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ARE WE WHAT WE VIEW, WATCH, HEAR, AND READ?
By James E. Unger (first in a series)
"You are what you eat," is a popular phrase heard today from the promoters and followers of diets. Could there be a correlation between what a person views, watches, hears, and reads and his behavior? Many ordinary people, religious, and philosophers maintain a belief in such a correlation.
"THE STORYTELLER"
Many years back on the WFMT-FM radio station the host stated that the most important profession in any culture is storyteller. Through storytelling we either create the world (or create a world view: Weltanschauung), in which everyone in our society understands their role and orders their values accordingly.
If one accepts this premise, one could see that if most people pattern their lives upon a common world view, they will not take kindly to a person who attempts to change this world view. As the Greek mythic figure Sisyphus was punished by the gods for challenging them, so have people punished those who view the world differently.
The Hebrew and Christian Scriptures tell us of the prophets who dared to challenge the order of the day, which the said did not hold the view of the world that God revealed. Those in political and ecclesiastical power punished and killed them.
Whose stories do we listen to? As a Christian I'm concerned that millions of people watch and view sexual and violent pornography ( I include [and now sadly] rated movies in pornography) and the tamer versions of the same story lines on broadcast television. I believe what one watches will influence one's behavior, filling up one's consciousness with images that crowd out others images of one's lived experience. Stories may form one's view of how life should be lived of it may reinforce behavior patterns. All types of entertainment, commercials, and edited news coverage tell us stories we might believe if not challenged.
"I can watch anything, it won't affect me," is a quote we hear often. If that is the case, why do people write books, editorials, scripts, newspaper columns, etc? Why are billions of dollars spent on entertainment? The Greek Philosopher, Aristotle, would say because people are influenced. Images sell, and people buy the images of commercials and change their behavior and views to what is seen as acceptable by the purveyors of taste and culture: the media and the entertainment establishment. Action is linked to image.
I will feature in the following weeks views expressed by ordinary people, religious, philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, and murderers.
THE HITCHHIKER
By James E. Unger
In the summer of 1982 on my way back from backpacking in the Rockies, I picked up a man hitchhiking along at an out-of-the-way part of the I-80 and I-29 interchange, across the Missouri from Omaha. I would have to say that God got me lost in answer to the hitchhiker's prayer as I would not have planned to pass that spot he was.
The hitchhiker started sharing his Faith as he noticed that I listened to Christian contemporary music. Together we listened to a talk show host challenge his phone-in listeners about how faithful they remain to Christ and His message if they allow themselves to be drawn into the fantasies of science-fiction storytelling.
The talk show host stated that if people were drawn to science-fiction that their minds would be filled with non-christian images and therefore Christ would not remain the Alpha and the Omega of their consciousness.
The hitchhiker told me that his Seventh Day Adventist congregation teaches its members not to attend movies, watch television shows, or listen to much of radio. The leaders would ask anyone, who did these things, how many converts did they bring to Christ. Those who did answered negatively.
Both the hitchhiker's congregation and the radio talk show host maintain that people are influenced negatively by what they took in as entertainment to the effect that one's Christianity and evangelistic outreach are damaged by one being in part "formed" by the view of mainstream, secular culture.
The Catholic Church maintains a film rating system as a service to guide its members to select films on both a moral basis and the maturity level of the viewer. Its lowest level is classified "O," morally objectional.
NOTE: You may look at the explicit detail of current movies by clicking onto the -Parents Guide- to Movies on the "Ultimate Questions" page. Such detail spared a reader of this web-page from seeing "Hannibal."
"THE RANDDOM (SERIAL) KILLER"
Some criminal psychiatrists and sociologists contend that a whole generation has been numbed by watching thousands of TV murders in which victims do not appear to suffer.
David Berkowitz (a.k.a..Son of Sam) of New York City was stunned during his first murder when the 14-year-old girl he knifed screamed and fought back. "I wasn't going to rape her or take her money. I was only going to kill her," he told an author, Dr, David Abrahamsen. "It wasn't like the movies, where the stabbed person falls down and is killed."
Though serial murders are definitely not the average person, their actions point to how entertainment images alter one's view of reality. One wonders if Berkowitz could have been altered from his rampage of murder IF he had been sensitized by our entertainment with a closer look at the pain suffered by victims of violence. Maybe.
I grant that serial murders would act deviantly even if they did not murder, due to abused or deeply dysfunctional childhoods which sometimes causes neurological damage. However I maintain that some storytelling materials (movies, magazines, video/computer games) catalyze them so to heat up and ignite frustrated passion and anger into bloody orgies of human carnage.
Many serial killers fine outlets for their vivid sexual fantasies in pornography. One man, named Kemper, scoured magazines for pictures of corpses and frequented "snuff" movies in which the sexual act is a prelude to murder. "That didn't make me mean," he says. "It just fueled the fire."
