are they?" said Ebenezer Christian with incredulity.

"Yes, they are," came the reply. "The real-life shepherds of Biblical times were not the stuff of pastoral poems and legends that were written during the Middle Ages, or of such modern children’s stories as Heidi. In those days, shepherds were seen as crude men and boys who—if given the chance—would steal. Some sank even lower than this."

"But David was a shepherd. Doesn't that count for something?"

"It counts only insofar as the lesson that we shouldn't stereotype groups of people. It also counts insofar as God is continuously showing us that He looks upon the heart and not upon outward appearances or social status. He can turn a pauper into a king or send a king away empty handed. He can take each person who accepts Him and raise him above whatever shortcomings or disadvantages he may have.

"Yes," the spirit repeated, "these crass wretches are the shepherds in the story of the first Christmas. The pasture is owned by the Temple in Jerusalem; and the sheep are the unblemished sheep sold to out-of-town visitors for the purpose of sacrifices in the Temple. Outwardly, it's considered a holy calling, but it has become a profitable business to the family of the high priest. The shepherds can't help but know this. How can anyone blame the shepherds for their lack of piety, when the high priests themselves have profaned this sacred field?"

A soundless explosion of light burst across the entire countryside. Ebenezer Christian, the shade, and the shepherds suddenly stopped speaking.

A second later, one of the shepherds—terrified—fell to his knees, pointed toward the sky, and screamed something. The shepherds and Ebenezer Christian reflexively looked in the direction the first shepherd had pointed.

In a brightness many times as dazzling as the light that illuminated the countryside, a ghostly silhouette of light was walking downward from a cloud. Ebenezer Christian and the shepherds fell on their faces and cringed. All hid their faces, even while trying to see the thing that was coming toward them. The spirit that had been speaking to Ebenezer Christian was rendered invisible by the light.

What they all felt, strictly speaking, was not fear because fear has a distinct object. What they felt was a combination of dread and awe: dread of something completely beyond their comprehension, and awe at its power and apparent authority.

When the blazing visitor reached a spot about twenty feet above and in front of the terrified shepherds and Ebenezer Christian, it spoke to them:

"Don't be afraid, for I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people!"

The awe-struck men raised themselves up a bit, daring to look without completely uncovering their eyes. They now were able to make out some of the details of the angel's face and body. Though they felt a little assured by the words the angel spoke, the angel was terrible to behold. Throughout the angel's message, they remained on their knees.

The angel continued, "For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord; and this shall be a sign to you: You will find the babe wrapped in strips of cloth and lying in a manger."

In the next instant, the sky became filled with thousands of angelic beings praising God. Over and over, in unison and individually, Ebenezer Christian heard them shout such things as, "Glory to God in the highest, and to Earth peace, goodwill toward all men!"

Not half content with shouting and singing, the angelic beings began to dance and wave their arms. Ebenezer Christian stood up and stared at them, scarcely believing his eyes. The spirit, now appearing beside him, remarked, "In thousands of years, this is the happiest day they've ever known."

Some of the angels—then several of them—then many of them darted across the sky as erratically as swallows and as rapidly as meteors. Here and there, small groups of angels playfully chased and circled each other like butterflies. Their songs and shouts were joined by joyous laughter and giddy whoops and other noises. Their sounds and movements, though synchronized, became increasingly rapid and increasingly complex.

This display across the heavens soon reached a point that it was beyond human comprehension. Ebenezer Christian realized that he was seeing what no human eye could see: an expression of pure joy splashed from horizon to horizon.

Suddenly the whole scene exploded upon Ebenezer Christian, bathing him with such divine love, filling him with such joy, that tears burst from his eyes. In that same instant, all, once again, was quiet and dark.

[In every Christmas presentation Ebenezer Christian had ever seen, the angels' annunciation to the shepherds was treated almost perfunctorily, as if those in charge of the program wanted to get past that part of the story as soon as possible. He knew of no Christian songs dealing specifically with the scene he had just witnessed. For future Christmas programs, though, Ebenezer Christian recommended that the choir of angels sing the song "Shine, Jesus, Shine!"]

The shepherds struggled to their feet and spoke excitedly to one another. Those crass souls with unclean lips had just witnessed something that changed their lives forever. They were radiant!

