Arjay's Weblog

Just Beat It

A belt works good, but I've found that one of them Pope-On-A Ropes really gets a welt going.   :-))))

Where's my copy of Devo's Whip It ?.    :-))))  Or the Go-Go's We Got the Beat  ?

Wouldn't John Paul II have looked cool in one of those red Devo hats?    :-)))

The Pope's Self -Flagellation

http://kimriddlebarger.squarespace.com/the-latest-post/2010/1/28/the-popes-self-flagellation.html

Apparently, Pope John Paul II, whipped himself as an act of penance.  According to a recent article, "In his wardrobe, among his vestments, there hung on a clothes hanger a special belt for trousers which [John Paul] used as a whip," Monsignor Oder says.  He said self flagellation was `an instrument of Christian perfection" emulating the sufferings of Jesus Christ.'"  

I'm so thankful that Jesus bore my punishment for me and in my place!  

==================================

Just beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it
No one wants to be defeated
Showin' how funky and strong is your fight
It doesn't matter who's wrong or right
Just beat it, beat it
Beat it, beat it, beat it

Boy, you misinterpret Scripture and it really hurts.  :-)))))    I am pretty certain that John Paul II was doing this in accordance with 1 Corinthians 9:27.

I wonder if John Paul's belt was made of...are you ready for this?...fine, Corinthian leather.   (hat tip to Ricardo Montalban)    :-)))

From John Gill's Commentary on 1 Corinthians 9:27

1Co 9:27  But I keep under my body,.... The allusion is still to fighters, who, by cuffing and boxing, give their antagonists black and blue eyes, which is the proper signification of the word here used: so it is said (u)of Menedemus, that in questions or scholastic exercises, he was so vehement and pugnacious, that he never departed without õðùðéá öåñùí, "carrying away black and blue eyes". This is not to be understood by the apostle of his natural body, and of his keeping it under by immoderate watchings, fastings, and labours, or by whipping and scourging, and lying upon the bare ground, and other such practices; but of the body of sin, the corruption of nature, and of that being laid under some restraints; of the mortifying the deeds of the body through the Spirit, of crucifying the affections with the lusts, of putting off the old man with his deeds, as concerning the former conversation, and of making no provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof:

UPDATE:  Fine, Corinthian Leather Revisited

Now I KNOW I'm never gonna buy another Chrysler.  If you thought their powertrains were crap, read this.  It's from Wikipedia:

Corinthian leather was a phrase invented for marketing use to describe the leather used in certain Chryslerluxury cars in the 1970s. In this case, "Corinthian" does not actually indicate any relationship with Corinth, nor any specific type of leather and was added simply as a linguistic cachet. Although a marketing term "Corinthian leather" is actually made of the tanned skin of a Yak's foreskin.

Seen But Not Heard?

Al Mohler  -  Seen But Not Heard?
http://www.albertmohler.com/2010/01/22/newsnote-seen-but-not-heard/

Whatever happened to being seen but not heard? Diana West asks that question in a recent essay, noting that there has been a massive shift in Western culture away from adult authority and toward the "wise child." All around us are signs that authority and wisdom are now to be recognized in the young, rather than the old. This is nothing less than a reversal of what previous generations had believed and assumed.

Tough Love the Only Long-Term Cure for Haiti

One of my first thoughts after this earthquake was, "How do you go about rebuilding a slum?"

Give a man a fish he'll eat for a day.  Teach a man to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime.  That isn't being done in Haiti.

It's like Haiti's sister city, Detroit.  When you create a dependent class of people, the only muscles they have in their arms are the ones that reach for the handout.  The muscles needed to produce something, so to speak, simply atrophy.

My heart breaks for these people, but all the telethons and fundraising won't change anything.  It hasn't for many decades.

R.J.

Full text of the article below - highlights are mine.


Tough Love the Only Long-Term Cure for Haiti   -   by Jonah Goldberg
http://townhall.com/Common/PrintPage.aspx?g=bdd15be2-16ae-4915-9bee-1feec09ec60d&t=c

The images from Haiti are, if anything, only getting worse. What was left of an already fragile society is starting to break down, as violence and chaos take over. Despite the heroic efforts of aid workers and the battered Haitian government, it looks as if Haiti's problems will persist well into the 21st century, long after the debris is cleared and the houses are rebuilt.

While the scope of the tragedy in Haiti is nearly impossible to exaggerate, it's important to remember that last week's earthquake was so deadly because Haiti is Haiti.

If a similarly powerful earthquake were to hit much more densely populated San Francisco or Los Angeles, the death toll would be much lower. That's an amazing thing when you consider that American cities are crammed with skyscrapers while Port-au-Prince's skyline was, for the most part, one story high. Indeed, as others have noted, when a 7.1 earthquake hit the Bay Area two decades ago, 67 people were killed. Meanwhile, the Haitian death toll is almost unknowable, but almost certainly over 100,000 and climbing.

It's hardly news that poverty makes people vulnerable to the full arsenal of Mother Nature's fury. The closer you are to living in a state of nature, the crueler nature will be -- which is one reason why people who romanticize tribal or pre-capitalist life (that would be you, James Cameron) tend to do so from a safe, air-conditioned distance and with easy access to flushing toilets, antibiotics, dentistry and Chinese takeout.

The sad truth about Haiti isn't simply that it is poor, but that it has a poverty culture. Yes, it has had awful luck. Absolutely, it has been exploited, abused and betrayed ever since its days as a slave colony. So, if it alleviates Western guilt to say that Haiti's poverty stems entirely from a legacy of racism and colonialism, fine. But Haiti has been independent and the poorest country in the hemisphere for a long time.

Even if blame lies everywhere except among the victims themselves, it doesn't change the fact that Haiti will never get out of grinding poverty until it abandons much of its culture.