Cornell University human development professor, Dr. James Garbarino, stated this week in an address at NIU: "(Point and shoot video games and target practice) don't make you a killer. But it gets you ready."
"Parents should limited children's access to violent movies, television, and video games as they break down inhibitions to killing."
Civil libertarians fight the war against censorship of pornography, being more sensitive to free expression (The U.S. Constitution states freedom of speech NOT expression) rights than to the right-to-life of the victims of sexual violence. Several decades ago, ordinances to ban films portraying women as objects of violent and sexual exploitation were struck down in both Minneapolis and Indianapolis by the courts.
One wonders if pornography did not enjoy social approval and ready access as quick as a "click" on the web, maybe murderers would not find moral encouragement in the world view of these media-storytellers.
WHAT THE SCRIPTURES SAY
"Do not conform yourselves to this age (culture), but be transformed by the renewal of your mind (by meditating on the Gospel message), so that you may judge what is God's will, what is good, pleasing, and perfect.
I declare that you must no longer live as the pagans do: their minds empty, their understanding darkened. Namely, that you must lay aside your former way of life and old self which deteriorates through illusion (moves TV, other entertainment) and desire, and acquire a fresh, spiritual way of thinking. You must put on that new man created in God's image, whose justice and holiness are born of truth.
If our Gospel can be called 'veiled' in any sense, it is such as only for those who are headed toward destruction. Their unbelieving minds have been blinded by the god (culture) of the present age so that they do not see the splendor of the Gospel showing forth the glory of Christ, the image of God."
Can some of the successors of Paul's Christian evangelism succeed in convincing their people to question present governmental policies in light of the Christian story of love and peace if their people's minds are filled with the stories of sexual immorality and violence?
Paul would say no. Paul would say, they must absent themselves from this age's secular storytelling and devote much time to Scripture reading in order to have their minds renewed. Then they would be open to the solid food of mature Christian evangelism.
I predict that the American Catholic bishops will not evangelize most of the people until they convince the people to reject most of this age's storytelling or entertainment and devote much time in building up their spirituality.
The Christian Apostle Paul believed that one needs to reject the images of one's unchristian cultural storytelling. "lay aside your former way of life and old self," in order to have the psychic space to be able to be formed in Christ: "to put on that new man."
What themes and images are often repeated in this age's storytelling? Any type of sexual conduct is okay, the more the merrier and with whomever. Violence and sexual acts are show explicitly to excite and thrill the audience, much like the "fun" at ancient Rome's Coliseum and its orgies. It's been said that if something is repeated over and over, people begin to accept it without thought.
If one does not reject one's former self, can one form a new self? Paul would answer no. Can we build a more just and peaceful society if many people's consciousness are inundated with stories of immoral sex and violence? Paul would say no.
The Bible verses are from Romans 12:2, 2 Corinthians 4:3-4, Ephesians 4:17 and 22-24, 1 Corinthians 3:2, Hebrews 5:14.
WHAT SOCRATES AND PLATO SAID
Now you know the beginning is always the chief thing in every process, especially for whatever is young and tender: for it is then most easily molded and each takes the shape which you which to impress upon each."
"Than shall we just carelessly allow the children to hear any chance fables (stories) molded by chance (random) person (TV, movies, the web, books, magazines), and to receive in their souls opinions which are generally contrary to those we believe they ought to have when they grow up?"
"Most certainly not."
"Then first, as it seems, we must set up a censorship over the fable-makers (storytellers), and approve any good fable they make and disapprove the bad..."
Plato felt so strongly about the role of storytelling that he wanted censorship in his proposed republic. He seemed disgusted with the state of storytelling in his age that he said, "The poets and storytellers were wrong about men in the most important matters."
These storytellers seemed to upset his view of the relationship between happiness and justice and he believed that his society would be undermined by wrong storytelling for storytellers narrate (create a world view) of "what has been, or is, or will be..."
In his Republic, Plato made a connection between the functioning of the city-state and the character of the story-telling present within it. Likewise, he made a connection between a person's health and what he ate.
WHAT SHOULD WE TAKE FROM PLATO'S BOOK, THE REPUBLIC?
What he proposed for government action, we should appropriate for INDIVIDUAL ACTION:
Self-censorship of what we view, watch, hear, and read.
Is the information useful giving us a glimpse of the true signs-of-times?
Do we evaluate entertainment as to its ability to build us up in the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, mildness, and chastity?
Plato's proposals for government action are however very dangerous: look at the application of his "philosopher-king's" concept to the life of Communist China's Ma-TseTung and the resultant death of 65-million Chinese.
Plato said in so many words, you are what you view, watch, hear, and read.
WHAT ARISTOTLE SAID
Similar to the first section of the series, "The Storyteller," Aristotle saw the link between images and action. We receive very strong and basic images in commercials. We view the same commercial over and over and the message is implanted strong and deeper each time we view it.