Though Ebenezer Christian could not understand what they were saying, it was clear that they were eager to leave for Bethlehem that very minute. Leaving their sheep behind them, they rushed southward to find the Baby Who already had changed their lives and Who soon would change the world.

"Let's go ahead of them," the spirit said to Ebenezer Christian. With those words, she waved her arm.

Explaining Conspiracy Theory to the Proverbial Man from Mars

2011-12-17T21:15:00.007+08:00

When we’re asked to explain something to a person who has no concept of the thing being explained, we’re sometimes told, “Suppose somebody dropped in from Mars. How would you explain it to him?”

I recently found myself facing a more daunting challenge. What if the man from Mars came from a culture with a long history of never questioning authority figures? How would you explain conspiracy theory to him? After all, conspiracy theory is based on the idea that authority figures sometimes lie, and that we should question them.

Just how I accomplished this task may be useful to many of y’all. This article is a brief description of how I handled these challenges.

I began by saying that I would ask them a question about what they saw. I showed them the following video clip and asked them if the building had fallen by accident or if professionals had brought it down. All of them correctly said that the building had come down as the result of an accident. I then asked them the reasons for their answers.

I showed them the next video clip and asked the same questions. To keep them from seeing the words "controlled demolition," I had to advance the video to the 2:13 mark. All the students correctly said that professionals had brought the building down, and they said why they believed this.

I then explained to them what the term controlled demolition meant, but I didn’t tell them what they should expect to see when a controlled demolition takes place. Then I showed them the next video clip and asked them the same questions I had asked them before.

All of them said that it was a case of controlled demolition and said why they believed it. I then told them that the building in question was World Trade Center Building 7, and that the U.S. government had said that it wasn’t a controlled demolition. We further discussed it.

Then I showed them the following video clip and asked them two questions about it.

The first question was, “In which direction did President Kennedy’s body fall, forward or backward?” I had to explain to some of them what the words forward and backward meant. They all said that his body had fallen backward. The second question was, “From which direction did the bullet come, a or b (indicating back or front)?” They all said that the bullet had come from the front. I then told them that the U.S. government had said otherwise, and we discussed it.

Only then did I introduce the matter of conspiracy theory.

First, I gave the legal definition of conspiracy: “Two or more people involved in a plan to do something that’s against the law.”

Do government officials conspire? I showed them a slide depicting the covers of two books: Sun Tzu’s The Art of War (which was familiar to all of them), and Machiavelli’s The Prince. The latter, I said, is as important to politics as the former is to military science. According to Machiavelli, “Politics, by its very nature, is conspiratorial,” and, “There have been many conspiracies.”

Then I hit them with a dilemma: Newspaper reporters are authority figures you’re conditioned to trust. Government officials are also authority figures you’re conditioned to trust. What happens when newspaper reporters and government officials say the opposite of one another? They can’t both be right.

I showed them two pictures; one was a pair of newspaper reporters named Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein; the other was of Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, who had played Woodward and Bernstein in the movie about these events. (Yes, I appealed to their trust in movies, which are another authority figure.) Step by step, I led them through the story. Woodward and Bernstein were, by definition, conspiracy theorists.

I showed them the men who were arrested and mentioned that one of them had a White House telephone number on his person. They were arrested for burglary, attempted wiretapping, and—what was the other? Oh, yes—conspiracy. At a click of a mouse, the word guilty flew onto the screen and, one by one, stamped itself on the suspects’ faces.

The next slide showed seven men who worked directly for President Nixon. Four were charged with conspiracy, some with obstruction of justice, some with both crimes. I had to explain the legal terms. Again, the word guilty stamped on the faces of six of the seven. The seventh, Charles Colson, received the Latin words nolo contendre, meaning “uncontested.” Colson, too, went to prison for conspiracy.

Next, it was former Attorney General John Mitchell’s turn: “perjury, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy: GUILTY.”

Then came the President of the United States Richard Nixon with eleven articles of impeachment, several of which involved conspiracy: “Resigned to avoid impeachment,” and “Pardoned by President Ford.”

Considering that their own former president is languishing in a local prison, all this information struck a familiar chord.

I then had them try a little experiment. I showed them a picture of Renaissance painting of a really ugly woman and said, “She’s a really ugly woman!”

