 Mr. Obama’s speech on the end of combat operations in Iraq brought out a number of reactions; a few of these reactions are well worth reading completely, and digesting, as much for what they tell us about ourselves as a nation as anything else.
 Obama warns against “open-ended wars,” as if they are almost animate things. But wars end, not when they reach a rational, previously agreed-upon expiration date, but usually when tough, specific wartime choices are made that lead to victory or end in defeat. One party must decide – for good or bad reasons – that it doesn’t want to fight to win, or simply doesn’t believe it has the resources for victory. To say that “open-ended wars” are undesirable is a banality that offers no guidance for these real-life choices. A better truism is that America should not fight wars it does not intend to win. -Victor David Hanson
We have become, as a nation, far too accustomed to things “ending,” in every area of our lives. We go to war with preconceived notions about how wars are fought, misunderstanding that this is not some minor inconvenience, but rather a matter of an existential threat to our way of life and our values. We have “minimized” war to the point of triviality. Let’s hope that minimization doesn’t bring a war to our shores that we can’t so easily compartmentalize and “expect to end” at some “rational point.”
The president argued that the war had represented a worthwhile cause, asserting that “We have persevered…because of a belief…that out of the ashes of war, a new beginning could be born in this cradle of civilization.” Moments later, however, the president insisted that the war had instead been mistaken: “We have spent a trillion dollars at war…This, in turn, has short-changed investments in our own people, and contributed to record deficits.” … “The Americans who have served in Iraq,” the president accurately stated, “completed every mission they were given…They shifted tactics to protect the Iraqi people; trained Iraqi Security Forces; and took out terrorist leaders….Iraq has the opportunity to embrace a new destiny….” … “It’s well known,” President Obama said, “that [President Bush]…and I disagreed about the war from its outset. Yet no one could doubt President Bush’s support for our troops, or his love of country and commitment to our security.” Support, love, commitment. President Obama could bring himself to credit President Bush with nothing more than mere well-intentioned haplessness. How shabby. How tawdry. -Ricochet
This constant need to blame someone else —when does it end? Mr. Obama is saying that Mr. Bush was wrong, but he was lovingly and sincerely wrong, and now he, the mighty Mr. Obama, has corrected the mistake. How gracious and wonderful he is. Whatever.
In a portion of last night’s speech that rankled many conservatives, Obama pointed the finger at defense spending as the cause of our fiscal woes: “We have spent over a trillion dollars at war, often financed by borrowing from overseas. This, in turn, has short-changed investments in our own people, and contributed to record deficits. For too long, we have put off tough decisions on everything from our manufacturing base to our energy policy to education reform.” This is hooey. -Contentions
And what would a major speech be without fudging the truth at least once? It’s like an elaborate extension of Adam’s speech to God. “The woman you put here with me, she made me do it. I mean, she’s sincere and all, but… And she a lot of money making a mess of things while she was at it. Really, it’s not my fault.”
No wonder the Nation —even Wall Street— is bailing out in a wave of embarrassment. I’m even getting to be embarrassed for drivers who still have “Obama” stickers on their car.
 Two University of Pennsylvania economists have completed a study showing that over the past four decades the happiness gap between whites and African Americans has been significantly reduced. … And Baird notes that increased happiness among African American women is not the only reason that the gap has diminished. The other reason is that white women are considerably more unhappy today than they were forty years ago. -Had Enough Therapy?
Here’s a puzzle: The feminist movement in the US agitated for (and still agitates for) “freedom,” to be treated as “more than an object” —and yet somehow women now end up being the objects they didn’t want to become. Women believed they would be happier without the “patriarchal world” of older times, and yet they are less happy than they were under the “patriarchy” they so decry. It’s hard to see how the women of the 1950′s were treated more like objects than the women of today —just walk through any shopping mall past any number of window displays. Women today have been reduced to sexual machines, almost —and this is what many people think constitutes “power” —as if “getting attention” is the ultimate form of “power.”
Why is it that this movement to remove the shackles of objectification from women has actually bound them in the chains even more strongly? There are a number of reasons, of course, but I think many feminists hit on the bottom line reason for their movement early on: Feminism is, at its core, an attack on Christianity and Christian values. Belief in a male God has been explicitly tied to women being “dominated by men,” within the feminist movement.