"To the thinking soul, images serve as if they were contents of perception (and when it asserts of denies them to be good or bad it pursues or avoids them). That is why the soul never thinks without an image." {from Aristotle's "Metaphysics"
Who is better known to American children than Santa Claus? Ronald McDonald, the personality image of McDonald's commercials.
What is the name of Dorothy's Dog in the "Wizard of Oz?"
"Who Wants to be a ___________?"
"Is that your _______ answer?"
As illustrated by the above examples, we (Americans) are at least formed to know the answers to the above four questions, because we are (our knowledge) what we view, watch, hear, and read.
Aristotle said, "what acts and what is acted upon are like, in another unlike; for example
prior to and during the change the two factors are unlike, after it like."
We are acted upon during the commercials, TV programs, and movies, music, and radio. Are people aware of the significance of this? If they are, maybe they won't accept everything as give and won't be formed by what they watch. However, the big advertisers supplant lesser firm's products, because the lesser firms don't advertise as much.
We are affected by what we view, watch, hear and read. If we were not, we would not be human. We have the sense to be affected. "that what can smell can be affected by what produces smell only in so far as it has in it the power to smell (similarly with the proper objects of all the other senses).
We receive into our consciousness "the sensible forms of a thing without the matter." We therefore can WITHOUT REFLECTION integrate into our mind most of what we view, watch, hear and read. We are bombarded by messages so constantly, that we may not be able to resist the sense stimulation, so as to give ourselves psychic space to reflect and discern.
The media in our "open" society has produced TV shows which SATIRE the messages given us by our society's storytellers. However, as satire attacks the world views of these storytellers, it grudgingly accepts the domination of the world views because it offers no replacement for the world views.
So, even if one is aware of us being negatively affected by a world view, one may accept it.
Unless one is of strong will and vigilant, we can conclude from the views of ordinary people, philosophers, religious, psychologists and murderers that we are what we view, watch, hear, and read.
Conversely, as we can change our body by what we eat and drink, we can change our minds by CHANGING what we view, watch, hear, and read: positively or negatively.
Christians have attempted and still maintain radio and television networks to give us a
choice between our society's largely nihilistic entertainment and the Gospel (Good News). Some have even been largely entertainment, not just preaching, education, and news.
As a Christian, I believe we need the churches to revitalize their storytelling capabilities to bring society the Gospel anew. We also need parables and prophets to turn our age's world view upside down.
Individually we can "reprogram" ourselves and the world by choosing in the Holy Spirit to ACT the Good News as best as we understand against our own sinful limitations.
We Christians largely know how the end turns out, we have the great and mysterious book of Revelations!
We individually and collectively CHOOSE between life and death
when we CHOOSE what we view, watch, hear, and read.
Closing thoughts and prayers from Goethe's Faust and Mainz's 9th Century Archbishop Hrabanus Maurus:
German with the (English translation):
Latin with the (English translation):
Ewiger Wonnebrand, (Eternal Bliss-firebrand,)
Gluehendes Liedeband, (glowing Love-bond,)
Siedender Schmerz der Brust, (seething Pain in the Breast,)
Schaeumende Gottelust .. (frothing Divine-joy)..
Sind Liebesboten, sie verkuenden, "Are Love-messengers, they proclaim,)
Was ewig schaffend uns umwallt. (Which always [are]shaping us- [us]surround.)
Mein Inneres moeg es auch entzunden(My inner[self], may it also illuminate)
Wo sich der Geist, verworren, kalt (where it [is] in Spirit, confused, cold)
Verquaelt in stumpfer Sinne Schranken(struggles in dull Senses bound)
Scharfangeschlossnem Kettenschmerz ([in]sharply-locked chain-[of]-pain)
O Gott! Beschwichtige die Gedanken, (Oh God! Hush the thoughts,)
Erleuchte mein beduerftig Herz! (Enlighten my needy Heart!)
Veni, creator spiritus. (Come, Creator Spirit)
Accende lumen sensibus, (Kindle [with] light our senses,
Infunde amorem cordibus. (Infuse [your] love into our hearts.)
Archives from the Remembrance and Awaiting Page
The Black Book of Communism:
Crimes, Terror, Repression
Such is the title of the book published by Harvard Press and written by
Stephan Courtois, Nicolas Werth, Jean-Louis Panne, Andrezej Pazkowski,
Karel Bartosek, and Jean-Louis Margolin
Excerpts from the Home News Tribune review:
"When this book was published in France, it immediately became a best seller."
The heart of the "Black Book" is a compilation and description of the slaughters
Visited upon populations around the world by communist dictators in the 20th Century.
- USSR: 20 -to- 30 million deaths
- China : 65 million
- North Korea: 2 million
- Vietnam: 1 million
- Cambodia: 2 million
- Eastern Europe: 1 million
- Latin America: 150,000.
