RUTHFULLY YOURS

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Having just finished Willa Cather’s evocative novel, Death Comes to the Archbishop, I have been thinking of how much the world has changed, not just in the past ten years, but over the past two hundred years, since the start of the industrial revolution.

Cather’s principal character Jean Marie Latour is loosely based on Jean Lamy who was sent by the Catholic Church to Santa Fe in 1850 from France to establish an episcopacy in what was U.S. territory acquired from Mexico following the Mexican War of 1846-48. Lamy served as Bishop and then Archbishop for 32 years, from 1853 to 1885. In reading Cather’s novel, I was struck by the great distances Latour had to travel – 60 miles to Albuquerque, 135 miles to Taos, 500 miles to Tucson and 700 miles to San Antonio. He traveled the 1400 miles to Mexico City to assume his responsibilities. And he traveled by mule, at least during his first two decades. By the time he died, railroads had arrived.

Traveling great distances, either alone or with one or two companions, provided a lot of time for thinking, something our current world rarely allows. Very few people would want to return to a time when it took two or three days to travel by mule between Santa Fe and Albuquerque, but the condensing of distances, which reduces the opportunity for reflection, may lead to ill-considered, spontaneous comments, the consequences of which may prove embarrassing.

A Twitter account fits neatly into a world suffering from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). An article a year ago in the New York Times noted that there had been a 41% increase in the diagnosis of ADHD over the past decade. It is unclear, from what I have read, as to why the increase. Some suggest that a greater awareness of the symptom has increased the number of diagnoses. A few cynics blame it on the drug companies who sell chemicals designed to combat ADHD. Others argue that parents bear responsibility. They have become so focused on getting their children into the right college that they keep them involved in continuous activities. And some say that a proliferation of instant communication devices and apps are responsible. Whether Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Gmail and Flickr are causes or consequences of ADHD, tweeting provides a perfect outlet.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/kerry-turns-blind-eye-to-west-bank-terror

Ironically, an idiom originating more than two plus centuries ago — from an act of courage in meeting an enemy threat — today applies to an Obama administration choosing to ignore one.

The phrase “to turn a blind eye” applies when an undesirable truth exists but one opts to ignore it. Such ignorance can be covert — by simply refusing to see it — or overt, by means of a totally contrary declaration, hoping the listener gives it greater weight over what exists.

The phrase originated from the 1801 Battle of Copenhagen. British naval hero Adm. Horatio Nelson was under the fleet command of Adm. Hyde Parker. Engaging an opposing Danish fleet, an overly cautious Parker, using his ship’s signal flags, sent subordinates authority to withdraw.

On his ship, Nelson raised a telescope to his right eye — blinded in an earlier battle — exclaiming he saw nothing. He continued to press the attack — ultimately winning victory.

On Feb. 1, at a conference in Munich, Germany, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry — pressing the Israelis hard to reach an agreement with the Palestinians — made a declaration that ignores truth.

Warning increased terrorism lingered overhead for the Israelis if Palestinian talks failed, Kerry declared, “Last year, not one Israeli was killed by a Palestinian from the West Bank.”

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/final-flight-wasp-florene-miller-watson-wafs?f=must_reads

WHILE THE FEMINIST NINNIES AT WELLESLEY GET THEIR VAPORS OVER A SILLY STATUE THESE HEROIC WOMEN DID WHAT WAS CONSIDERED MEN’S WORK….RSK

During the years, I have been asked to give many, many WAFS- WASP WWII presentations … been inducted into several prestigious “Hall of Fame” type honors, and been featured in newspapers, books and magazine articles – but the bottom line for me is – “What does my Lord think of me!” Florene Miller Watson, WAFS

Florene Miller Watson was born on December 7, l920 in San Angelo, Texas to Thomas L. and Flora Theis Miller. Her father was a watchmaker and owner of a jewelry store chain in the Odessa, Texas area. Florene became fascinated with planes when at the age of 8 she took her first airplane ride in a WWI Barnstormer’s open-cockpit plane at Big Lake. “My father and I shared our exhilaration for airplanes.” When she was a college sophomore, her father purchased a Luscombe airplane so his family could learn to fly. He anticipated the United States going to war with Germany and wanted his eldest children to contribute to the war effort as aviators.