The truth is that it is only within a Judeo-Christian worldview that women can be “happy.” But can we back this contention up from the Scriptures? What about Genesis chapters 34 and 35?
Now Dinah the daughter of Leah, whom she had borne to Jacob, went out to see the women of the land. And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the land, saw her, he seized her and lay with her and humiliated her. -Genesis 34:1-2
Typical, right? A man in the Scriptures treating the women as if she’s just an object. To make matters even worse, Hamor, Shechem’s father, treats her —and all the other women in their communities— as bargaining chips for wealth and power. They essentially offer to buy Dinah as a bargain to gain all of Jacob’s wealth. Dinah’s brothers also treat her as a bargaining chip, as well, to gain revenge over Shechem. Later, in the next chapter, Reuben uses Bilhah as an object to gain power.
But when we really look back over these two chapters, we find the theme is a little deeper than what we first imagine. This isn’t about men abusing women, but assimilation into the larger culture. In fact, all of these acts are placed within the context of Jacob’s family assimilating into the pagan society around them. While the women are treated horribly, their treatment is used to illustrate the depths to which Jacob’s family is assimilating. As if to push this point home, the specific offer Hamor makes to Jacob is assimilation —”come and be one people with us through intermarriage.”
God doesn’t approve of the way these women are treated. This way of treating women, as objects, is part and parcel of the system of worship around Jacob’s family, a system of idols and false gods they are slowly assimilating in to. Those who follow God are supposed to be shocked at the mistreatment of the women in these two chapters, to see this mistreatment as a sign of low morals. Feminist who blame Christianity for the treatment of women as objects have the problem precisely backwards. It is paganism that treats women as objects. It should be no surprise that as our culture has become increasingly centered on the worship of those idols we’ve created for ourselves —fame, wealth, and sensation— that women should increasingly be treated as object.
If you want to solve the problems supposedly addressed by feminism, you have to run away from the fundamental tenants of feminism itself, away from a culture and worldview that treats all humans as objects, and towards a worldview and culture that treats people as people, made in the image of God.
 In a letter published on November 27, 1977, Mr. Rauf commented on Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s historic trip to Israel and encouraged his fellow Muslims to “give peace a chance.” That John Lennon lyric sounds good. But he added: “For my fellow Arabs I have the following special message: Learn from the example of the Prophet Mohammed, your greatest historical personality. After a state of war with the Meccan unbelievers that lasted for many years, he acceded, in the Treaty of Hudaybiyah, to demands that his closest companions considered utterly humiliating. Yet peace turned out to be a most effective weapon against the unbelievers.” He’s referring to a treaty in the year 628 that established a 10-year truce between the Prophet Muhammad and Meccan leaders and was viewed by Muslims at the time as a defeat. But Muhammad used that period to consolidate his ranks and re-arm, eventually leading to his conquest of Mecca. Imam Rauf seems to be saying that Muslims should understand Sadat’s olive branch in the same way, as a short-term respite leading to ultimate conquest. To drive that point home, he added in the same letter that “In a true peace it is impossible that a purely Jewish state of Palestine can endure. . . . In a true peace, Israel will, in our lifetimes, become one more Arab country, with a Jewish minority.” -WSJ
Mr. Rauf is, of course, the main personality behind the Ground Zero Mosque —a man we are told is a “moderate” Muslim. Should we take him at his word, and believe all “moderate” Muslims believe that peace treaties are tools to be used for ultimate military victory? Since I know Muslims who would disagree, there is apparently intentional mislabeling going on here. The reality is these folks are building a “victory mosque,” not an “outreach center.”
On the eve of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, Hamas gunmen murdered four Israeli civilians, including a pregnant woman. Even for those who see nuance in terrorist attacks, this one didn’t leave a lot of room for argument. The PA condemned the attack and, reportedly, picked up some 150 Hamas affiliates in the West Bank for questioning. The Obama administration condemned the attack in no uncertain terms. And even J Street, the home of moral equivalence in the U.S., offered a quick condemnation of this atrocity. But the “moderate” Muslims of the Ground Zero Mosque? They’re taking a pass. … So I asked the folks at Park51 – “I know @park51 is loathe to call Hamas a terrorist group….but as a gesture, maybe now would be a good time to say something?” The group’s response: “@thegoldfarb We have condemned terrorism and will continue to do so. We are an apolitical community center. Please allow us that respect.” -The Weekly Standard
When someone says they condemn terrorism, but won’t condemn a specific terrorist attack, we’re dealing with a Hudaybiyah moment.