- Africa: 1.7 million
- Afghanistan: 1.5 million
- Red parties not in power: 10,000.
"Why such a deafening silence from the academic world regarding the communist catastrophe which touched the livers on one-third of humanity on four continents during a period spanning eighty years?"
"Cupidity, spineless, vanity, fascination with power, violence, and revolutionary fervor"
"We now know for certain because of the opening of the Kremlin file cabinets that Alger Hiss, and many other Americans, including members of Congress, spied for or worked for the Soviets in America."
"Are these revelations embarrassing?"
My comments: We should not forgot these hundreds of millions.
There is a monument in Bloomingdale, Illinois at St. Andrew's Ukranain Orthodox Church with a monument to the 9-million Ukranians starved by "Uncle Joe Stalin."
Next time you are driving down Army Trail Road, just east of Glen Ellyn Road, drive to the southern part of the parking lot and pay your respects.
And educate your children, that evil comes also from the Left, not just the so-called Right.
Next time some propose a "world-order" solution to "environmental problems" such as
global warming, look at the fine wording of any proposed agreement or treaty. Make sure there is no surrender of sovereignty explicitly or implicitly (bureaucratic regulations against top-load washers have been proposed for the US).
Keep informed! Be cynical!
GOOD ESCAPED EVIL(series in March 2001 AD)
(From an interview granted in 1990 by Father Blase Karas, O.F.M.)
Two humanisms, Nazism and Communism, obstensibly created to bring progress to mankind did quite the opposite.
The Communists enforced -progress- by starving millions of Ukrainians in addition to purges and other atrocities in their rule of the Soviet Union and many other lands.
The Nazis created "progress" through genocide.
A, Anatoli Kutnetsov, the author of Babi Yar also states that when his Ukrainian town was temporarily abandoned by both armed forces of humanistic "progress" during World War II, the townspeople experienced for the first and only time the spiritual gift of freedom from regimented domination and also enjoyed material sustenance.
Into such an age was born Father Blase Karas, O.F.M in the year of 1930 in the town of
Milow in formerly southeastern Poland, the ninth of ten children. As a boy, Father Blase, then named Edward, desired to become a priest.
Father Blase's father died just before the war. When the Communists, in temporary collusion with the Nazis started World War II, invaded Poland, they exiled the Karas family to Siberia. When General Sikorski of the Polish Army made an agreement with Stalin, the Polish men were "freed" from Siberia and "allowed" to fight in the Red Polish Army against the former allies, the Nazis. Stalin's subsequent amnesty allowed the Karas family to travel to British protection while two brothers fought with the 2nd corp of the Red Polish army. Nonetheless, one sister died in Siberia during childbirth. While awaiting entry into British India, Fr. Blase's mother died in Iran as a result of weakness from starvation suffered in Siberia.
Father Blase and his remaining siblings spent the years from 1942 to 1947 in India. A priest, in charge of the orphanage and refugee camp, sent Father voluntarily to the United States to be educated, along with sixteen other Polish refugee boys, by the Franciscans of the Assumption Province.
As Father believed that God sent him into the midst of the Assumption Province, he took that occasion as God's answer to his prayers about priesthood and decided to become a Franciscan friar and Franciscan priest.
Father Blase entered the novitiate of the Assumption Province of the Franciscans in 1950.
He made his solemn profession of "obedience, poverty, and chastity" in 1954. He was ordained in 1959.
Ten years later, in response to the Second Vatican Council's challenge for the religious to rediscover the roots of their orders and the charisms of their founders, Father Blase and other Franciscans moved to the inner city of Chicago to live and witness among the poor. Before forming the "Gospel Brother," they became acquainted with the inter-denominational professed brotherhood of the "Taize Brothers." They spent a month in prayer with them to discover the "simple lifestyle."
On their very first day with the "Taize Brothers" they were introduced to the Holy Spirit's renewal of charisms (II Corinthians 12) as the future "Immaculate Conception of Mary" prayer group met there. Since then, Father has been involved in the Charismatic Renewal in the Catholic Church.
In the 1972 Father Blase met Mr. Fritz Czachor at a charismatic prayer meeting at Loyola University. As Father helped out with Masses at St. Pancratius, Fritz's parish, he agreed with Fritz to lead a small gathering of charismatics at Fritz's apartment next to the church.
Later the prayer group, "Our Father's House," moved to the school hall and later to the church basement as the numbers of attendees grew. As a member I remembered the growth of that night prayer group with a lot of people including numerous singles praising the Lord on Saturday night. At times we had about 150 people. On special occasions the numbers would swell even more.
After Father Blase celebrated the silver jubilee of his priesthood in 1984, he was able to travel to England for a reunion of his brothers and sisters who live in Australia, Canada, the UK and the USA.
