Month: November 2007

Eritrea: What of It?

Eritrea : An “Open-Air Prison”

Eritrean government aggression against its own people continues unabated. It ranges from deliberate mass starvation to imprisonment without trial, torture, murder and disappearances. The aim is to crush any minimal claims or hopes for liberty and rule of law. The international media rights watchdog, Reporters Sans Frontiers, describes the country as an “open-air prison” under the most brutal dictatorship the African continent has ever seen.

The dictator, Isaias Afeworki, justifies his regime’s actions as a requirement until his border dispute with Ethiopia is resolved. No one is impressed by such an irresponsible ploy. Isaias’s core motive is to cling to power by all means possible. The fact remains Eritreans do not need tyranny and mass imprisonment to do what is right in defense of their homeland.

Two thirds of the population needs external food aid, according to the UN. But the regime continues to refuse aid under bogus self-reliance pretexts. The people are daily terrorized, intimidated and starved as a means of controlling them and preempting any popular uprising. The tyrannical regime treats every Eritrean as a potential enemy that must be controlled or liquidated.

Aggression is at its worst once an individual is arrested and imprisoned incommunicado for an indefinite period of time because of his/her political views or faith. Thousands – perhaps tens of thousands – of prisoners of conscience are rotting in gruesome conditions in prisons throughout the country.

Many are kept in dungeons and metal shipping containers under smoldering heat during the day and freezing temperatures at night. Many die as a result, or become partially or fully paralyzed; one of the victims is the renowned Gospel singer, Helen Berhane. Sanitation is said to be mostly non-existent. There is no medical treatment for injured torture victims.

So?

Clarification: Wednesday, December 5 @ 7:29 am

My “So?” above, along with the post title, is intended to ask if the world cares. I posted in a hurry and neglected to make sure that was clear. It wasn’t.

I don’t think I have a careless attitude about the suffering around me and in other parts of the world. But do I have a caring heart?

A Lying “Live” Webcam?

These days I have an interest in weather conditions on Mt. Hood. I will have to drive there to get to central Oregon when my oldest daughter gets ready to have her third child.

So this morning I checked my usual webcam. (The one on the right on this screen shot.)


click for larger image

Then I happened across KGW’s webcam (shown on the left above) for Timberline Lodge, uphill several miles from the webcam on the right.

Notice that KGW’s web camera is self-identified as “live”! It even counts down and “refreshes” every 10 minutes or so.

Maybe there’s global warming going on at Timberline and it hasn’t worked its way down to Government Camp yet.

Maybe by the time I have to drive by there, it will have globally warmed at Government Camp.

Meanwhile, I often get to see Mt. Hood on the way to/from school with my two youngest children. It doesn’t look at all as KGW depicts it.

(Today’s Cheap Shot: What’s else is KGW broadcasting that’s not a reflection of reality?) 😀

A Two-State Solution

BOA (Bush, Olmert, Abbas) sounds sinister, but it makes a handy, efficient acronym. (I certainly don’t mean it to sound disrespectful, I should append.)

When BOA (and others) talk of a two-state solution, they have in mind Israel and Palestine. Like this:

Palestinian state crucial for Israel, Olmert says

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said after peace talks in Washington that failure to negotiate a two-state solution with the Palestinians could threaten Israel’s long-term survival.

When I think of a two-state reality, I think of Gaza and the West Bank. These are both Palestinian entities, but they are two separate entities. At each other’s throats. Frequently, literally. With Israel sorta surrounding and sorta surrounded by the pinchers.

They already threaten Israel’s long-term viability.

To continue negotiations with them, especially with the weaker pincher, only makes matters worse.

And matters will get worse. Much worse. Modern Israel ain’t seen nothing yet.

That’s how I read my Bible, anyway.

Oh, and speaking of the West Bank and Gaza (and even the Golan Heights) . . . .

Why should they be Israel’s any less than certain American states, seized and annexed from Mexico, are the US’s?

Perhaps pro-two-stater politicians in the US should lead by example and enter into negotiations with Mexico for the return of those certain American states.

Just a thought.

A wild one, I know, especially since (good) example and politics may be oxymoronic concepts. 🙂

Peephole into My Heart

This week we’re having revival meetings at our home congregation. Our visiting preacher is my cousin AH from Georgia. His message last night was on individualism. Wow! What an excellent message! I’ve got to talk to my friend LM about getting it in MP3 format so I can post it online.

Anyway, about the meat of this post. In his devotional before the message, one of our local ministers (PT) read from and commented on Psalm 26.

These two verses spoke to my heart in particular:

“Judge me, O LORD; for I have walked in mine integrity: I have trusted also in the LORD; therefore I shall not slide” (1).

“For thy lovingkindness is before mine eyes: and I have walked in thy truth” (3).

That’s how I want to walk!