I instructed them to reply, “Oh, that’s just a conspiracy theory!” Then we’d see if calling my remark a conspiracy theory automatically made it untrue. At those words, I clicked the mouse, and the ugly woman faded into a picture of Cameron Diaz. We tried it again with another picture, and the ugly woman faded into a picture of one of their teachers, who is somewhat pretty.

I said, “Hmm. Let’s try something different.” I showed them a picture of the beautiful actress Gabriella Anwar and said, “She’s a really beautiful woman!” When the students responded as instructed, the picture faded into a picture of one of the students present. “Is she really, really ugly?” I asked them. They didn’t comment, but I’m sure that they agreed that she was pretty.

Having nailed this one down, we turned to a seemingly unrelated topic: causes and cures for cancer. You can imagine where that discussion led.

Ebenezer Christian and the Three Christmas Spirits, Chapter 11

2011-12-17T15:21:00.001+08:00

If you're addicted to the feel-good variety of Christianity, you'll want to skip this chapter. What does the commandment "Love thy neighbor" really mean? On the vital issues of the day, many pious people completely blow it, even as they pat themselves on the back for their faux Christian charity. What about liberals, conservatives, libertarians, or others with political agenda? Do they completely blow it? Well, maybe not completely. Read on.
At this writing, Christmas is barely a week away. In 2001, a few weeks after Christmas, I wrote this novella as a reaction against the way Christmas has become a racket. Many of the worst offenders are professing Christians who have bought into the Christmas racket and are contributing to the world's problems by participating in that racket.

We need to reconnect with the world, and we need to rethink Christmas.

Over the coming days, I intend to finish posting each of the fourteen chapters and addendum to Ebenezer Christian and the Three Christmas Spirits. The following is Chapter Eleven. For the Table of Contents to Ebenezer Christian and the Three Christmas Spirits, click HERE.

Chapter Eleven

The Second of Three Christmas Spirits

"It’s you!” Ebenezer Christian blurted. “The member of that hate group!”

“I don’t know what you mean,” the spirit responded. “I’m not mortal, so I can’t be a member of any human organization.”

“What are you supposed to show me?”

“An eager beaver, aren’t you? Oh, well. You won’t have to go far for your first revelation.”

“Where are we going?”

“Your living room, a few hours ago.”

“You mean, while my wife and daughter and I were out looking at Christmas decorations?”

“That’s right, and your son stayed home.”

Several negative thoughts flashed through Ebenezer Christian’s mind all at once: pornographic or demonic web sites, R-rated videotapes or DVDs, violence-oriented music, and other thoughts came to mind.

As if reading his thoughts, the spirit said, “No, it isn’t anything he brought into the house from the outside; it’s something you brought into the house.”

“Me? I’m not interested in anything erotic or violent, and I’m certainly not interested in anything demonic. I’ve always fought against those sorts of things, not only in my home but also in the community. What could I have brought into the house that’s sinful?”

“Yes, you’ve always fought against the glorification of violence, the debasement of sex, and demonic obsession; but you’ve made no serious effort to replace the void with a love of peace, a healthy respect for sex, or family devotions. As a result, all the evils you mention now enter your house with the full power of Satan. Look!”

At that word, Ebenezer Christian’s living room appeared to him, and he saw his son watching network television. In that one cop show, Ebenezer Christian saw violence glorified, the human body wrongfully presented, and Christianity attacked as a burdensome relic of less enlightened eras. Further, the characters in the show peppered their speech with vulgarities. “And that,” said the spirit, “is just one of many shows that propagate the doctrines of demons.”

“I don’t allow videogames or erotic literature in my house,” Ebenezer Christian fumbled. “To think that I actually bought and welcomed this purveyor of sinful behavior into the house myself. I should throw it out.”

“There’s still the question of what you would use to fill the void. And you’re wrong when you say you don’t allow erotic literature into your house. Song of Solomon, in The Bible is the greatest work of erotic literature of antiquity and probably the greatest ever.”

“But that’s okay because it’s in the Bible. Besides, it doesn’t really refer to sex. It’s an allegory for God’s love for us.”

“That's beside the point. In order for an allegory to be useful, the illustration has to be as true as the thing it illustrates. Allegory or not, Song of Solomon clearly shows us that sexual passion has a place in God’s will, and it shows us what that place is: one man and one woman married to one another—passionately and sexually attracted exclusively to one another for life. That's the prime difference between eroticism and pornography; but since contemporary Christians equate one with the other, that message is lost.