In 1990 Father ministered Wednesdays on the Chicago's north side at Friendship House to the homeless (including Polish immigrants) and at a Polish charismatic prayer meeting at St. Hyacinth. He lived with the Franciscans ministering at "The Port" (soup kitchen and homeless shelter on the south side. He also ministered to recovering alcoholics and
homeless just released from the hospital.
During the 1990's Father Blase went back to Europe to minister.
To Russia in fact.
After receiving permission, for off-and-on for about 6-years Father Blase would
stay in Russia for 6 to 8 months at a time and then would return home for 3 or so months.
He ministered to Russians and Russian Catholics in the city of Novosibirsk in Russian Siberia, a large cultural city of about one million inhabitants. He helped pastor a church for about 200 people. The local bishop built an new church during Father's stay, one of the first built since the beginning of the Soviet terror.
I met Fr. Blase again the Saturday after Thanksgiving 2000 at a small reunion of
Our Father's House prayer group. He states that he is back in the US to stay.
It's amazing that a man, even though a priest dedicated to the forgiveness wrought by
Jesus Christ would go back to a land that caused him and his family great pain.
Father Blase stated that during his lifetime, even in the worst times, he has always been "conscious of God's providence. God has things under His control!"
Article, 22.April 2001 AD:
Governor "Billary" Ryan
We have an Illinois governor whose memories of events are as lucid as U.S. Senator Clinton when she responded
to questions about her brother Hugh Rodham's payment in helping secure a pardon from her husband.
From the world's "smartest" women, one could never have heard more "I don't know-s," than from her.
The same goes for our governor, George Ryan.
His chief investigator, Dean Bauer, just found out he has to serve more time than six-months for the series
of events which may have culminated in the death of the six Willis children in Milwaukee, from a part falling from
a truck (accidents happen even with properly licensed truck drivers.)
As Secretary-of-State, Governor Ryan just seems to never knew what when on in his office.
Either that is true or he is incompetent.
Coupled with ignorance (or political corruption): Governor Ryan vetoed reasonable parental notification of
a child having an abortion, his support of the so-called "Gay Rights Law," and his support of ever-expanding
gambling. Governor Ryan has forfeited my support as a very Republican and conservative voter.
For he has added to ignorance and political corruption proof of his immoral turpitude.
I can NOT stomach the Clintons. Hence, I can NOT stomach Governor Ryan and like-minded politicians such as our "Catholic" politicians including US Senator Dick Durbin and Chicago Mayor Daley.
For before I'm a conservative Republican, I'm a Christian who holds that moral foundations and not finances
are the bedrock of society. Without morality, everything else will shift on the quicksand of shifting moral
ethos.
Ryan also reminds me of the allegedly Catholic Mayor Dick Daley of Chicago who supports gay rights, gambling,
etc. By the way, I've worked with practicing homosexuals, had a relative who was: from personal knowledge and probably backed up empirically there is no job discrimination against them as Illinois State Senator Pate Phillips states - passage of this "gay rights law" is only to promulgate their lifestyle and choice as morally equivalent.
Unlike the Willis' children who passed through a fiery death to a heavenly life: you Ryan, Daley, Clinton, and like-minded politicians are headed for eternal fire: unless you sincerely repent.
Before then, don't count on my vote!
Hey Democrats, renominate your last candidate for governor and you will reap many cross-over voters, he's the type of moral person we like.
James E. Unger
SOURCE: (Illinois) Daily Herald 4-17-01 "Gay rights bill splits state Republicans"
Daily Herald 4-19-01 "Judge rejects plea deal."
An Alaskan Response to my attack of an Environmental Whacko Petition
"hey-ho let's all be enviro-friendly...
you forgot the part about the 'pristine' alaskan
beauty to be lost due to drilling!
now let's see:
crude oil makes-
ethane,methane,propane,butane as light ends
asphaltics, paraffins, greases, heavy oils as bottoms
gasoline and feedstalks midrange
sooooooo
IF you are truly environment conscious you cannot in
clear conscience use:
plastics, oils [any kind even veggie], glass, colors,
paint, vinyl, linoleum, wax, makeup, aerosols,
shampoo, soap, detergent, any motored appliance, any
gasoline/kerosene drven apparatus, wear any clothing
except wool/cotton/linen you grow/harvest/spin/
weave/knit by hand w/o use of fertilizer except that
produced by you/your animals, no heat except wood from
your own lot, you cut/split/hauled using no petro-
based products [nope can't grease them wooden wheels
son], no air cooling except fan you wave [carved or
woven], NOTHING mass produced or machine made, not
even on your pedal sewing machine [they've used
petro-based machine oil since civil war, doubt you
have working one older'n that. walk to work if you
can find any w/o using petro-based parts... now, what
was that you said about 'pristine ANWR? oh yeah, where
if you stand up you're the tallest thing in sight,
the 'land' is muskeg not dirt, but s'ok cause in
summer it's frozen jus 12" below the water soaked
surface & in winter it's frozen 2' above surface. Yup, ain't it beeootifull!year round residents are
mosquitos, voles, mosquitos, lemmings, mosquitos,
foxes, mosquitos...th avg summer temp is 65F, winter
-15F. th mountains are bare rock w/lichen, marmots,
ground squirrel, eagles, some bear maybe. you wanna
live there? cool let's ship all of you up to
survivalist hell, even eskimo don't mess with it and
they've perfected living in the harshest cold land
habitable on earth!
