Another Giant Leap Foward

Shakespeare Going the Way of the Dodo

According to NZ Herald columnist, Garth George, Shakespeare is on his way out.  No longer will Shakespeare be a compulsory part of the English curriculum for Level 13 students.  Here is George's cynical comment on this great educational leap forward at our government schools. 

As of next year changes to the Level 3 English component of the ridiculous National Certificate of Educational Achievement, which asks students to respond critically to a Shakespearean drama, will expire and not be replaced.

It is the last Shakespeare-specific unit in the curriculum and its demise will mean that studying the Bard will be entirely up to individual teachers. Not much hope for him, then, since I suspect that one reason for this is that far too many English teachers today are simply incapable of interpreting him to their students.

Whilst we understand George's frustration, and indeed agree that removing the study of Shakespeare from the government school curriculum is deplorable, we have to confess we are not surprised. 

Firstly--a general observation.

The Ugliness of the Prosperity "Gospel"

The Gospel-Emptying Cruelty of Pat Robertson

Justin Taylor

Sometimes I think the category of “righteous anger” was created to respond to people like Pat Robertson.
His latest cringe-inducing statement is that a man should divorce his wife suffering with Alzheimer’s disease and “start all over again” if he is lonely and in need of companionship. When asked about the vow “to death due us part,” Robertson responded that “if you respect that vow,” then Alzheimer’s can be viewed as “a kind of a death.”

The best counsel is usually to ignore Robertson.

My Way, or the Highway

The End Game of Secular Humanism in Our Schools

When government schools, and the education system breaks down, guess what happens?  Parents--who can be expected to be far more concerned about their respective child's education than the local or national educrat--find alternatives.  More often than not the non-educrat controlled alternatives work far better. 

One of these alternatives is the rise of independent schools.  Another is home-schooling.  In the US, recent estimates have 2 million children being home-schooled.  And the number is rising.  A Canadian study purports to show that the educational outcomes are superior to government run schools.  No surprises there.

Embarrassing

 Nobel Physicist About to be Gored

A Nobel Prize winning physicist has resigned from the American  Physical Society because it claims that evidence for global warming is incontrovertible.

This from Fox News:

Let's All Have a Cup of Tea

Why The Nation Will Fail National Standards

As New Zealand approaches a national election we have the luxury this time around to be able to blissfully ignore the negative "hater and wrecker" proposals burping forth from parties on the Left (Labour, Greens, Mana) more obnoxiously and regularly than a Rotorua mudpool. 

We can ignore the Left this time around not because their policies will not eventually become government policy and the law of the land.  They will.

Studies in I Samuel

The Son of My Enemy

Expository - Book of Samuel
Written by Douglas Wilson
Saturday, September 10, 2011

INTRODUCTION:
In the midst of court politics, and treachery, and intrigue, we find a shining and glorious example of covenant loyalty. Jonathan disappears from our narrative at this point, at least as a major character, but he departs in glory. One of the noblest sons of Scripture was the son, not of Eli, or Samuel, or David . . . but of Saul.

THE TEXT:
“And David fled from Naioth in Ramah, and came and said before Jonathan, What have I done? what is mine iniquity? and what is my sin before thy father, that he seeketh my life? . . .” (1 Sam. 20:1-42).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT:
David is on the run, and he comes to Jonathan to ask what his offense is (v. 1). Jonathan does not believe it (v. 2), not because he believes his father incapable of murderous thoughts, but because he apparently believes in the binding force of the vow.

Faith-Lines Versus Blood-Lines

Turbo-Charged Bloodlines

Bloodlines are very important.  Any Christian who doubts this should turn to the opening chapters of the Gospels of Luke and Matthew and read there the bloodlines of the Lord Jesus Christ, King of the world.  Who your ancestors were, your blood lines of descent are clearly material--both genetically and spiritually.  The Kingdom of God is constructed around bloodlines.

The Unbelieving world is deeply ambivalent about bloodlines.

The Deadly Results of Left-Wing Politics

The Moral High Ground

Jim Lacey

NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE
September 7, 2011
The Left’s “morally superior” policies kill millions and impoverish billions.

Soon after I published an article questioning the global-warming orthodoxy, the world’s foremost hypocrite, Al Gore, informed anyone who still listens to him that my position is akin to racism. The wise course of action would be to ignore the rants of a man who desperately needs the world to remain fearful of carbon, the element on which all life on earth is based. If that fear were to vanish, how would he continue to rake in the millions needed for the purchase of his next beach house?

But enough is enough. Why should I sit quietly and let myself be branded a racist? In fact, will someone please explain how the Left is always assumed to have the moral high ground in these kinds of debates? I am particularly curious about this, as leftist policies continue to destroy the lives of tens of millions in this country and billions worldwide.

Let’s go through just a small part of the evidence.