 Now Dinah the daughter of Leah, whom she had borne to Jacob, went out to see the women of the land. And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the land, saw her, he seized her and lay with her and humiliated her. … Now Jacob heard that he had defiled his daughter Dinah. But his sons were with his livestock in the field, so Jacob held his peace until they came. … On the third day, when they were sore, two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, took their swords and came against the city while it felt secure and killed all the males. They killed Hamor and his son Shechem with the sword and took Dinah out of Shechem’s house and went away. -Genesis 34:1-2, 5, 25-26
This is one of those “not so familiar” stories in the Tanakh —why is it there? What is God telling us by including this in the Scriptures. There are several lessons to learn here, of course; the Scriptures are rarely one dimensional. The first lesson is about the way we react to evil. Jacob’s reaction was to simply keep quiet. No reason to rock the boat, make waves, or whatever… Just keep quiet. After all, you do want to be accepted and respected, right?
Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have brought trouble on me by making me stink to the inhabitants of the land… -Genesis 34:30
The other reaction came from Simeon and Levi, two of Jacob’s sons. Their plan? Negotiate a treaty that would cause Shechem, Hamor, and their entire city to be physically incapacitated for several days, kill them all, and take the plunder (along with their sister).
Two reactions, both wrong. The one is to be silent, to refuse to rock the boat when evil has taken place in our midst. The other is to take not only justice into our hands, but also vengeance. To repay evil with evil in the name of justice is to do an injustice worse than the evil that was done in the first place. But this doesn’t just apply to physical harm —”soak the rich,” and “social justice” are just alternate forms of using force to “equalize” what we perceive to be an “injustice,” aren’t they?
The second point this story makes is the power of assimilation into the surrounding culture. Jacob wanted to be accepted, and his children wanted to restore their pride, their family honor. These are both pagan ideas, not Christian (or even Jewish) ones. To desire honor or social acceptance above justice are a pair of insidious evils; it’s so much easier to justify pride and acceptance than to justify rape, isn’t it? We can seek acceptance over justice, and just say, “well, we’re trying to be a good witness.” We can seek pride over justice, and say, “well, we’re trying to bring social justice.”
Dealing with the evil in our midst is one of the most vexing and difficult questions for a Christian. Jacon and his sons show us the path we shouldn’t take —and that’s a valuable lesson.
 Last week, Lebanon’s parliament amended a clause in a 1946 law that had been used to bar the 400,000 Palestinians living in the country from taking any but the most menial jobs. “I was born in Lebanon and I have never known Palestine,” the AP quoted one 45-year-old Palestinian who works as a cab driver. “We want to live like Lebanese. We are human beings and we need civil rights.” The dirty little secret of the Arab world is that it has consistently treated Palestinians living in its midst with contempt and often violence. In 1970, Jordan expelled thousands of Palestinian militants after Yasser Arafat attempted a coup against King Hussein. In 1991, Kuwait expelled some 400,000 Palestinians working in the country as punishment for Arafat’s support for Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf War. -WSJ
Depending upon whose estimate you read, there are some twenty or thirty thousand “refugees” in the Balata refugee camp outside of Nablus. Balata is simultaneously the most populous and smallest of the Palestinian refugee camps — its growing population is confined to one square kilometer, making it one of the most densely populated and miserable places on the planet.
