The video you won't see on the news

Here's the video that CNN, FOX and all of the other so-called "news" media won't show you. Albanian Muslims in Kosovo celebrating their independence by destroying a Serbian Orthodox Church, while the KFOR (yes, that's us, the Americans and NATO) troops stand by, doing nothing! This video needs to get out and around so people can see what's going on in Kosovo.

Speaking of the media...

The Western Orthodoxy blog has an intriguing (and dead on correct) post about the way the "Prophet" Muhammad and Our Lord Jesus Christ are handled by the media.

Violence in Serbia

As expected, there have been several violent protests in Serbia against Kosovo's independence, including the attack on the U.S. Embassy which I'm sure everybody has by now heard about. I think that it is important to keep in mind that, as bad as this violence is, it is being vastly overplayed by the media. The attack on the U.S. Embassy, for instance, involved about 100 people. On the other hand, there were 150,000 people involved in a largely peaceful demonstration which marched to St. Sava's Cathedral in Belgrade, where they held a prayer service. The only reporting I've yet seen about this particular demonstration was that an Albanian news van was burned by a small group during the march. Keep in mind, as you watch the events in Serbia unfold, that the media chooses which images they want to show you, and often those images are chosen to convey a certain message.

I had experience with this when I was deployed to Iraq. I had never before realized the extent to which the media twists the truth, or even that it was possible to twist it to the extent which they did. The conservative news channels, such as Fox News, would show the same five second clip of an United States Army Colonel shaking an Iraqi Colonel's hand over and over to prove to the public how great things were in Iraq. Then CNN and the more liberal news networks would show the same clip of a kidnapped American Soldier or the aftermath of a car bomb to show how horrible things were going. Those of us on the ground over there would watch both and not know whether to laugh or cry at their stupidity. Things are more complicated in reality than the news media will ever allow for in their reporting.

I have a feeling that something very similar is happening with the reporting from Serbia. Remember: To the news media, truth is malleable.

Also, just to air out another pet peeve: The American media needs a thorough lesson in how to report about Russia! No matter what Russia does, they always seem to be the bad guy. The analysis of Russia's possible involvement in a renewed war in Serbia was pathetic: "the Kremlin is once again trying to assert its dominance over the Eastern Bloc." Not a word was mentioned about Russia and Serbia sharing a common culture, religion and heritage, nor their long friendship.

Now that I've aired out my grievances against the news media, I promise to get off politics for a while! Now back to your regularly scheduled programming...

Kosovo...

A little late with this one, but: Please pray for Serbia and its Christians!. The Western world has once again sold out its own to the Muslims, and created the first Islamic state in Europe, one with known ties to well-known terrorists, including Osama bin Laden himself. One hundred years from now, I believe, the West will look upon this day as their greatest mistake...

Update: Check out this quote (thanks to Robert Spencer's Jihad Watch): "There is no doubt that the independence of Kosovo will be an asset to the Muslim world and further enhance the joint Islamic action" - Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu. Kosovo is just the beginning.

Christians must be Christian

"The great sin is fear of the other. In a state of fear, everyone seems to be a threat. There are many symptoms of fear among Christians. The real meaning of the English word `gospel' is good news, but one can find those who are more attracted to the Bad News Gospel. You can find religious circles more interested in the anti-Christ than in Christ, more interested in the number 666 than the Holy Trinity. This is a fear-driven, bad news orientation. Where such a mentality thrives, the Christian contribution to society is meager. Where faith, hope and love flourish, transformation occurs. Faith changes life. If life doesn't change, clearly there is no faith. St. John Chrysostom, preaching to perhaps 400 people in Antioch, told them, `If all of you were Christians, there would be no more pagans in the world.' If you want to understand how Christianity spread so rapidly in the early centuries, it was because Christians were Christian.

"Sadly, in our time, we have lost the idea of the holy. Pagans at least understood the holy. They had a sense of the sacred. We have lost this capacity. This is our tragedy because more than ever the world needs the light of Christ, the genuine light."

Metropolitan John the diocese of Korça in Albania

Ten Lives That Explain America

Rod over at Crunchy Con asks this question:

Which ten American historical figures would you cite that would give a high school student a decent, if incomplete, grounding in American history?

Also thrown in as criteria:

• No presidents or first ladies
• "reasonably well-known people whose biographies convey something essential about the American character and experience"
• "exemplifies something critical to understand about the kind of nation we are, or were">

Here's my picks (in chronological order, more or less) and why:

1. Jonathan Edwards - exemplifies the early religious spirit of America, especially Puritanism; if you're a fan of Max Weber ("Protestant work ethic"), Edwards certainly can be seen as a reason for the strength of capitalism in America; America's first homegrown theologian; shows that America is not supposed to be so "secular" after all.
   
2. Thomas Paine - not only are his writings a shining example of the principles which led to the American Revolution, but the story of his life could also be used to tell the story of America's early years as a nation.
   
3. Dred Scott - this choice falls under that "exemplifies something critical to understand about the kind of nation we are, or were" category; his story and the outcome of the case he gave his name to truly exemplify the lowest point America has hit in its history; demonstrates that the rights we take for granted today were not always easily attained.
   
4. Chief Sitting Bull - once again demonstrates that even a nation which such high principles as our own can have those principles compromised; in addition, his story covers the history of much of post-Civil War America.
   
