War - Currently an Unmarketable Concept

Well, he said sarcastically, if you don’t like the weather they are predicting a change.  If you’re tired of the ninety plus degree highs and lows in the high seventies we’ve had the past seven days, take heart- - they are predicting still hotter weather by the end of the week.  I believe they were predicting a 105 for around here by later in the week.  Now congress is debating this “war resolution” as they are all calling it.  People are acting- and Randy Rhodes is among them – that basically it’s an eight year war or nothing, with absolutely nothing in-between.  Never have I seen so many predictions of the end of the third act, before the curtain is even raised on the first act.  But I decided I would make it old home week, and I switched to Larry Elder at three.  He’s, if anything, gotten more combative over the years.  But it’s as though he prefers re-fighting the Iraq war over again.  In fact in response to Mc Cains about Al Qaeda in Iraq Larry responded “Well, that’s because we pulled out our troops too early”.  So if Larry Elder had his way we’d still be spilling blood in Iraq.  He then vouched for the veracity of – All Sixteen intelligence agencies in the Bush administration, all of they saying that they had high confidence there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.  Having said this he turns to a caller and says “Besides, if President Bush lied about us getting into Iraq- - then isn’t it logical that President Obama is a liar when it comes to today’s intelligence on Syria?   If you are looking for an Answer, Larry - - NO – that’s not a logical assumption at all.  But even Randy Rhodes fell into the identical logical pitfall arguing from the other side.  She said “If you would be paranoid if it were President Bush pushing this war- - then I don’t see how it makes the slightest difference, given the same set of facts, that it’s “someone you can trust” like President Obama”   Again if Randy wants an answer to that- - I’ll be happy to oblige.  If it were- for example a President Mc Cain calling for war now- - and he could still be President if he had won in 2008 - - then yes, I would gladly support a President Mc Cain in this war effort”.   Larry Elder than roomanated saying “Actually we know our real target is Iran, so I don’t see why we don’t cut to the chase in congress and just debate that”.  I remember a couple of things Newt Gingrich said in the Republican debates.  He said that the President was ignoring Syria, where the terrorist threat was real.  And that President Obama kept strangely silent when all those students were protesting in Iran, after Akmadenijab was reelected in 2009.  Now there is talk that Israeli intelligence has backed up our own on Syria, and that Israel too, feels Syria is a threat.  Larry Elder used the “pin prick” image.  Larry believes that if we are really going to war than we really ought to go hog wild.  But this President is timid.  He seems at times afraid of his own shadow.  He seems bent on reassuring the enemy that “This attack won’t change the balance of the civil war in Syria, and we have no interest in a regeme change”.   When you combine this with the idea that no general broadcasts exactly how he’s going to attack to the enemy, and then gives the enemy plenty of time after said announcement to get all of his defense fortifications in order and do things like locate missiles at schools and on the roofs of hospitals- - where they can sacrifice their own civilians for sympathetic play in the world press.   One called likened President Obama to Jimmy Carter and advised “Congress should go thumbs down at the president time and wait till we elect a Republican”.   Larry Elder- again in a fit of spite- - said “Well the President didn’t need the votes of any Republicans to pass the Affordable Care act and mocked them saying “We won the election”  but now he doesn’t talk so tough- - and he’s admitting he actually needs those Republican votes”.  And it would seem that John Boehner and Nancy Pelosi have both come on board with an affirmative vote.  But Larry Elder reminds us that for the first time since the 1700’s, English parliament voted thumbs down on War.  Larry says “We couldn’t get a yes vote with the conservatives in power”.

But I did watch a fair amount of “Face the Nation” and it’s refreshing to hear John Mc Cain because he’s the only guy whose making any sense now.  In the morning I had KFI on by mistake (?) and Rich Merada, their sports guy, and others were talking about Syria- - and there was the line of first getting over the hurdle that the thing really happened and wasn’t a fake, and “accepting” Bashier Assad as a “mad dictator”, which is harder because he looks like the local dentist or something.  He doesn’t have that typical “Mideastern” depraved look just to see his mug shot- - the way that someone like Saddam or Quadafi did.  But the “easy part” once you have decided there really is a problem- -is to go on and decide what we’re going to do about it.  But of course it’s too late because they put their fortifications and missiles in civilian areas such as hospitals and schools almost hoping someone will bomb them.  They are quite happy to sacrifice their own innocent civilians for the cause.  John Boehner and Mitch Mc Conell are at least civil tword the idea that they will have a chance in congress to debate this vital issue.

