Monthly Archives: July 2017

I have read a few published letters and books criticizing Christian beliefs and practices. Most people know the greatest history book of all is the Bible. I used to use it to teach my military history classes as a command sergeant major in the U.S. Air Force. It records many other ancient historical events, such as the fall of many city, states and countries.

In elementary school in the 40s and 50s, our teachers used the Bible to teach us how to read and comprehend. Our wonderful country was primarily a Judeo/Christian nation. That has changed. We have, as a nation, drifted far from those fundamental beliefs this country was founded on. Christians and Jews are being called politically incorrect and being denied the right to pray in public. A former president even announced to the world that the United States of America is not a Christian nation! I have been made fun of because I said grace before a meal.

I would recommend to those who oppose Christian beliefs to refer to that history book call the Bible and find out what ever happened to all those countries that did not heed or replaced Biblical teachings and prophesies with their own. I see the Biblical prophesies coming back again in our country as we continue a downhill slide to disaster. Our leaders no longer represent those who elected them. When our judicial system supports and defend unnatural acts and the murder of the unborn, we are in dire straits as a nation.

I urge everyone who reads this to refute it by reading what has happened to those countries that have refused to live by those Biblical rules.

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Biblical lessons in history - Temple Daily Telegram

Given their particular sensitivity to the triumphant mightiness of the pen, its profoundly disturbing to note where lines are drawn and exceptions made.

Linda Sarsour, the lefts darling of the day, posted a widely-shared picture of Palestinians praying in the streets of Jerusalem, an act protesting the placement of metal detectors outside the Al Aqsa Mosque. This is resilience. This is perseverance. This is faith. This is commitment. This is inspiration. This is Palestine, Sarsour wrote. Denied access to pray at Al Aqsa Mosque in their own homeland, Palestinians pray on the streets in an act of non-violent resistance. They are met with tear gas and rubber bullets.

Absent from her platitudinous prevarication was any mention of the inarguably violent act that led Israel to construct the metal detectors in the first place, the recent killing of two Israeli police officers at the Temple Mount. Also absent: any reference to the three Israelis who were brutally murdered in the settlement of Halamish on Friday night. It was a far cry from nonviolent resistance when 19-year-old Omar al-Abed entered a home, saw a family finishing a Shabbat dinner, and began indiscriminately stabbing his victims.

Sarsours rhetoric is dangerous precisely because she understands her audience and how to appeal to their emotions. She peppers her statements with a few felicitous bromides like non-violent resistance and hopes no one notices the inconsistency of her arguments. Others on the left are slightly more honest about their intentions.

Writing in Al Jazeera, Stanley Cohen called on Israel to accept that as an occupied people, Palestinians have a right to resistin every way possible. He begins by telling his readers: long ago, it was settled that resistance and even armed struggle against a colonial occupation force is not just recognized under international law but specifically endorsed. His entire article is predicated on a false premise in that it demands the characterization of Israel as a colonial occupation force a characterization that is categorically incoherent.

Cohen cites a 1982 UN Resolution which reaffirms the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle. He does not mention which countries voted for and against this resolution.

Among the countries that voted for it: Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, Pakistan, Rwanda, Qatar, Niger, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq.

Among the countries who voted against it: Canada, Denmark, France, Italy, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States.

On college campuses, the call for armed struggle has become the Cri de Coeur of leftist students who are otherwise hypersensitive to the impact that intangible words can have on corporeal beings. On Columbias campus, students who form the backbone of the BDS movement have successfully blurred the line between incitement and impassionedalbeit severely misguidedopinion. In 2016, the Columbia/ Barnard Socialists concluded one social media post by declaring: long live the intifada. As recently as Sundayafter the Halamish attack the Students for Justice in Palestine shared the Al Jazeera article calling for armed resistance. Where are the outraged professors, administrators, and students concerned for the safety of the student body? Where are the charges of bigotry and racism, the calls to silence this speech, to stop this violence?

Nowhere does the idea that speech can constitute violence find more support than on elite liberal arts colleges. But regardless of whether they have intellectual or moral merit on their own, calls for safe spaces, trigger warnings, and micro-aggression-free environments that come from groups or individuals who not only condone, but use their words to quite literally call for violence, must be ignored, and the hypocrisy highlighted.

From the safe confines of an ivy-covered campusor from the relative safety of this country, for that matterits easy to preach justice and retribution, to portray armed struggle as the necessary means that will find justification through a righteous end. But especially those who are sensitive to the power of language should understand: euphemistic terminology does nothing to mitigate the violent nature inherent in this rhetoric. There must be no confusion. The lefts glorification of armed struggle is nothing short of approval for those Palestinians who target and kill innocent men, women, and children. Those who proclaim to speak for social justice have been damningly silent.

