Monday, July 27, 2020

Not All Policemen Are Good Guys

NOT ALL POLICEMEN ARE GOOD GUYS
Mon. July 27th, 2020

My own group, the white men, is one of the hardest groups for me to understand.  Sometimes it is easier to ask the white women.  They have a certain patience with me, sometimes.

Okay, you're a white person of one sex or another.  A policeman kills a white child.  You point to the story and you say, see, they kill us too.  But you don't seem to be angry about it.  What is going on?  Why are you not angry at the policeman?  Do you believe that nobody's lives matter?

Footnote. 
If we are discussing policemen as bad apples, we need to call them by their old name, policeMEN, not by their new name, police OFFICERS.  This is not a police OFFICER problem.  This is a policeMAN problem.  If we don't use the older term, we are messing up the accurate transmission of information to the next generation.  Political correctness be damned for the duration of this discussion!

Frank Newton

Sunday, July 12, 2020

The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Israelites

THE PARABLE OF THE WISE AND FOOLISH ISRAELITES

Sun. 7-12-2020

By Frank Newton -- Boiling Springs, North Carolina 

 

In the days of Moses, a plague struck the pigs1 of the Israelites, and their pigs started dying.   Some of the Israelites ate the meat of the pigs who had died of the plague, because they had no other meat.  But some of the Israelites who ate the meat of the plagued pigs died.  So Moses (who was the chief health officer of his people) decreed that the Israelites should stop eating pigs.

 

The next thing that happened was the Israelites split into two groups.  One group was of the opinion that the decree of Moses concerning the pigs was wise, and they obeyed it.  The other group (who followed a false prophet named the Jackal) was of the opinion that Moses was an idiot, and they kept on eating pigs. 

 

Some of the ones who continued eating pigs died, but others of them lived to a ripe old age.  Statistically speaking, though, the Israelites who thought that Moses was wise, and obeyed him, had better health outcomes.

 

One Israelite had just bought one hundred pigs from a passing Midianite, before Moses announced his decree.  This Israelite was very unhappy about Moses' decree, because he had invested a chunk of his substance in the pigs.

 

[At this point, the two manuscripts of the Parable diverge.  Here, we will translate each manuscript separately.]

 

Manuscript Alpha says:

 

He went to Moses and protested, but Moses told him to kill all his pigs.

 

Manuscript Omega says:

 

He went to Moses and protested, so Moses advised him to sell the pigs to the Egyptians.  Everybody was happy except the Egyptians.

 

[From this point on, "Alpha" and "Omega" have the same wording.]

 

In the fullness of time, after a lot of people and a lot of pigs had died, the plague died down.  And when Moses was well stricken in years, he died.  Also, one by one all the people who had strong opinions about whether Moses was a wise man or an idiot died.  After that, some Israelites were ready to forget the whole thing, but the people who took an interest in dead people decided that Moses was a wise man, and they confirmed his decree.  So even unto this day, the Israelites will not eat pigs.

 

1 An earlier translation calls them "the hogs." Some experts believe that, in the days of King James, this word was pronounced "hawgs."

Thursday, July 9, 2020

Confederate Statues

CONFEDERATE STATUES
By Frank Newton / July 9th, 2020


They fought for the right to secede from the United States.  They were right.  They fought to defend slavery.  They were wrong.  Dealing with slavery is part of the problem.  Another part of the problem is that you have to admit that the South had a right to secede from the United States.  It really wasn't about preserving the Union.  It really was about slavery.  Warriors who say that it is dangerous for the United States of America to become smaller are wrong.