“The sad truth is,” the spirit continued, “contemporary Christians have abdicated their responsibility to present that message because contemporary Christians are too squeamish to discuss sensitive matters. Because only one side of the debate is heard—that of the Enemy, the Destroyer—Christians are losing.”

“You mean, the culture war?”

“The culture war has been going on for many centuries. The term has become popular only since Christians have chosen to become conscientious objectors in the culture war.”

“That’s not fair. You seem not to know that only a few months ago Christians—and I’m one of them—succeeded in closing down a bar that was a strip joint just outside of town.”

The spirit glared at Ebenezer Christian with thinly-disguised impatience. “When you use the power of government to force people to behave as if they were Christians,” the shade demanded, “do you really think you’re furthering God’s Kingdom on Earth? You can’t bullwhip people into the Kingdom of Heaven; they must be drawn into it. A lot of professing Christians used a great deal of their time and energy to close that place; and, in the end, no one’s spiritual life was improved the slightest bit. The patrons of that place have other outlets for their urges, and their souls are still bound for eternal damnation. Truly, you have lost sight of the Great Commission.”

“Hey, wait a minute! A moment ago, you were condemning me for allowing anti-Christian television shows into my house. Now you’re condemning me for not allowing a strip joint into my community.”

“Your house is your own property, and the products advertised on those television shows are intended to be bought with your money. The sponsors of television programs, like other advertisers, want to know why people do, or do not, buy their products. When you write to the corporate sponsors of a television program and tell why you don’t buy their product, you’re helping them to make wise business decisions. They realize this, even if some of them think you’re being unnecessarily intolerant. You also should write to offer your support to corporate sponsors of healthier programs.”

The spirit paused for a moment and changed gears. “When you were growing up,” the shade began, “did you watch the old Dracula movies?”

Ebenezer Christian was taken aback. “Yes, why?”

“The old horror movies were morality plays. In several of the Dracula movies, someone would say that Dracula could not enter a person’s house unless someone inside the house invited him in. After being invited into someone's house the first time, Dracula could come and go at will. That’s true of any evil. It behooves one to be careful. It also should behoove you not to throw out the baby with the bath water."

"What do you mean?"

"Contemporary Christians have become estranged from their bodies, and they've become far too squeamish about bodily functions. They act as if bodily functions were nasty things that Satan slipped into the human condition when God wasn't looking. The Bible freely mentions bodily functions. The Bible mentions almost everything that can leave the body through emission, secretion, expression, excretion, or by other means. The only one it doesn't mention is mucus. The Bible writers didn't dwell on these things, but they weren't squeamish about them, either. Because they didn't fear bodily functions, they were able to speak and write freely about the sins against the body. If the Bible had been written by contemporary Christians, people would have no way of knowing that they were sins because they would be considered too disgusting to be included in the Holy Scriptures. As a consequence, people would know that these things were disgusting, but they wouldn't know they were sinful."

"You make it sound as if I'm narrow-minded. I'm not."

The spirit changed the focus of his remarks. "I see no reason to dwell upon things these things, which you obviously find revolting. Let's draw our attention to something completely foreign to your sensibilities."

"And what's that?"

"Christian art."

"Oh, come now! You don't know a thing about my appreciation of art."

"So, tell me."

"I've saved Christian art as background on my computer, and I have several reproductions in my home. I have quite a fondness for Christian art."

"Reproductions, you say?"

"Well, what of it? I'm sure I couldn't afford to buy an original painting or sculpture of the quality of Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci."

"Renaissance artists. Don't you know of any great Christian art that was created during your lifetime?"

"Well, no, not really."

"Or in the last one hundred years?"

"What are you suggesting?"

"I'm suggesting that contemporary Christians lack the boldness that was characteristic of Christians prior to 1900. Prior to 1900, Christians were the impetus for great reform movements, such as animal protection, child labor laws, and the abolition of slavery, to mention only a few. Christian artists were equally bold. Many of the great Christian art works of the Renaissance and early modern times would be considered scandalous if they were painted today. On virtually all the important environmental and humanitarian issues of today, Christians either leave the field to the enemy or, worse, follow the enemy's lead."