Any regime with an ounce of compassion would have shut Balata down and integrated its people into the surrounding community. Balata is a place without hope, a quagmire of despair, where the day-to-day misery of its inhabitants is partially ameliorated by Western charities and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNWRA), while inadvertently building a culture of dependence. Balata’s creation could ostensibly be laid at Israel’s doorstep, but its perpetuation cannot. The current residents of Balata are only refugees by a crude reworking of the meaning of the term. They themselves have fled from nothing, and sought refuge from nothing. They are the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of the people who fled or were expelled during the 1948 war. -PJM
The Secret Service is all over here. Our life is miserable. Most of us stand no chance of ever getting out of here. A Jordanian high-school student with a 50% grade average gets a place in the university before a Palestinian with 90% average. And most of the Palestinians who do get accepted in Jordanian universities become students only if they agree to study literature, history, or something like that. Medical school? Hardly ever, unless we pay for it. No grants, like the Jordanians get. I have a Jordanian passport, but every policeman can immediately tell that I’m a Palestinian: We have different I.D. numbers. The Jordanian government gets paid by the UN and by others for every Palestinian living here and puts the money into their pockets. We are a ‘treasure’ for the Jordanians: Cows who give out milk. We are property. We are not treated as human. Why do the camps still exist? Why this ‘property’ all over here? Why so many poor Palestinians? Because we are just like stocks in Wall Street. The Jordanian government stops us. Arrests us. Rules over us. Never trusting us. Nobody in the world cares. Millions of poor Palestinians will never get out of their misery. Why? Because of their Arab brothers. -Hudson-NY
I looked through the comments on the story at the Wall Street Journal, and there was the common statement, over and over again: Well, the Jews chased them out of Israel, so the Jews are responsible for fixing this problem. It doesn’t matter what the Muslim countries around Israel have done since the war, it’s Israel’s fault for chasing them out in the first place. They should be allowed to return!
So here’s a simple question: Around 700,000 Jews were driven from Muslim countries in the weeks following the declaration of Israel as a state. Millions of Jews were driven from Germany and other areas of the world during World War II. There have been a ton of other dislocations of this sort throughout the world, going back as far as recorded history.
The simple question is: What happened to all those refuges? Why aren’t there refugee camps full of Jews from Iran, for instance? Why is it that Israel is uniquely responsible for allowing those displaced during a war they did not start to reclaim the land they left, while no other country in the history of the world has ever been required to do the same?
 Bible SEO has a post on spiritual gifts.
Spiritual Gift is a special attribute given by the Holy Spirit to Every Member of the body of Christ according to God’s Grace for use within the context of the Body. -Lists of Spiritual Gifts: Discovering Your Gifts
Free Money Finance is having a discussion about the cost of Roman Citizenship —if you know how much it would have costs to become a Roman Citizen, you should scoot over and add to the comments.
Kevin Poulis presents ReignMinistries.org – Mission Trips and Discipleship Training posted at SiteTally.com.
Chrysalis provides an overview of the Feasts of the Lord this week.
If you imagine the Tabernacle’s seven branched lamp stand, you notice that there are two groups of three lamps on either side of a central dividing lamp. The feasts are arranged similarly on the Hebrew calendar. There are three feasts in the spring (March and April) and three in the fall in (September and October). The seventh feast of Pentecost or “Weeks” falls in May between the two groups of feasts in the spring and fall. -Overview of the Feasts of the Lord
Personal Finance by the Book is discussing the twenty Christians who have changed our world.
We all dream of being financially solvent. Right? But deep inside we all know that there is more to life than relief from financial stress. I believe that all of us want our lives to count for something – to make a difference in the world we live in. Therefore, I am sharing this “honor roll” of Christians who, over the centuries, have done just that: change their world. Hopefully you will be inspired to do likewise. -Twenty Christians Who have Changed Our World
Bob MacDonald, over at Dust, is looking through Psalms 125-150, and considering the repetition of words as he builds his own translation.
The theme of harvest and its necessary preparation is also in the Psalter. Curious then that my root derivation algorithm (rightly so) does not distinguish arm זְרוֹעַ from seed זרע. Their common sound would easily be heard in the poem. Also related to this theme of harvest would be the plow – the severe difficulty of being prepared for praise. So that when we get there, we do not say – take me away and put me in the lowest place – for the wrong reasons. -One Last Summary from the Second Half of Book 5
à la mode de les Muses is thinking about the Greek Orthodox Church at Ground Zero that’s not yet been repaired.
My heart just broke when I read earlier this morning about the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s treatment towards the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America over getting the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church back on its feet. -The Church at Ground Zero
Crossroads is discussing changes from the inside out.