When Haitians leave Haiti for the U.S. they get richer almost overnight. This isn't simply because wages are higher here or welfare payments more generous. Coming to America is a cultural leap of faith, physically and psychologically. Arnold Kling and Nick Schulz note in their phenomenal new book, "From Poverty to Prosperity," that low-skilled Mexican laborers become 10 to 20 times more productive simply by crossing the border into the United States. William Lewis, former director of the McKinsey Global Institute, found that illiterate, non-English-speaking Mexican agricultural laborers in the U.S. were four times more productive than the same sorts of laborers in Brazil.

Why? Because American culture not only expects hard work, but teaches the unskilled how to work hard.  It's true that Haiti has few natural resources, but neither do Japan or Switzerland. What those countries do have are what Kling and Schulz call valuable "intangible assets" -- the skills, rules, laws, education, knowledge, customs, expectation, etc. -- that drives a prosperous society to generate prosperity. That is where the real wealth of nations is to be found -- not in factories, oil deposits and gold mines, but in our heads and in the habits of our hearts. Indeed, a recent World Bank study found that 82 percent of America's wealth could be found in our intangible assets.

Haiti's poverty stems from its lack of intangible capital. It shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic, and yet the Dominicans have six times the GDP (and are far better stewards of their environment).

Collectively, Haiti depends on the kindness of strangers much more than on itself. Before the earthquake, Haiti had 10,000 nongovernmental organizations working there, the highest rate per capita in the world. In 2007, notes Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal, they had 10 times as much foreign aid as investment. If people are determined to blame Haiti's problems on someone other than the Haitians, perhaps they could start by looking at the damage done by the foreign-aid industry.

I admit that I have a soft spot for Haiti, in part because the country is such an incredible underdog, and I've always admired the Haitian-Americans I've known. I also have Haitians in my family -- my brother is married to a Haitian immigrant.

So I say this with the best of intentions. Once the dead are buried, the wounded and sick healed and the rubble cleared, it's time for some tough love. Otherwise, Americans will just be back to clear the debris after the next disaster.

Joel and stuff...

As Elliot would say, (it's about all he can coherently say),

GOOD STUFF!

Joel is only 3 chapters long - check it out, yo!  I had a knot in my stomach looking at pics of the Haitian debacle and reading this was a balm.

Hey Joel, you the balm, baby!  :-))

I don't know about y'all, but I cannot wait until Christ returns and things like this are no more.

Peace!!!

R.J.

Joel 2:1-13 ESV

Blow a trumpet in Zion; sound an alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the LORD is coming; it is near, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness there is spread upon the mountains a great and powerful people; their like has never been before, nor will be again after them through the years of all generations.

Fire devours before them, and behind them a flame burns. The land is like the garden of Eden before them, but behind them a desolate wilderness, and nothing escapes them.  Their appearance is like the appearance of horses, and like war horses they run.

As with the rumbling of chariots, they leap on the tops of the mountains, like the crackling of a flame of fire devouring the stubble, like a powerful army drawn up for battle.  Before them peoples are in anguish; all faces grow pale.

Like warriors they charge; like soldiers they scale the wall. They march each on his way; they do not swerve from their paths.

They do not jostle one another; each marches in his path; they burst through the weapons and are not halted.

They leap upon the city, they run upon the walls, they climb up into the houses, they enter through the windows like a thief.

The earth quakes before them; the heavens tremble. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining.

The LORD utters his voice before his army, for his camp is exceedingly great; he who executes his word is powerful. For the day of the LORD is great and very awesome; who can endure it?

"Yet even now," declares the LORD, "return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;   and rend your hearts and not your garments." Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.

Israeli rabbis to Obama: Time for a biblical approach

Israeli rabbis to Obama:  Time for a biblical approach
http://www.israeltoday.co.il/default.aspx?tabid=178&nid=20300

Rabbi Dov Lior of Hebron concluded by reminding the Americans that their current and continued success as a world power is closely tied to the way they relate to Israel.

"God gave the US the power and influence to affect the rest of the world and supporting Israel is the key to America's success," said Rabbi Lior.

Dispensing with some dispensationalism...

It's pretty funny, but Rabbi Dov Lior isn't even a Jew, and I actually am, according to the Apostle Paul.  So I guess if we're gonna get all technical and stuff, that land is actually mine.   :-))))   Only a true Christian is really a Jew, in the biblical sense.  It wasn't just a coincidence that Pilate had a sign prepared in Aramaic, Latin and Greek that was fastened to the cross and read:  JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS.

The chief priests of the Jews protested to Pilate, "Do not write 'The King of the Jews,' but that this man claimed to be king of The Jews."  Pilate answered, "What I have written, I have written."   John 19:21-22


A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical.  No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man's praise is not from men, but from God.    Romans 2:28-29

This rabbi would make it sound like the only reason for the existence of the United States is to protect and defend Israel.  Perhaps he should turn to his god - the one who destroyed Pharaoh's army in the Red Sea for protection, rather than supporting Jewish lobbyists who put influence on our Congress.

How many billions of dollars have been appropriated to Israel since 1948, largely by Christian congressmen and senators who somehow felt it was their god-given duty to do so?  We shouldn't support nations militarily for these reasons but rather in our own national interests of self-preservation.  We still support Germany militarily and they helped carry out the Holocaust!  We support Germany because during the Cold War, the Soviet Union was a serious threat to both Western Europe and the United States.

It's wrong for some rabbi to put some kind of biblical guilt trip on a nation which has far greater purposes than simply helping national Israel to continue to exist.  For example, and the good rabbi would love this, I think our greatest calling as a nation has been to promote the Gospel of Jesus Christ - whom Rabbi Lior's spiritual forefathers nailed to a cross.