so enviro-nuts, load up! oh, please dispose of your
stuff and plant 10 leafy trees on your lot before you
go to help replenish the owygen we're losing with
every rain forest tree felled...
MY LETTER
Dear Folks:
(sent to about 20 people on a mass e-mail transmission)
"Tectonic plate movements, etc can cause global warming:
a corrollary between human pollution and warming may / may not indicate
cause / effect.
When you environmental whackos solemnly pledge and actually live the
following lifestyle:
vegetarianism, non-leather shoes, 50 degree Farenheit heat in winter, no
airconditioning in
summer, carry your human waste to a landfill (or recycle it into your
garden), give up your cars
and your second homes, castrate yourselves, and finally donate 50% of your
income to the poor in Third-world countries: THEN I MIGHT LISTEN!
Until then stop preaching socialistic world-control
under-the-guise-of-enviromentalism.
We know YOU are; you the cognitive-elite, but wisdom-poor folk can kiss my__________!
(Ihr kannt meine ________ lecken!)
MfG!
James E. Unger
proud supporter of George W. Bush!
proud supporter of freedom and probably more ecologically-friendly in my
personal habits
than you gov't-control freaks are!
-------------------------------------------------------------
Kill yourselves you ugly human beings, die!! ! ! ! !
!
-------------------------------------------------------------
As you read below start humming from John Lennon's
"Imagine" as you slip an overdose in your mouth!
-------------------------------------------------------------
ENVIRONMENTAL WHACKO PETITION:
Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2001 7:22 AM
Subject: Ecology petition
Please help to stop this yankee ecology disaster!!!!!
President Bush recently announced that the United States
Government will not honour its commitments under the 1997 Kyoto
Protocol to reduce greenhouse gases. The United States produce
25% of the world's carbon dioxide, a gas that is believed to be the
main contributor to global warming.
Rising global temperatures are known to raise sea levels, and
changeprecipitation and other climate conditions.
Changing climates alter forests, crop yields, and water supplies. It
could
also
threaten human health, and harm birds, fish, and many types of
ecosystems.
An increase in weather-related disasters will occur, deserts may
expand into existing range lands, densely populated coastal areas will
flood and large numbers of people will have to move.
from the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on Global Warming. Urge
President Bush to review his policy in this matter and devise a
comprehensive plan to reduce US emissions of so-called greenhouse gases.
Sign your name, town and country of residence at the bottom of this
e-mail, copy the entire text of this e-mail (do NOT use the forward
button), into a new message and send it to as many people as possible.
ACT against THREAT to your MEDICAL PRIVACY!
"Thwart the time bomb left by our beloved....."
An Urgent Letter From Christopher Ruddy, Editor of
NewsMax.com
Dear Fellow American:
I am writing to you about an urgent threat to your personal
medical records.
In a matter of just weeks, by April 14, Sec. of Health &
Human Services Tommy Thompson will decide whether new federal
rules - imposed by Bill Clinton by executive order in the
last weeks of his administration - will go into effect.
These outrageous rules will give millions of government
bureaucrats, clerks in insurance companies, HMOs and even
drug marketing companies access to your confidential medical
records without your permission.
If these regulations go into effect, you can kiss your
medical privacy goodbye.
NewsMax.com has an Emergency Mailgram petition to stop these
rules from becoming law:
http://www.newsmaxstore.com/actiongram/med_petition_splash.cfm
Mailgram
Under the new regulations, your medical records must be
turned over to the government, where they will permanently
be kept on file - in effect, creating a lifetime government
medical history on every American.
Let me explain briefly how these new regulations came about.
In the closing days of the Clinton administration, Bill
Clinton snuck into the federal register - over last
Christmas holiday when no one was paying attention - over
368 pages of new federal rules regarding the privacy of your
medical records.
In true Orwellian fashion, in the name of "protecting your
privacy," Clinton abolished the privacy of all medical
records from government.
Here is what the new Clinton rules would mean for you:
* Dozens of government agencies and tens of thousands of
bureaucrats will have access to your medical files - even
if you paid for the services.
* The government will have full access to all electronic
stored medical records - including the private notes of
psychiatrists.
* Without your consent, government can release your medical
records to others, including insurance companies, drug
manufacturers, and other "third parties" - all without your
consent!