The is lurking about demanding its perfection in our lives. We cannot do it because we don’t have the heart to do it…in other words, a changed heart. We need conversion through Christ. This is precisely why every religion, including other forms of Christianity other than historical evangelical Christianity, misses the mark. -From the Inside Out
Science and Theology in Apposition has a review of “Crazy Love” up —I might have to go pick this one up (as if I have time to read any more than I do already!).
I confess, I rarely read any “popular” Christian books. If it’s a part of the Christian living section of the book store I generally turn up my nose. This is due to a number of factors. Most because these books are light on meat and heavy on feel good gospel. Or they are written for the average person who apparently doesn’t have much Bible training. -Crazy Love Book Review
Barry Wallace presents Fare-thee-well, little Green Tree Frog posted at who am i?.
Sacred Raisin Cakes has a post up on why men are more romantic than women.
Here are some of the data points that supported their hypotheses: men scored higher on measures of romanticism than women; more women initiated the breakup than men, and women who initiated the breakup in their previous relationship were the most likely to initiate the breakup in their current relationship; relationships in which women had higher measures of attachment than their male partners at the beginning of the relationship were more likely to succeed than relationships in which men had higher attachment scores; women were more likely to find problems in the relationship than men; women were more likely to describe the breakup as “gradual” while men were more likely to describe it as “abrupt”; men were more likely to feel depressed after a break up than women, while women were more likely to cope with rejection; couples who broke up were more likely to stay friends afterward if the breakup was initiated by the man. -Men are More Romantic than Women
Rely on God in Your Personal Development has a posting titled “Disorder in the Heads.”
The development of information technologies has changed the life of man. From all sides all kinds of information flow on person. Every day television, radio, the Internet brings something new to the human consciousness. Different facts from different areas are accumulating in his mind. -Disorder in the Mind
Danny presents Improving Seminary Education: What Students Can Do posted at Boston Bible Geeks.
Ridge Burns presents A Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation posted at Ridge’s Blog.
Rey Reynoso presents Teaching Kids Your Beliefs: Belief Spheres posted at The Bible Archive.
Jeremy Pierce presents Rant About Worship Songs posted at Parableman.
These last two I really liked —I’m in a bit of a rush this morning to get out the door, though, so I didn’t have time to go through and pull quotes from them. Overall, an interesting crop.
Enjoy!
I was almost run off the road today. I was going to a local store to pick a few odds and ends up for projects around the house, and someone pulled out of the right hand only turn lane just before it ended, forcing me to slam on my brakes to keep the front of my truck intact. This man then continued down the road, driving much more slowly than the speed limit, weaving here and there, until he moved into the next right hand turn lane. As I passed him, I immediately realized the problem.
He had a [...]
A boy was watching his father, a pastor, write a sermon. “How do you know what to say?” he asked.
“Why, God tells me.”
“Oh, then why do you keep crossing things out?”
I posted a couple of days ago on phobias, and the long list of them we seem to be encountering now-a-days. Well, I’ve just discovered two more phobias I think you should know about. The first is Iranophobia. Seriously.
A top military aide to the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution said that the US is striving hard to spread Iranophobia in the region in a bid to sell its weapons to the regional states. The US is introducing Iran to the regional countries as an enemy to sell its military equipment to them, Supreme Leader’s Advisor for Military [...]
We stand today at the symbolic crossroads of our nation’s history. All around us are monuments to those who have sustained us in word or deed. There in the distance stands the monument to the father of our country. And behind me, the towering presence of the Great Emancipator who secured our union at the moment of its most perilous time and freed those whose captivity was our greatest shame. And over these grounds where we are so honored to stand today, we feel the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who on this very day, two score [...]
Lady Gaga has admitted that her music is ‘inspired’ by drugs which she said stimulated her creativity. The singer, who previously disclosed that she is an occasional cocaine user, justified her decision to take drugs on the grounds that it stimulated her artistic sensibilities. She told Q magazine that through the use of drugs “I really figured out the art I wanted to make and was inspired. “Some people find inspiration in dark places. I guess I’m one of them.” -Telegraph UK
When you lie down with dogs, you’ll get up with fleas. What’s astounding to me is how [...]
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