See the rest here:
Challenging Violent SpeechUnless It's About Israel - Commentary Magazine

My British lunchmates on a recent Sunday in Edinburgh, Scotland, were exceedingly polite when my order arrived. Amid their tableau of salads and artfully filleted fish, my plate held Welsh rarebit, the venerable dish that assembles melted cheese, ale, mustard, and Worcestershire sauce atop a slice of bread. I sensed that my companions eyes were averted from my selection. Then, someone decided to be more direct and asked, Do you like British food?

I always answer this question with an emphatic Yes! While this sometimes incites gobsmacked silence, when I interviewed Anthony Bourdain a few years back, he sanctioned my unfashionable palate. To eat a nicely aged grouse with bread sauce followed by a nice Stilton theres nothing better than that, he said. Yet even his approval didnt banish a twinge of guilt that I associate with my adoration of stodgy Anglo fare. My ambivalence is shared with others whose nostalgia for a bygone cuisine, architecture, or literature was shaped by imperialism. I grew up in Singapore, which was established as aBritish trading foothold in 1819 and, except for its occupation by the Japanese empire from 1942 to 1945, remained a British colony until shortly before gaining independence in 1965.

My nostalgia isnt just outdated it can sometimes come across as politically incorrect. But Im not alone in cherishing certain cultural holdovers of colonialism. Today, some vestiges of British rule are among Singapores most lovingly preserved landmarks from lavish Victorian hotels to 19th-century government buildings that are now national treasures. And, though its true that Singaporeans prize their indigenous cuisine blending Indian, Chinese, and Malay flavors, many feel historic kinship with bangers and mash and scones with clotted cream, which were as much a part of my gastronomic education as fish-head curry and chili crab.

Many Singaporeans tend to think back with warmth on the countrys relatively benign subjugation. Landmarks throughout the city are named for Sir Stamford Raffles, who founded Singapore as a British colony. School history books essentially laud him, along with the good ol East India Co., for transforming the island nation from a speck of a trading post along the Malay Archipelago to a prosperous port city that is one of the most expensive stretches of real estate on Earth. In Singapore, some of the best secondary schools are named Raffles. The court system is based on British law, and the cricket club plays regularly on the Padang, an expansive green in the heart of downtown. On Saturdays, pubs fill up with the English Premier League faithful. Singlish, the local patois, brims with Britishisms. One of the most common terms to talk cock, which can refer to either shooting the breeze or bullshitting is derived from the British phrase cock and bull story.

Even at an intimate level, outmoded influences and relationships linger. In researching my recent novel, Sarong Party Girls, I investigated the term SPGs, said to have been coined when British colonial armed forces would invite local women, often clad in sarongs, to their parties. These days, it has taken on a derogatory meaning as a reference to Singaporean women who seek out expat white (often British) men, whom they view as being of a higher status than locals. Jane Austens world is, in some ways, alive and well in the nightclubs of Singapore.

In countries with bloodier colonial histories than Singapores, discourse about the structural legacies of imperialism has justifiably gained traction. An Indian MP has called for the dissolution of Indias Westminster parliamentary system, for example. And, in Western democracies, we are compelled to interrogate ever more closely what we eat, wear, and dance to. Pop stars Katy Perry and Gwen Stefani have been criticized for lifting from Japanese civilization the former for a geisha-inspired performance in 2013 and the latter for her Harajuku Girls phase in 2004. This year, nonwhite women on a California college campus faced a backlash when they demanded that white girls refrain from wearing the hoop earrings said to be part of a non-Anglo aesthetic. And on a nationalistic note, I still bristle whenever I spot Singapore noodles on any U.S. (or Scottish) menu. This spicy noodle dish is a pure invention of the West it simply does not exist in my homeland.

In light of such tensions, a longing for colonial relics can feel indefensible, or at least subversive. And in these hyperattuned times, we are forced to ask whether our yearning should be indulged and divulged in public.

But my nostalgia isnt some form of cultural appropriation, an attachment to products, TV shows, and cuisines that are both tainted and not my own. Aspects of British culture are, in fact, part of my personal and national history. And perhaps this feeling is more akin to the nostalgia in China for 1960s Albanian films or propaganda collectibles. This dates back to an alliance between the two countries that thrived during Chinas Cultural Revolution, resulting in transcultural exchanges through film.

At a dinner I attended in Lasswade, Scotland, an Indian-American offered to entertain with a song. This man, who grew up in India, delivered, by heart, a stirring rendition of Scotland the Brave. When the applause subsided, I asked, Where did you learn that? His answer: Madras. Where else? He then explained the influence the Scots had in his native Madras during colonial times and the cultural breadcrumbs that lingered.