5. Homer A. Plessy - ties in with Dred Scott above; opens a new chapter in American history as this list comes into the 20th century; demonstrates that even the greatest nation on earth can be the home of injustice.
   
6. Andrew Carnegie - to put it very simply: Andrew Carnegie is the American Dream; the child of immigrants who worked his way up from a minimum wage messenger boy to, at one time, the richest man in America; and then gave away his entire fortune to help those who hadn't made it as far as himself; if this was a list of one, he'd be the one.
   
7. Audie Murphy - the American hero; the most decorated soldier of WWII and an example of everything Americans love about their men in the military; demonstrates American values, including bravery, self-sacrifice, patriotism, love of freedom and hatred of tyranny.
   
8. Malcolm X - some would probably be very surprised at this choice; most would choose Martin Luther King, Jr., to represent the Civil Rights era, but I think that Malcolm X better demonstrates the level of anger and frustration, even desperation, that African Americans and others had reached by the 1960's; it was no longer the days of Booker T. Washington's "eventual" "equality," it was "the ballot or the bullet," now and not later. His life story, for those who haven't read his autobiography (which I highly recommend!), also covers a wide range of events in American history, including the Great Depression and the terror propagated against minorities by groups like the KKK.
   
9. Ron Kovic - while Audie Murphy exemplifies the American hero, the story of Ron Kovic, a paralyzed Vietnam War veteran, shows the other side of things, a reality which America has yet to truly face up to; demonstrates what happens when America fails to live up to its principles.
   
10. Cesar Chavez - exemplary of the "new immigrant" and America's continued struggle to live up to the high standards it has set for itself.
    

My choices are probably surprising to many, and may very well be indicative of my own political leanings (slightly left of center, I estimate), but I think that the overall theme of them is summed up in that last entry: America's continued struggle to live up to the high standards it has set for itself. I think that American history is probably best summed up by saying that America is a land of great diversity in unity. The United States is the whole world all in one nation; we have people of every religion, every race, every culture, creed, political leaning, etc. and our story is one of all of us trying to live together and, more importantly, together live up to our standard as a nation, the highest standard a nation has ever set for itself: that all men are created equal and that they each and every one have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is not our military might or our great wealth or our scientific achievements which make us the greatest nation on earth; it is simply this: a dedication to the right of every individual to live life as he or she so chooses and, thereby, to prosper.

Abba Philimon on praying the Psalms

[A certain brother once asked Abba Philimon:] "Why, father, do you find more joy in the psalms than in any other part of divine scripture? And why, when quietly chanting them, do you say the words as though you were speaking with someone?" And Abba Philimon replied: "My son, God has impressed the power of the psalms on my poor soul as he did on the soul of the prophet David. I cannot be separated from the sweetness of the visions about which they speak: they embrace all scripture." - "Discourse on Abba Philimon" from the Philokalia

Interesting article...

about the origins of the dates of Christmas, Theophany and Easter. Refutes the common claims of modern "scholars," atheists and Neo-Pagans.

Many Christians think that Christians celebrate Christ’s birth on December 25th because the church fathers appropriated the date of a pagan festival. Almost no one minds, except for a few groups on the fringes of American Evangelicalism, who seem to think that this makes Christmas itself a pagan festival. But it is perhaps interesting to know that the choice of December 25th is the result of attempts among the earliest Christians to figure out the date of Jesus’ birth based on calendrical calculations that had nothing to do with pagan festivals.

Rather, the pagan festival of the “Birth of the Unconquered Son” instituted by the Roman Emperor Aurelian on 25 December 274, was almost certainly an attempt to create a pagan alternative to a date that was already of some significance to Roman Christians. Thus the “pagan origins of Christmas” is a myth without historical substance.

Continue reading...

Inequality

Something that's difficult to remember sometimes in a capitalist culture like own here in America:

"It is God's desire that men be unequal in all externals: riches, power, status, learning, position and so forth, but He does not recommend any sort of competitiveness in this. 'Sit not down in the highest room,' commanded the Lord Jesus (Lk. 14:8). God desires that men compete in the multiplying of the inner virtues: faith, goodness, charity, love, meekness and gentleness, humility and obedience. God gave both inward and outward gifts, although He considers outward gifts as lower and of less significance than inward ones." - Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich

Closest Book Meme

David at Oh Taste and See tagged me with this meme:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

From The Essential Writings of Christian Mysticism, edited by Bernard McGinn:

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says: "But when you pray, go into a room by yourself, shut the door, and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you" (Mt 6:6). Solitude was a primary value for the eremitical, or hermit, tradition among the monks (see selection 2), but Jesus' command shows that it was a practice that all could to some extent employ. So, too, both outer and inner silence have been seen as ways of stilling and emptying the mind to prepare for divine visitation.

Wow, well, that worked about better than I imagined it would.

Note: My textbook for Speech 1315 was an equal distance away (this one was laying on top of the textbook), but I doubt that would have been as interesting.

Tag: Irenaeus, Ad Orientem, Rudy, James, and Kyriaki

The Truth About Politics

This post is a must-read, especially for the politics-obsessed, like myself.
The question was asked of Mother Gavrilia: “What can you tell us on Politics and Regimes?” (continue here...)