* Your personal, genetic DNA code will be registered with the
government and could eventually be incorporated into a
national ID card.
* Whether you like it or not, you will be assigned a "unique
health identifier," which will be used to track your medical
history from birth until death.
* If you try to block government access to your medical
files, your doctor can be fined or even ordered by
government agents to refuse to provide you with medical
care. If you demand that your doctor not share your files
without your permission, he can refuse you medical
treatment.
These new Clinton "medical privacy" regulations are not new.
Remember Hillary's failed Health Care Plan? That plan tried
to gain government access to your medical records as well.
But the Clintons didn't give up. At the last minute, they
underhandedly tried to make law what Congress and the people
said "NO" to.
If they are not stopped soon, at the push of a button, IRS
agents, the DEA, local police, insurance companies, and
others will have access to every detail of your medical
history and the medical history of every member of your
family.
Join NewsMax.com in stopping these regulations.
Go to:
http://www.newsmaxstore.com/actiongram/med_petition_splash.cfm
Mailgram
Government bureaucrats and police will know if anyone in
your family has ever had a drinking problem, used illegal
drugs, had an abortion, been treated by a psychiatrist,
suffered from impotence, or a sexually-transmitted disease,
or some other embarrassing medical condition.
Imagine if a nosy neighbor who was a government official
wanted to do some snooping on you. We also know how easily
government officials and others "leak" confidential
information... you could be a target.
The new "no privacy" laws will also destroy trust between
you and your doctor.
The new "no privacy" regulations sound like something you
would expect in Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. But unless
we act IMMEDIATELY, in less than 30 days, they will be the
law of the land in America.
In just a few weeks, the comment period expires, and Sec.
Thompson - Pres. Bush's new secretary of Health and Human
Services - says he will then make his final decision. There
is enormous pressure on Thompson by big insurance companies
and HMOs to keep the Clinton rules and sadly the Bush
administration has said nothing to indicate that it will
block Clinton's rules.
So you have very little time to act if you wish to preserve
your medical privacy.
NewsMax.com is fighting to protect your medical records.
You might think that the mainstream media would be shouting
as loud as possible about this huge and urgent threat to
your medical privacy. But the shocking reality is that
liberal media LOVES the idea of government control of your
health care - including unlimited government access to your
medical records.
That's why you haven't heard a word about it in your local
newspaper.
The big media has kept the lid on the fact that the American
Association of Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), one of the
nation's most respected organizations of doctors, has sent
an urgent advisory to their membership and the press warning
them about the dangers of the new Clinton rules.
Fortunately, the establishment media is no longer the only
game in town.
You can bypass the media and let Congress know how you feel:
http://www.newsmaxstore.com/actiongram/med_petition_splash.cfm
Mailgram
NewsMax.com, which I head, has become the leading
conservative online news agency in America. We also publish
a nationally recognized monthly magazine.
You've heard about us on programs like Rush Limbaugh,
Hannity & Colmes, the O'Reilly Report, and Fox News Live.
Nationally syndicated radio host, Michael Reagan, says
NewsMax.com is his "favorite" online news agency.
NewsMax.com is leading the fight to preserve your medical
privacy and to stop the new Clinton "no privacy" regulations
and other threats to your freedom.
We urgently need your help to stop this.
Although NewsMax.com reaches many, because of the big media
news blackout and the very short time we have left, we are
definitely fighting an uphill battle.
We urgently need your help to stop the Clinton "no-privacy"
laws by alerting the great majority of the American people who
have heard nothing about them. If enough Americans can be
informed quickly, we can still stop the Clinton rules before
your medical privacy is eliminated.
Here is what you can do NOW to protect your medical records:
FIRST, file an urgent petition with Sec. Thompson, Pres.
Bush and every member of Congress, and the Senate.
We have created a special program where we can blast all of
Washington with hard copies of your petition, which we will
hand deliver to Sec. Thompson and every member of Congress.
This effort is taken more seriously by politicians than
e-mails or phone calls, although those help too and you
should use them as well.
SECOND, help us launch our national emergency awareness
campaign - "Protect Medical Privacy" - by helping us buy ads
that will appear in major newspapers throughout America, on
major Internet sites, and - if we receive enough support -
on scores of radio stations.
We have very little time left and we urgently need your help.
Please fill out your Emergency Mailgram today:
http://www.newsmaxstore.com/actiongram/med_petition_splash.cfm
Mailgram
Thank you!
Yours for America,
Christopher Ruddy, President
P.S.: Our efforts have already gotten some significant
support. Dr. Miguel Faria, editor of The Medical Sentinel,
the Journal of the American Association of Physicians and
Surgeons, says, "NewsMax.com is doing vital work to expose
Bill Clinton's invasion of your medical privacy. Make sure
your voice is heard by Congress, make sure your medical
records remain confidential and help NewsMax.com inform
America about this vital issue."