Well, that seemed like a good “Search of the Day” candidate, but I opted to use my computer Bible instead of Google.

Not many results. Here are two in the Outstanding to Me category:

“If I have walked with vanity, or if my foot hath hasted to deceit; Let me be weighed in an even balance, that God may know mine integrity” (Job 31:5,6).

“And said, Remember now, O LORD, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight. And Hezekiah wept sore.” (Isaiah 38:3).

I need to work on that. The talk part of Christianity is important; much more the walk part. If my faith in Jesus doesn’t direct my walk (that is, my life in every dimension), that faith is suspect. Like I said, I especially need to work on the walk part.

Thankfully, it’s not just me at work on me. God Himself is the Master Craftsman!

These days His work has me struggling in deep waters that seem to crash over my head and surge into my nose too often.

So these two songs presented by Voice of Praise in their Reunion release have made new connections with me:
      • No, Not One
      • Leaning on the Everlasting Arms

God is greatest and John the Baptist was His prophet!

Mr. President, Don’t Divide Jerusalem

Joel Rosenberg reports in his blog:

The Bush administration’s much-anticipated and highly-controversial Arab-Israeli peace conference opens tomorrow in Annapolis, Maryland. A great deal is at stake. The most contentious issue on the table: the future of Jerusalem. The government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is talking openly about the possibility of dividing the holy city and giving part of it to the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority. This would be a mistake of colossal proportions. It will not send a message of goodwill and peace to Israel’s enemies, as Olmert and his advisors hope. Rather, it will invite more attacks by radical Islamic jihadists who want all of Jerusalem, not just part of it. What’s more, even mere talk of dividing Jerusalem fuels the apocalyptic, genocidal ambitions of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his colleagues who believe Israel’s day of judgment is coming and that Shia Muslims are destined to annihilate Judeo-Christian civilization and gain control of Jerusalem for themselves.

Mr. President, don’t divide Jerusalem. Don’t consider it. Don’t talk about it. Don’t encourage others to talk about it. Doing so will bring war — and a horrifying one at that — not the peace that you seek. Rather, open tomorrow’s conference by making it crystal clear that precisely because we want peace in the Middle East, we will not support any division of Jerusalem any more than we would support dividing Washington or London or Paris or Moscow with our enemies or our neighbors.

Then we have this news story from Agence Presse France via Yahoo: Israelis, Palestinians make progress in US talks

Israel and the Palestinians said Monday they had made major progress in reviving frozen peace talks, as US President George W. Bush launched his biggest push yet to end the Middle East conflict.

And WorldNetDaily reports:

Syria agreed to attend this week’s U.S.-sponsored Annapolis summit after Damscus received American and Israeli commitments the Golan Heights would be put on the table at the Israeli-Palestinian conference.

The Golan Heights is strategic mountainous territory that looks down on Israeli population centers, and was twice used by Syria to launch ground invasions into the Jewish state.

WND prefaces its report with this observation: “U.S. invitation has no preconditions for state accused of supporting terror.”

In my view, it requires a willing suspension of disbelief to accept all this as good news.

As in the Days of Noah

This morning, as I was working on this:

I believe, though, that God calls each one of us to be a voice calling in the moral wilderness in which we live. And wilderness it is, grinding steadily toward absolute, all-encompassing vileness and depravity not seen since Noah’s time. This corruption already stealthily and gently smoothers our God-ward sensitivity, slowly and steadily invading our hearts like smoky tendrils wafting gently and seductively on the numbing breezes of our culture.

I thought, “I should start a new category called Days of Noah.”

Next thought: “That’s a good search of the day.”

Then I thought, “That’s a good blog name. I could use such a blog to remind, warn, encourage, and prepare God’s people for the perilous times in which we live.”

Followed by: “I don’t have time for another blog. I already have four or five!”

Maybe I should retire this blog and start Days of Noah. No, not now. I’ll settle for a category called that here at Ain’t Complicated (aka, Mark’s Views, Perhaps). And I’ll do a search of the day also (using GoOgle, of course).

Among the top ten results for a Web search, out of about 290,000:

The Days of Noah are here again!!

According to the Bible there is nothing wrong with eating and drinking, marrying etc., etc., but these people who lived before the Great Flood were doing something which caused the Lord to drown them all. They were creating genetic monstrosities and polluting the human race with Satanic bloodlines in order to prevent the Messiah from having pure human blood.

Days of Noah

In the days of Noah (in particular the pre-flood period), persons were eating, drinking, interacting with friends and loved ones, etc. This sounds no different than our daily activities. From the Genesis chapter 6 account, individuals were also violent, corrupt, and wicked. “The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time . . . Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence” (Genesis 6:5, 11). One only has to look at our modern-day newspapers to get many examples of what passes for violence, corruption, and wickedness. Of course the instruments used to accomplish these activities would be different in the days of Noah, but the evil intent and the evil result were the same. Evil was their normal mode of operating.