Ebenezer Christian bristled at that last suggestion. "I am certainly not following the enemy's lead!" he said sternly, carefully pronouncing each word through his teeth. "I defy you to tell me how."

"I can give you dozens of examples," the spirit calmly responded.

"Never mind the dozens; give me one."

"Okay, environmentalism."

"What of it?"

"What does the Bible say about environmentalism?"

"Not a thing, specifically, but we can figure that Christians are supposed to practice stewardship over the world, just as we're supposed to practice stewardship over everything else God has made and given to us."

"The truth is," the spirit said, "the Bible contains enough verses on environmentalism to fill a hundred-page book. Between the very first verse of the Bible to the next-to-last chapter, the Bible tells you everything you need to know about environmental responsibility. It tells us that God made the earth, He has authority over it, and He has over a half dozen purposes for it. It clearly spells out what attitude we should have concerning it and gives us countless commandments—mainly in Numbers, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy. Sadly, instead of reading the Bible, Christians either have chosen to seek wisdom from New Age jeremiads, effectively worshiping creation instead of the Creator; or they've avoided their responsibility altogether. Do your research and compare the Bible to the most respected environmentalist book you know. Compared to the Bible, all else is drivel."

The spirit paused a moment and said, "When Calvin Coolidge first became President of the United States, a Christian organization came to visit him and presented him with one of their Bibles. He remarked, `Gentlemen, this book contains the solutions to all the world's problems.' Sad to say, most Christians no longer believe this; and, like dumb sheep, they bleat the nostrum that you shouldn't `mix religion with politics.’ As a result, when Christians do get involved in the vital issues of the day, most of them leave their Bibles behind and follow the Judas goats. Even worse, many Christians today try to attach a Christian label to secular answers to the world's problems instead of allowing themselves to be led by the Holy Spirit, as Christians had done for eighteen centuries."

"I don't know," Ebenezer Christian said reluctantly. "A lot of Christians who go into politics give me the creeps."

"A lot of them give me the creeps, too. Most Americans wisely prefer elected officials who are Christians, or righteous within their own faith, but they also are reluctant to vote for candidates who are fronting for an organization that uses Christianity as a rationale for its political agenda."

"Are you saying that they're not really Christians?"

"Not at all. What I'm saying is, they have the same limitations as all other humans. Many ministers and leaders of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim service organizations have gone into state and local politics. They generally have carried their attitudes of service with them. They generally have been most effective at the levels of government that comes into closest contact with the people they serve.

"Leaders of groups that pressure for reform regarding a narrow range of issues have been most effective in providing information and advice to officeholders. When one of them is elected to public office, though, two things go wrong. First, that person goes into office with the attitude of grasping for the power to make the changes he desires. The agenda of his organization is presented as `the Christian agenda,’ and it quickly becomes an authoritarian agenda. He also finds himself in a position that calls upon him to face a wide range of human needs, although he's interested (and informed) only regarding a narrow range of interests. No matter how well-intentioned he is, he's going to cause harm.

"As a rule of thumb, the officeholder who is educated in morals but not in mind will unintentionally cause harm. The officeholder who is educated in mind but not in morals is a menace to society."

The spirit returned to an earlier topic. “A moment ago, you were speaking of bringing evil things into your house. Didn't your wife say you were very thoughtful for buying her a chandelier?”

“Yes,” Ebenezer Christian smiled. “She couldn’t stop saying how thoughtful I was.”

“Actually, you weren’t being thoughtful at all. You were being thoughtless and insensitive.”

Ebenezer Christian was visibly shaken and hurt by that remark. The spirit waved his arm, and the scene changed. Before them, they saw a factory in which dozens of Asians were grinding glass for chandeliers.

One Asian in particular drew their attention. He was a young man, grinder in hand, working away at a crystal. Every couple of minutes the man would go into a fit of coughing. “The man you see before you,” the shade remarked, “is the one who made the chandelier you bought your wife.”

“Shouldn’t these people be wearing face masks?” Ebenezer Christian asked.

“Yes, they should, but this is a slave labor camp. The lives of these unhappy souls mean little to their masters. This man is a Christian minister. He was convicted of conducting a Bible study in his home.”