Time is short; act now! Click here to make a difference:
http://www.newsmaxstore.com/actiongram/med_petition_splash.cfm
Mailgram
..and keep checking http://www.NewsMax.com for all the
latest news and commentary.
The Friendly, Progressive Worker's Paradise!
China's air force and naval power was expected to catch up with Taiwan in 2005, as the mainland continued its double-digit growth each year in defense spending since 1989.
Its use of cruise missiles and electronics warfare with precision and power to paralyse the island was the most worrisome.
The Pentagon is currently weighing a Taiwanese request for advanced weapons, including Aegis destroyers and PAC-3 defenses against short-range missiles.
US arms sale to Taiwan are a major disagreement between Washington and Beijing, which has vowed to use force against Taiwan should the island declare independence or stall on talks for reunification.
The base near Xianyou was the second CSS-7 missile base within range of Taiwan and the first CSS-7 base was completed last year near Yongan, the Washington Post said.
Another missile base, the regional headquarters of all missile forces, was located further north at Leping of Jiangxi province, it said. About 100 CSS-6 missiles were deployed there, it added
A US spy satellite has located the missile base as being several miles (kilometers) northeast of Xianyou in China's southeastern Fujian province, about 135 miles (216 kilometers) from Taiwan, The Washington Times reported on Thursday.
It said about 100 CSS-7 short-range ballistic missiles and mobile launchers were deployed there.
COMMENT BY JAMES E. UNGER
Communist China has spit in our face before and has the nerve to ask for the Olympics game. See the View and Opinions page for the web-link to protest this bid.
Is this arms buildup a result of President Clinton's arms for Communist Chinese bankrolling of his campaings? Hey, not even FDR got this rosey treatement from Uncle Joe Stalin!
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AN INTERCESSORY PRAYER
Adapted from Mary Ann Dusza
LOVING FATHER, we ask you to look with favor on the sick and suffering who have recommended themselves to our prayers.
We join our faith to theirs, in seeking Your mercy.
Remove the bonds of pain and disease,
Strengthen weak limbs, revive and refresh those who are weary, revitalize the depressed and despondent, comfort those who grieve.
Free those who are in spiritual, emotional, or mental distress, and call back to You those who have turned away from You.
JESUS, DIVINE PHYSICIAN, place Your hand in healing over each person for whom we pray as we unite their sufferings with those of Your Passion.
May Your healing presence fill each onE with peace and strength and a new awareness of Your loving care and concern.
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Don't Give Up!
by The Reverend John Krause of the Church of Christ
Over the last couple of years I have spoken with Christians who work in secular jobs, and those who work in and through the Church for a living. Many I'm sorry to say, are struggling with their walk. They struggle with questions concerning hardships they are facing and why there is no relief from the pain/troubles in their lives.
I often ache to share with them that God cares about them and that He has not forgotten them. Often we don't understand why we are suffering, when we are doing our best to live a godly life in Christ Jesus. It can be very frustrating and I'm sorry to say that we will not always understand why we suffer. Yet regardless of that sad fact, God will bring good out of that situation cf. Rom.8:28-30.
Consider for a few moments two prophets from the Old Testament who suffered greatly. Jeremiah preached doom and destruction upon Judah right before and during the time Judah went into exile to Babylon. Jeremiah was put in stocks, thrown into prison, beaten, thrown into a pit of mud and left to die, kidnapped, nearly starved to death and on and on. He knew what was going to happen to Judah because of the rampant idolatry and immorality that they had indulged in for so long. Yet, I'm sure that there were times where he wondered why he had to suffer as much as he did when he was being faithful to God. God told Jeremiah from the outset that he would deliver him from harm, but not that he would keep him from harm. Cf. Jer. 1:8; 15:21.
Ezekiel prophesied to the Jews during the captivity. He suffered abuse, and scorn from the people on a regular basis. Then, God told Ezekiel that he would take his wife and that he was not to cry. He could only sigh. His wife, the one person Ezekiel would need to turn to during those difficult times, God took away.. It doesn't seem right does it? It doesn't seem fair. Yet God had his purposes in mind. Read those books to better understand God's purpose for the prophet's suffering. We need to remember that our God is sovereign. He rules over the nations of men and in the courts of heaven cf. Dan.2:21;4:32,35. He loved both the prophets and his people, but God's plans would be carried out.
We don't always understand how God is working in or through a situation, but there is one thing we can know. He is a God of purpose and he works on purpose. He has his head in the ball game so to speak. God has saved us and called us to a holy life according to his purposes and grace cf. 2Tim. 1:9. All we have to learn is to submit our will to him and be faithful. Your crown of righteousness awaits you in Heaven cf. Rev.2:10; 2Tim.4:8. Don't give up brethren. Jesus is eagerly awaiting you back home.
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