 

I realized before I did my grand treaties on “Resolved: The mystory of the true origen of Christianity has been Solved”.  I realized with all of these Epistles floating around - - possible back dated to increase their authority- - but still - - we know so little about the man who wrote them.  There was a book called Paul and Thecula, and this was a companion of the female perswasion, who was also a virgin.  Paul’s physical appearance is described in considerable detail.  I marveled with the ease at which this narrative flowed.  This book was written around AD 195.  Some of the material on Valentinus I have deemed as bogus, and things the real Valentinus never claimed.  Tertulian said that Valentinus and Marcion were both fallen Catholics.  I never thought Valentinus had ever been a Catholic.  He was excomunacated by the Pope one year, in Ad 143 the year before Marcion was, but before this Valentinus was active in the Catholic Church.  To me it’s almost “suspicious” that two gifted orators who founded major denominations - - should be kicked out of the “mother church” within a year of each other.  To me this smacks of bogus history.  He migrated to Rome in AD 136.  But here is something that was new- - Valentinus supposedly claimed to have “had a revelation of the risen Christ” around AD 120, when he was twenty.  He claims he got his teaching- - get this- - from a secret disciple of St Paul named Theudas - - who is listed nowhere in the New Testament as any acquaintance or disciple of Paul.  For one thing there would be an almost unbridgeable age gap knowing the last we hear from St. Paul is around AD 62.  There is one solution, of course, and that is that St Paul lived several decades later than people believe he did.  If for instance his “seventeen year ministry” began in the late ‘nineties - - then the view would almost make sense.  There is no record of Christianity’s existence in the reign of Domecian.  There were other books and book fragments I read either this afternoon or just now, including an “interesting” teaching dialog between Jesus and his desciples, where the sentence syntax is similar to Jesus’ own words.

They showed a Randy Rhodes rerun about the Missouri State Fair rodeo clown.  Now Rush Limbaugh says this is exactly the same thing as the Danish cartoons about Mohemed.  For one thing-  these cartoons were in another, far away country.  And there were riots and perhaps murders because of it.  Now in the case of the Rodeo clown you have the President of the United States, whom by inference respect is owed- - made the spectical of in a highly racist skit- - and there are almost no responses from our side.  Keep in mind this event wasn’t in some dingy nightclub on the wrong side of town but at a taxpayer funded State Fair, which isn’t supposed to be political;  it’s supposed to be a wholesome family event.  The White House completely ignored it.  One WH staffer remarked “This was not Missouri’s finest hour”.  But at the same time on the right it’s as though the democrats were proposing a whole new set of laws restricting the first amendment.  To them it is this imagined “response”, which they have to combat and it’s the worst thing since- - - I don’t know what.  Maybe the Nazis burning books.  There were howls and hysterics about defaming their newfound hero, right alongside Joe the Plumber and George Zimmerman.  You heard things like “the nation is falling apart”.  

This is Labor Day and Ebony K was on talking about inter racial relationships.  While inter race cohabiting is up from a couple decades ago, interracial marriage is not, and Ebony suggests that this has to do with cultural preservation.  She said something which to me seems counter intuitive.  She said that unions between white men and Black women weren’t all that common compared to Black men and white women.  Perhaps this is just a cultural bias on my part but I’m more personally inclined to notice a union with a Black man and a white woman, rather than the other way around.  For instance if Marcia were to start dating David Shaner, who is whiter than white, I wouldn’t think anything of it.  There is still that lingering cultural thing in my opinion about a Black man having sex with a White woman, that doesn’t exist the other way around.  But Ebony says that Black women are more loyal to their race and feel compelled to preserve the black family culture- - then are Black men, who show little cultural loyalty.  However in the case of the Asian culture it’s just the opposite where the least likely people to intermarry are Asian men, because of that cultural preservation thing.  Whereas Asian women have this long history of being prostitutes or mail order brides, and all that.  As to the donut thing with the women in black face advertizing chocolate donuts in Thailand- - I think this was an innocent mistake- - and it has boosted sales of chocolate donuts fifty percent.