When I asked an English friend what he thought of my nostalgia for British food, he shrugged. All nostalgia is for something bygone. And, on a recent Saturday, I tested his theory. I picked up some Scotch eggs Id been eyeing at I.J. Mellis, my favorite cheese monger in Edinburgh: a traditional version and two unconventional variations, one vegetarian and one featuring chorizo. I invited a Scottish and an English friend to taste them.

After one bite of the spicy vegetarian version, the Scot ran to the sink to wash out her mouth. Oh, thats vile, she said. Both friends agreed: The boring old traditional Scotch egg tasted the best. The reason? Its the way to make a Scotch egg its just the way to make it.

Perhaps sometimes we just want what we want, whether its steak and kidney pie or an old Scottish anthem. Everyone has an individual history for which they cannot be entirely answerable. And no one should expect otherwise.

This article originally appeared in the July/August 2017 issue of FP magazine.

Illustration by Matthew Hollister

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For the Love of Welsh Rarebit - Foreign Policy (blog)

Knockout comedy isnt necessarily the first thing that comes to mind when you think about Germany. But German-American actress Lucie Pohl has turned it into a hit satire with her autobiographical showHi, Hitlercurrently proving an off-Broadway hit at downtown Manhattans Cherry Lane Theatre.

Born in Germany, Pohl-who is legendary 20th century German playwright Bertolt Brechts great-niece-moved to New York as a child. She hilariously dissects her upbringing in the show- her mother is a Romanian singer and her father a German playwright- taking on 45 different characters inHi, Hitler. As well as chronicling her obsession with theFhrer, Pohl also tacklesDavid Hasselhoffs pop career.

The show premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the largest arts festival in the world, last year before moving to London.Pohls other credits include a small role in Harry Potter blockbuster Fantastic Beasts and Were to Find Them and the lead in Turkish horror movie Magi, alongside Stephen Baldwin and Michael Madsen, an experience which she turned into another one-woman stage show Apohlcalypse Now.

We spoke with Pohl, 34, about Hi, Hitler which closes on July 30 and is directed by Kenneth Ferrone and produced by Rebecca Crigler and David De Almo.

How did Hi, Hitler! come about?

I was waiting tables and at an existential point of What am I doing? I was auditioning for the parts of One-legged pregnant woman, nudity required- you have to stab your eyes out. I started writing stuff down and it vomited itself out of me. I thought that I never wanted to do an autobiographical show because I come from a European theater family and thats not really a thing there- oversharing- especially in Germany. Its not seen as artistry almost and is frowned upon. I thought Id never do it but it came out. I had half an hour of a show and I applied to festivals and started getting in. I was like, Oh s**t now I have to write the rest of it! But I got good reviews for the show in Edinburgh and then did it in Leicester Square [London]. It has changed my life. Everything changed after that.

Have you had any reaction to a show that is entitled Hi, Hitler?

Karen Koren [a key Edinburgh Festival luminary]said, Im not sure about the title. I think it might put people off. I said, Youre wrong. The title is what has gotten me so much attention and press and Im Jewish, theres more than just a joke in there. Theres a deeper resonance: Hi Hitler, were still here! We made it through. Its a fish out of water story, a search for identity and what your heritage means for you. The title is obviously a joke- as a kid I thought it was a greeting, that people were saying Hi Hitler! In a way, they are saying Hi Hitler! He looked funny to me. My mother asked me when I was four or five what I wanted to be for carnival and I was like, Hitler. She said, I dont think thats a good idea, maybe something else. Apparently I just said, Ill be a spoon then! Theres alot of comedy in that man. Tragic comedy obviously.

What is your take on the increasing trend for famous comedians to be attacked on social media for politically incorrect jokes? It seems misguided.

I agree. Its interesting because I think why are going after these people that are trying to make people laugh. Go after the people that actually mean it and are actually doing bad shit. Why dont you tear them apart? Thats not to say that we shouldnt take seriously the disadvantages that minorities face. But stereotypes are not a bad thing as long as theyre not mean-spirited and theyre funny.

Speaking of stereotypes, Germany isnt renowned as a comedic nation.

I always say they dont have too much of a sense of humor because they killed all the funny people! Most people are very serious when it comes to Hitler but laughing about something doesnt mean its not serious. My dads a playwright so Ive learned a lot just living in that world rather than specifically being related to Bertolt Brecht. The biggest thing is the sense of doubt and the fact that struggle never goes away. Even Brecht would throw his plays away, like The Threepenny Opera which Helena Weigel [Brechts second wife] picked up out of the trash. Its being aware of where you come from which in my family was always a big thing whether it was Brecht, Nazis or displacement. And now Im baring it all.

http://www.hihitlershow.com

The rest is here:
Pohl-ing Off the Joke! German-American Actress Scores Big With Hitler Stage Satire - Heat Street