In The Days

JERUSALEM: In his boldest foray into Mideast peacemaking, President George W. Bush has invited the Israeli and Palestinian leaders, along with representatives from nearly 50 nations and international groups, to next week’s conference in Annapolis.

Among the top ten results for a news search, out of 6:

Hasten the end – Apocalypse now!

The truth is that though nature’s four seasons continue to cycle serenely throughout the ages, and men and women, as in the days of Noah, continue to marry and be given in marriage, there is at the heart of history a continual battle going on. In fact, the battle began before human history, when Michael and his forces swept the legions of Lucifer out of heaven. There is a reason that we never get tired of love stories–love is of the essence of human life. There is also a reason that we never get tired of war stories–war has been our constant companion and will be so till the last trumpet.

Come out of her my people — What kind of “news” search result is this!!! 🙁

On any given Saturday night in cities across this nation, it’s we who are killing each other. You make it easy for racist police to kill you because you are busy killing yourselves. We must become a community that respects the life of each other and will protect the life of each other, and will protect your women and your girls, then if an enemy of that peace comes in among us. How can I do what is right by you, while I watch what you are doing wrong by one another? Half of all murder victims in America are Black men, and 9 out of 10 of those that are murdered are murdered by their own Brother or Sister. But I warn the government, that at a certain time, if you don’t do justice by us, God will retaliate in a way that He has never retaliated on any nation that has existed in the past. If you go and read your scriptures and see the plagues that God brought in the days of Noah, in the days of Lot, to the people of Ad and Thamud, to the people of Salih, to the people of Moses, to the Roman Empire, to the Babylonian city, all that God has brought on them, He will bring on America. As it is written in the scripture, He will bring the blood of the righteous from Able to Zachariah, even to this very day, on one generation. I don’t want to see that happen. I would like to see America avoid that. I would really like to see us avoid such a call that would be suicidal.

News Journal Online

Walls and a roof would be a luxury for Ray Kelley’s congregation. For now, the field will have to do.

Hoarse from yelling, he reads to men and women in folding chairs. “As it was in the days of Noah so will it be at the coming of the Son of Man.” A cigarette tips precariously from a listening man’s lips, each tongue flick counting the seconds of the sermon. Ash-colored clouds sweep the sky and leaves rustle; a downpour can’t be too far.

“It ain’t going to rain,” Ray Kelley shouts. The crowd stirs. “It ain’t going to rain tonight.”

Among the top ten results for a blog search, out of about 13,926:

As in the days of Noah

As the Word of God declares the time of the Son of man coming would be as the days of Noah were. We are living in those days today. Perilous and exciting times. We are here to encourage you in your daily walk with the Lord and to help you wake up as our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed!

Becoming Real » What Does Noah Have To Do With the Moon?

We have really been immersed in what it must have been like in the Days of Noah. It was awful when every man’s thoughts were evil continually. It’s hard to imagine everybody in the world, except one family, being evil. How God must have grieved. And how sad and frustrated Noah must have felt to be preaching and warning all the time for 120 years and not having any converts, except perhaps for 3 women who became his daughters-in-law. Talk about an unsuccessful man! Or was he unsuccessful? I’d say he was the most successful man of his time! He sure came out on top in the end. He was the only one who survived. And he became the father and grandfather of everybody on Earth. What is the measure of your success? Obedience to what God has told me to do. That’s the measure of my success.

The Days of Noah: Do We Preach The Coming Judgment?

The Bible tells us that Noah’s time was marked by gross sexual immorality that devalued and debased marriage, that it was increasingly brutal and violent, and that the culture was opposed to God in every way.

It further tells us that when Jesus returns the conditions on earth will be the same.

God saved Noah through the ark and He will deliver His people at the Second Coming via the rapture of the church.

The rest will receive judgment, just as they did in the days of Noah.

Treasure — Trash — Treasure

There’s a lesson in this, right?

A painting found in a pile of trash on a New York street sold at Sotheby’s auction house late Tuesday for a million dollars, nearly 20 years after it was stolen from a warehouse in Texas.

“Tres personajes” (“Three People”), a 1970 work by Rufino Tamayo, one of Mexico’s best known artists, was bagged for 1.049,000 dollars by a north American buyer who fought off a telephone bidder, the auction house said.

It had been saved from the garbage by Elizabeth Gibson, who spotted the work while out walking one morning in 2003.

Maybe even more than one.

The painting, even while in the trash, was valuable.

Value isn’t always recognized by people.

Somebody had to put forth effort to rescue the treasure from the trash.

Does this apply to me somehow?

Jesus rescued me from life’s trash heap.

My value to Jesus wasn’t diminished by the fact I was in the trash heap.

I need to learn to value people better (and more accurately).

I need to work with Jesus in the We Rescue Treasure from Trash business.

Above all, love God!