By age 19, Florene had finished flight school and completed her first solo flight. During the next 2 years, Florene obtained her commercial license, trained in aerobatics, and earned ground-school and flight instructor ratings. She was teaching civilian men enrolled in the government-sponsored War Training Program to fly in Odessa, Texas when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on her 21st birthday. Soon afterward she and her younger brother volunteered for service in the Army Air Corps.

http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/02/11/mahmoud-abbas-flunks-history/#

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has reiterated that he won’t recognize Israel as a Jewish state, and he’s claiming support for that position from an unlikely quarter: former U.S. president Harry Truman. But a closer look reveals that Truman’s words are being misrepresented.

In a Feb. 3 interview with the New York Times, Abbas was asked about recognizing Israel as a Jewish state—something both the Israeli government and President Barack Obama have said the Palestinian Authority needs to do. “This is out of the question,” Abbas said. To justify that position, Abbas handed the Times interviewer a packet of documents, the first of which was a statement by Truman from 1948 in which the words “Jewish state” were crossed out and replaced by “State of Israel.”

Someone who didn’t know better might think Abbas had scored a point. But in fact, the document in question does not provide evidence of American opposition to a Jewish state.

Here’s how that cross-out came about:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/bruce-bawer/heading-toward-the-eu-exit/print/ On the European Union front, things are getting more and more promising. For years now, a majority of Brits have favored their country’s withdrawal from the EU, compelling Prime Minister David Cameron to promise a renegotation of the terms of UK membership and a referendum on the question of withdrawal after next year’s general […]

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/green-socialists-on-mars/print/

We live in a strange world in which the weather is a subject of furious political debate. People have been arguing about the weather ever since the first rainstorm caught the first man without the umbrella that he did not yet know how to make, but they didn’t hold political debates over it.

For the last fifty years, the anti-weather side has been insisting that the world is headed toward a Frostean apocalypse of ice or fire. The calm biblical assertion that “Seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease” was replaced by the terrifying certainty that the planet would soon turn into Mars or Venus; either too hot or too cold.

The end of weather was here. Instead of stable rhythms and cycles that might last for months or centuries, there was a runaway weather apocalypse that would culminate in unlivable conditions.

The doomsday predictions roll out daily without any regard to scientific or experiential reality. The more the predictions fail to match up, the more urgently Warmists insist on action. The harder it snows, the more articles appear warning that snow may soon be a thing of the past.

Never mind the weather; the end of weather is almost here.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/secular-palestinian-leader-calls-out-john-kerry-on-peace-plan-on-the-glazov-gang/print/

This week’s Glazov Gang was joined by Mudar Zahran, a leader of Palestinians in Jordan who has been living in exile in the UK since 2010. He compares Israel’s and Jordan’s treatment of the Palestinians and expresses some taboo truths.

He also calls out John Kerry on his “peace plan” for the Mideast and asks why a U.S. Secretary of State is threatening Israel to commit suicide:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/raymond-ibrahim/the-pentagons-bow-to-islamic-extremism/

