Original Green

It is interesting to read about the origins of the anti-Semitic and misanthropic attitudes that seem to permeate the thinking of many 'Green' obsessed Utopianists.
http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2012/7-8/the-roots-of-green-politics-in-german-romanticism

Batman slays the dragon

I would hazard a guess that Frank Miller, author of Batman: Dark Knight Rises, doesn't think too highly of the 'Occupy movement':

“Occupy” is nothing but a pack of louts, thieves, and rapists, an unruly mob, fed by Woodstock-era nostalgia and putrid false righteousness. These clowns can do nothing but harm America.

“Occupy” is nothing short of a clumsy, poorly-expressed attempt at anarchy, to the extent that the “movement”  HAH! Some “movement”, except if the word “bowel” is attached - is anything more than an ugly fashion statement by a bunch of iPhone, iPad wielding spoiled brats who should stop getting in the way of working people and find jobs for themselves.

This is no popular uprising. This is garbage. And goodness knows they’re spewing their garbage “ both politically and physically “ every which way they can find.

Wake up, pond scum. America is at war against a ruthless enemy.

Go Frank!

To write or not to write?

Postman postulates on the effects of technology on the human mind. He quotes philosophers who questioned these issues more than 2500 years ago. I wonder whether the ignoramuses of modern education are even capable of reflecting on the potential pitfalls associated with making information
(take note: not knowledge!) so readily accessible.

In his collection of essays Technopoly Neil Postman demonstrates the argument against the use of writing through an excerpt from Plato's work Phaedrus (Postman, Neil (1992) Technopoly, Vintage, New York, pp 73). In this excerpt the scholar Socrates recounts the story of Thamus, the Egyptian king and Theuth the inventor of the written word. In this story, Theuth presents his new invention "writing" to King Thamus, telling Thamus that his new invention "will improve both the wisdom and memory of the Egyptians" (Postman, Neil (1992) Technopoly, Vintage, New York, pp 74). King Thamus is skeptical of this new invention and rejects it as a tool of recollection rather than retained knowledge. He argues that the written word will infect the Egyptian people with fake knowledge as they will be able to attain facts and stories from an external source and will no longer be forced to mentally retain large quantities of knowledge themselves.

Whilst this is not an argument against writing and therefore not against the irrevocable march of technological 'progress', nevertheless it is a warning against those who would champion each new development without guarding against its corollary influences.

Empty shells

This is Piers Ackerman at his descriptive best and talking about the open cesspool that is called (ironically) the Kings Cross. 

Those who come to gawk at the hookers or engage in ritual drunkenness are products of an education system that was debased by the Whitlam era libertarianism and is now firmly in the hands of ideologues who were taught by the Whitlamesque purveyors of hollow philosophies like moral relativism. Good manners and civility are sneered at. Empty-headed clothes horses and knuckle-headed sports figures are paraded as role models and fashions aren’t based on the aspirational, they are derived from the institutional.

Pour a morally rootless crowd into a 300m sliver of real estate bounded roughly by Bayswater Rd, Kellett St and Darlinghurst Rd, let them mass around the El Alamein fountain when they’re as full as state school buses and violence becomes a certainty.

In this hollow culture the added ingredients of booze and pyscho-stimulants are as volatile as nitro-glycerine. A glance is enough to spark an explosive outburst with lethal consequences.

 He nails the underlying worldview issues that are beginning to emerge as a cancer on our society  and are also shapers of the world to come. It is really quite depressing, particularly (I imagine) if you don't have a transcendent faith.
His mention of the 'hollow culture' resonates with me because one of my favourite poems of all time is the 'Hollow Men' by TS Eliot:

We are the hollow men

We are the stuffed men

Leaning together

Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

Our dried voices, when

We whisper together

Are quiet and meaningless

As wind in dry grass

Or rats' feet over broken glass

In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,

Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed

With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom

Remember us - if at all - not as lost

Violent souls, but only

As the hollow men

The stuffed men. This is progress then in the Gillard era. We have moved from individually being 'hollow men' into the collective, that is into becoming a 'hollow culture'.

Lord of technology

What an encouraging initiative. http://www.mercatornet.com/sheila_liaugminas/view/10989

This type of creative thinking in spreading the gospel and in serving the needs of others whilst doing so brings a spring back into my step.
Thank the good Lord that people like this are more plentiful than we or our secular 'leaders' acknowledge.

Mealy-mouthed liars.

Dang, this fellow tells it like it is-no holds barred. Away with the PC nonsense lets call a spade a spade.
I like it.
Pity there are not more like this in politics, life and church leadership. Sometimes our 'gatekeepers' try to be 'nicer' than Jesus...trying to accommodate the world.
http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2012/07/25/more-apostate-wolves/

Mr face-both-ways (Janus)

The statement by Barack Obama about Islam being a 'part of the fabric of America' reflects his aim to fundamentally transform American society. He is without doubt the most destructive president America has ever had and I find it difficult to believe that Christians could even think about voting for this deluded 'man'(?).
Read this for a theological perspective on his thinking: http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2012/07/22/welcome-to-the-islamic-states-of-america/