“You must mean the underground church: those illegal house churches. I don't see why they don't just go ahead and register their church with the government as the law requires. Doesn't the Bible say we should render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's?"

"Would you want to go to a church that forbids the book of Revelation, or that forbids the teaching that God is Lord of all, or that Jesus will come again? Would you want to attend a church whose minister is appointed by atheists and who must toe the government line? You said you weren’t interested in-what was the word? Oh: ‘politics.’ Well, he’s not interested in politics, either. He never was; but the politicians are interested in him.”

The man was seized by another fit of coughing. "Tien-de ba," he muttered aloud, "Wo yi-shah yau jen-dau Ni. Ching Ni ban wo tai-tai, wo jya-ren, Ni-de jao-yo. Amen." ("Heavenly Father, I soon will meet you. Please help my wife, my family and the members of my church. Amen.") Ebenezer Christian couldn't understand the words the man had uttered, but from the "amen" at the end, he knew it was a prayer. Under the circumstances, it probably had to be concise.

“Is it that cold in here?” Ebenezer Christian asked.

“No,” the spirit replied. “He doesn’t have pneumonia or even the common cold. It’s much worse than that. He has silicosis. Tiny particles of glass he has been inhaling are shredding his lungs. He was given a three-year prison sentence. In this place, a three-year sentence amounts to a death sentence. When he dies, another miserable soul will take his place. What you see here is just the tip of the iceberg. This sort of thing takes place all over this man’s country and several other countries besides. As for the toys children receive at Christmas: Ebenezer Christian, those toys are not made by cheerful elves in a little workshop at the North Pole. An alarming percentage of them are made by slaves or by children doomed to sweatshops, often under dangerous conditions."

“Can’t anything be done about this sort of thing?”

“It’s already illegal to import things produced by slave labor, but the law isn’t enforced. Sweatshop labor is hard to define because expectations vary from one country to another. Until existing laws are enforced, you can stop buying products from countries that use slave labor or that abusively exploit children for commercial gain."

The spirit waved his arm again.

“Where are we now?” asked Ebenezer Christian.

“We’re in the home of a family that goes to your church. This was the scene in his home after the man and his family came home from the yellow ribbon party your church held for him.” Ebenezer Christian recognized them.

The scene was subdued. The family tried to make the setting seem as joyful as they could, but the man appeared pensive and depressed. He spoke as if he felt that no one had really forgiven him, and that his many months in prison had taught a lesson to no one but himself. The family tried to console him, saying that people really didn’t know what to say to him and probably had chosen their words poorly.

“What does he mean by this?” Ebenezer protested. “What member of the church didn’t forgive him?

“None of them,” the spirit replied. “Least of all, you.”

“Of course, I forgave him!”

“No, you didn’t. Do you remember what you wrote on the yellow ribbon you had signed for him? You wrote that it was okay, and that it could have happened to anyone.”

“How is it that you don’t see forgiveness in that?”

“Because it wasn’t okay, and the man knew it. He had killed someone. He’s out of prison now, but the dead man is still dead, and the dead man’s children are still fatherless. Your brother in the faith was in need of forgiveness, but all you offered him was an excuse. It was a lame excuse at that. It’s not forgiveness unless you recognize the enormity of his sin.”

“I wouldn’t use the word ‘enormity.’ All he did was double park. A lot of people do that every day.”

“That’s one more reason he’s depressed. Even if you don’t realize it, he does. He selfishly placed his own convenience above the safety of his fellow human beings. He learned his lesson at a terrible price; but he had hoped, as well, that his friends and fellow church members would have learned it without having to pay a similar price. He feels as if he paid the penalty both for his own sin and so that others can learn from his experience. That’s why he feels that his sin remains unforgiven, and that anything good that can come of it is despised by his friends.”

The spirit waved his arm again, and the scene changed.

“We’re inside the Van Doren Stable.”

The Van Doren Stable was a monument to an earlier time. During the first half of the twentieth century—and before—every small town in America had livery stables and yards for the convenience of farmers or for men who earned part of their living by plowing people’s home gardens.

The Van Doren Stable was an impressive brick structure that had been built by Phillip van Doren (note the lower case “v” in the name van Doren) in the center of Bedford Falls in the year 1901. After the style of the day, it boasted a false front that caused people to think of the Alamo. It was roofed, although its roof was decayed and allowed patches of sunlight to enter the building. Its wide, double doors had been closed for about forty years.