“Caving to pressure from Muslim groups, the Pentagon has relaxed uniform rules to allow Islamic beards, turbans and hijabs. It’s a major win for political correctness and a big loss for military unit cohesion,” said a recent report. This new relaxation of rules for Muslims comes at a time when the FBI is tracking more than 100 suspected jihadi-infiltrators of the U.S. military. Just last month, Craig Benedict Baxam, a former Army soldier and convert to Islam, was sentenced to seven years in prison due to his al-Qaeda/jihadi activities. Also last month, Mozaffar Khazaee, an Iranian-American working for the Defense Department, was arrested for sending secret documents to America’s enemy, Iran. According to a Pentagon spokesperson, the new religious accommodations—to allow Islamic beards, turbans, and hijabs—which took effect very recently, would “reduce both the instances and perception of discrimination among those whose religious expressions are less familiar to the command.” The report concludes that, “Making special accommodations for Islam will only attract more Muslims into the military at a time when two recent terror cases highlight the ongoing danger of Muslims in uniform.” But it’s worse than that; for not only will it attract “more Muslims,” it will attract precisely the wrong kinds of Muslims, AKA, “Islamists,” “radicals,” etc. This is easily demonstrated by connecting the dots and understanding that Muslims who adhere to visible, non-problematic aspects of Islam—growing beards and donning hijabs—often indicate their adherence to non-visible, problematic aspects of Islam. Consider it this way: Why do some Muslim men wear the prescribed beard and why do some Muslim women wear the prescribed hijab? Most Muslims would say they do so because Islam’s prophet Muhammad commanded them to (whether via the Koran or Hadith).

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/the-lawless-presidency/print/

In a move both transparently political and utterly contemptuous of the rule of law, the Obama administration has yet again made changes to the healthcare law. The Treasury Department issued a fact sheet Monday, outlining the new regulations (laughingly referred to as “final”). They now give employers with 50-99 employees until 2016 to comply with ObamaCare’s employer mandate. In addition, employers with 100 or more workers who originally had to cover 95 percent of them to be in compliance will only have to offer coverage to 70 percent of their employees next year, transitioning to the original percentage by 2016. In short, a law written and passed by Congress and signed by the president is becoming whatever the Obama administration wants it to be.

And as usual, the administration wants it both ways. Even as it disputes the idea that ObamaCare is causing many companies to eliminate employees as a means of getting below the 50-worker threshold when the mandate kicks in, Treasury officials warned that businesses must “certify” they are not eliminating workers to avoid that mandate. Employers will self-attest to this reality on their tax forms under penalty of perjury.

In other words the IRS, where not even a “smidgen” of corruption has occurred according to President Obama, could end up as the ultimate arbiter of any employer-employee disputes regarding reasons for an employee’s termination. And a decision in the employee’s favor could yield a one-two punch where a business owner is both cited for perjury and required to implement the business mandate from which he was previously exempt.

http://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/2014/02/an-undeserved-triumph/?utm_source=Mosaic+Daily+Email&utm_campaign=eb420373b7-2014_2_12&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0b0517b2ab-eb420373b7-41165129
The Triumph and Tragedy of Ari Shavit’s My Promised Land
Ari Shavit’s new book was praised for balancing the story of Zionism’s accomplishments with criticism of its founding sins–but his work distorts history and hurts the chances for peace.
peace.
“Contrary to many of Shavit’s reviewers, there is nothing courageous about this kind of writing that is plainly wrong on the facts and relies on a false historical interpretation to enforce its moral logic. The refugees of Lydda may still be marching in Shavit’s vivid but distorted imagination, but in reality they and their descendants – now totaling 5-7 million souls – have been locked up for the past 65 years in miserable refugee camps. It is not because of Zionism that they are still there. Rather it’s their own leaders and the Arab regimes who want them to remain locked up.”

Ari Shavit’s My Promised Land may well be the most commercially successful, yet also critically acclaimed book by an Israeli writer explaining his country’s complicated history to American readers. It made the New York Times best seller list for several weeks and was praised profusely in most major book review outlets, including a rave by the New Republic’s literary editor Leon Wieseltier on the cover of the Times’ Sunday book review. The review’s editors then selected Shavit’s book as one of the 100 best books of the year. Meanwhile, over at the Grey Lady’s editorial pages, columnist Thomas Friedman chimed in, touting Shavit’s book as a “must-read” and recommended that President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu read it before their next contentious telephone conversation. Shavit also won the National Jewish Book Award in the category of Jewish history and has spoken to overwhelmingly appreciative audiences at Jewish Y’s and synagogues around the country.