It may sound odd that a livery stable should be located in the very center of town, right next door to the small building that houses the police station and the town hall. At the time Van Doren Stables was built, however, that was considered the most reasonable location for a livery stable. The sight of the Van Doren Stables towering over the one-storey municipal building and spreading across an area twice as wide and four times as deep as the town hall is even more incongruous.

Its location made it some of the most valuable property in Bedford Falls. The owner, Donna van Doren was often given generous offers for it, but she refused to sell it. She also refused to develop it.

Elderly people who have never married or had children usually find substitutes for children and grandchildren. Many fill their homes with cats or dogs and shower their affection upon them. Others—such as Donna van Doren—fill their scrapbooks with family histories and genealogies; allowing their ancestors to serve as surrogates for descendants.

Van Doren Stables was her monument—or her shrine—to her grandfather, who had built it. Anyone viewing the Van Doren Stables from the front would see the raised letters across the top, reading, “Van Doren Stables,” under which the date is given, “1901”. One would have to approach the double doors to see the rusted chains and padlock, or the official notice forbidding anyone to enter, “by order of the…County Health Department.”

For forty years, virtually the only violators of this order were, ironically, the policemen on duty in the station next door. During the 1950s and early ‘60s, one occasionally heard whispered rumors of policemen spiriting suspects to the bullpen in order to impress upon them the seriousness of their intentions.

After many years of lying unused, even as an interrogation room, the Van Doren Stables were visited once again: by Ebenezer Christian, the spirit, and by two other people.

Through a decaying wooden door in the side of the building, two skulking figures entered. Ebenezer Christian’s blood froze.

Momentarily, Ebenezer Christian was able to see them more clearly. They were a man and a woman. Right away, he knew that they must be the same man and woman who had hidden in the church earlier that day.

“Yes,” the spirit said in response to Ebenezer Christian’s unspoken thoughts. “They are the same couple who were turned away from a shelter for homeless people. Then they were turned away from a church. The time for her baby to be born is near. They have come here, expecting the mother to give birth to her child in a stable.”

“Like Jesus,” whispered Ebenezer Christian.

“Yes, exactly like Jesus.”

“Why do you emphasize the word, `exactly'?”

“Didn’t Jesus say that, whatever you do for the least of His brethren, you’ve done also to Him? And that, whatever you’ve failed to do for the least of His brethren, you’ve failed to do unto Him?”

Ebenezer Christian and the spirit watched the couple choose a stall that wasn’t filled with discarded or abandoned items. The man found the remains of an old broom and began sweeping the stall. The broom was nothing more than broomcorn that had been tightly bound with bailing wire—the sort of thing people used as brooms a half-century earlier—but it served its purpose.

The man searched the stable for anything that could serve as bedding and blankets. The small amount of hay that remained crumbled to dust in his hands. He found enough burlap bags to provide for his wife’s needs, shook the dust from them as well as he could, and he laid them out for her. He elected to do without bedding for himself.

The entire process took about a half hour.

Then Ebenezer Christian’s attention was drawn to the sound of two more intruders entering the stable. As they entered, a flashlight pierced the darkness. “This is the police!” a man’s voice sternly said. “Step into the light slowly, where we can see you!”

Though the couple did not understand the words the policeman had spoken, they knew the drill and instinctively obeyed. The husband pleaded their case as well as he could in his limited English. His wife was about to have a baby, and they had been turned away from everywhere they had tried. The policemen seemed not to understand them. Even if they did, they still were charged with enforcing the law. "It's not safe here," one of them said slowly and deliberately.

The couple spoke to one another, making some attempt to understand what the policeman had said.

The policeman tried again, "Perigrosa! Perigrosa!" he said carefully. He had seen that word, or something like it, written on a lot of dangerous places in the movies. He figured it must mean either "dangerous" or "keep out.”

The man and his wife repeated the sound to each other; then a look of recognition crossed the woman's face. "Ahhh!" she said. "Peligrosa!"

"Si," the policeman said. "Peligrosa."

The man, in astonishment, said to his wife, "Esta mas seguro la calle?" (Is the street safer?)

"Que tiene gracia!" (What a joke!) she replied.

The couple made another plea. “Es Christmas,” the man said in a mixture of English and Spanish. It was to no avail.

“We’ll give you a ride out of town,” one of the policemen said, as if they were doing the couple a favor.

Ebenezer Christian said to the spirit, "This is a vacant building; it has been for many years. Even Jesus' parents were allowed this much. What could be the harm of letting them stay here?"

"No harm at all,” the spirit replied. "None at all. In almost every town in America, and in every city, there are people who can't afford housing at available costs. Yet, in almost every town in America, and in every city, there exists affordable housing for them, but the buildings are vacant by order of local government. The Health Department has decided that it's better for people to live on the streets or in a dumpster than in buildings that are unacceptable to the sort of people who live on quiet, tree-lined streets or in posh suburbs. Donna van Doren, the owner of this building, was not consulted in the matter; and, as you saw, neither were Jose and Miriam Santos: the couple who stand before you."

Ebenezer Christian was only a little surprised to hear that the woman had a Jewish-sounding given name. When there is an intermingling of cultures, one of the consequences is an intermingling of names. Ebenezer Christian's own niece had the Spanish name Carmen. From college, he remembered reading of a hero named Bernardo O'Higgins, who had championed Chilean independence from Spain in 1814.

Ebenezer Christian managed an attempt at distancing himself from the behavior of the policemen. "I've always felt the government should do more for the poor," he said.

Without rancor, the spirit responded, "You find it easy to say that because you don't think your own tax burden will be—or should be—affected. As such, you presume to give what is not yours to give. That's not generosity. The affectation of generosity at someone else's expense is, at best, hypocrisy. At worst, it's theft. Generosity is what you do with your own resources."

The policemen ordered the couple into a police car, and they drove them to the outskirts of town. Then they ordered them from the car and left them on the side of a desolate, two-lane country road.

As the police car drove away, Ebenezer Christian heard the woman ask, "Ay, Jose! Que haceremos? Moriremos!" (Oh, Jose! What will we do? We'll die!)

The man responded, "No se, Miriam, pero debimos tenir fe. De dentro de todos los crisises, Dios es nuestro Escudo y Consuelo. El socorrerenos." (I don't know, Miriam, but we must have faith. Throughout all crises, God is our Shield and Comfort. He will help us.)

With a voice trembling as much from fear as from the cold, she said, "Para sobrevivir la noche, necesitaremos un milagro. Ay, mi pobrecita!" ("To survive the night, we'll need a miracle. Oh, my poor little one!")

The young couple kneeled by the roadside and prayed.

As they prayed, a light snow began to fall. Ebenezer Christian remembered the weather report that was on everyone's lips: to the delight of almost everyone in town—especially Joe Fenner, the popular weather forecaster on local television—Bedford Falls would enjoy a white Christmas this year. It was expected to snow at least six inches that night.

"How will they survive?" Ebenezer Christian asked the spirit.

The shade pointed to a small bridge and replied, "They'll seek shelter under that bridge you see there. Jose Santos will spend the next couple of hours pulling rocks from the creek and building a windbreak between their entrance and his wife Miriam. He'll rub her arms and legs to keep her warm. The labor with the rocks will keep him warm for awhile. After he has done all he can to save them, they both will feel warm and comfortable inside their little nest beneath the bridge."

"So they'll be all right?"

"No. Their feelings of warmth and comfort will be the first signs of hypothermia. Tomorrow morning, when children all over Bedford Falls are sitting wide-eyed beneath brightly lighted Christmas trees, finding their presents, and opening them, Jose and Miriam Santo will be frozen to death under the bridge. Their bodies will be found after the snow thaws."

"No! No! I can't accept that! What kind of God would allow it to happen?"

"The kind of God Who loves men enough to allow them the free will to love Him or reject Him. He could force people to behave as if they were moral and care for one another, but that wouldn't make them moral or loving. Men can not be loving or moral creatures unless they have a choice. Remember the parable of the man who was beaten and robbed on the way to Jericho?"

"The one about the Good Samaritan?"

"That's the one. In their need, Jose and Miriam Santo and their baby were forsaken by a charitable organization, a minister, pious church members and police officers who are sworn to protect and serve. They will freeze to death in the snow because not even one person will obey God's commandment to `Love thy neighbor.'"

The spirit angrily waved his arm, and the scene vanished.