Being Played

Bad Manners

We have to confess that we have been enjoying a good belly-laugh at the clever Greg Growden, rugby columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald.  He has written a piece seething with faux indignation about the alleged bad behaviour of a Minister of the Crown at a corporate hospitality box watching the Australian rugby team struggle manfully against Italy.

Apparently the Minister (unnamed) shouted out ungentlemanly remarks about the Australian team's quality of play, its ethics, manhood, and other publicly unmentionable matters, whilst enjoying the hospitality of the Australian Rugby Union.

9/11 Ten Year Memorial

Paul Simon at Ground Zero.  

Simon is one of the finest poets of our generation, and one of its most accomplished musicians. 

Simon's evocative rendition of Sounds of Silence becomes a lament for a lost civilization.

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made . . .

. . . there was no answer. We are truly lost.

May God have mercy upon us all.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

In the Thousands

Liturgy and Worship - Exhortation
Written by Douglas Wilson
Saturday, September 10, 2011

Today marks the tenth anniversary of 9/11, the horrific attack on our nation that caused the collapse of the World Trade Towers, and significant destruction at the Pentagon. On a horizontal level, on its own terms, this was an act of war which fully justified a military response, and with that we have no quarrel.

But we serve a God who providentially governs all things in line with, through, under, and contrary to the intentions of the human actors involved, as He pleases. This means His providential actions are not to be taken as an instance of Him taking up sides, the way a man would take up sides.

Ten Years On

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Ten years on from 9/11--what have we learned?  There are pluses and minuses--which is to be expected in a fallen world.  To our mind, here are some of them:

1. There is now much more unease amongst Islamic people over the nature of their religion.  It is evident to many that Al Qaeda and its affiliates have killed many more Islamic "brethren" than infidels.

All Things New

 The Renovation of the Whole World

"To the Lord and his kingdom belongs the whole world, with all that lives and moves in it.  All is yours, says the apostle (I Corinthians 3:22).  Religion is not a single, separate sphere of human life, but the divine principle by which the entire man is to be pervaded, refined, and made complete.  It takes hold of him in his undivided totality, in the center of his personal being; to carry light into his understanding, holiness into his will, and heaven into his heart; and to shed thus the sacred consecration of the new birth, and the glorious liberty of the children of God, over his whole inward and outward life.

"No form of existence can withstand the renovating power of God's Spirit.

Vying For the Lowest Honour

History and President Obama

There is a fair old chance that President Obama, once he has departed the White House and the dust has settled, will suffer the indignity of  the "worst US President ever" sobriquet.  (We understand that presently that dishonour belongs to President Buchanan.)

We imagine that historians will agree that he was a nice bloke, albeit with a challenged golf swing.   He was well-meaning, earnest at times, and a great orator (provided his teleprompter was working).  He achieved the high honour of being the first black US President.  It is deeply regrettable that he will most likely be judged as one of the more ignorant, naive and simplistic people ever to occupy the office.

The Big Lie

Simply Incoherent

Maybe it is just me, but Christopher Hitchens is at his very best when he is making sense. This is something he does, with his usual vim, in a recent article for Slate entitled “Simply Evil.” In it, he makes short work of the kind of anti-Americanism that tried to turn 9/11 into something complex enough for an obfuscating intellectual to puzzle over. He nails those who tried to blame the attacks on “the Bush administration or the Jews.” And for those who held up a simplistic tit-for-tat blowback explanation, Hitchens dutifully pulls their shirts over their heads and rolls down their socks.

Home Grown Jihad

Raggle Taggle Cowards

Chris Trotter has written a helpful piece on the Urewera 17, providing background and context.  The upshot: the Crown has had to drop charges against all but four of the "17" on technical legal grounds. 

For benefit of our overseas readers, the Urewera 17 episode involved secretive bush camps in the Urewera forest four years ago with a bunch of Tuhoe Maori and a raggle taggle assortment of fair weather, left wing extremists.  The camps were styled as "training camps" and involved practising with guns and explosives.  Four years ago, the NZ Police raided the area and arrested a gaggle of the raggle taggles. 

They were charged under the Terrorism Suppression Act--a hastily drafted, knee-jerk piece of legislation that Trotter describes as having "many and serious inadequacies".

Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

If You've Lost Kinky . . .

Obama Nation Building
Written by Douglas Wilson
Saturday, September 03, 2011

Leave out the media's need to stretch out excitement (and therefore viewer engagement) to the maximum point of endurance. Leave out their ratings-driven need to keep the presidential contest as much of "a game" as they can for as long as they can. For example, if one Super Bowl team is 58 points ahead in the second quarter, there are an awful lot of people who won't see all those half-time commercials. Can't have that. Leave out their breathless "this-just-in" use of the latest polls to keep us going ooh! and aah! Like I said, leave all that out.

I think we should look at a different set of tea leaves, recognizing that they all are, in fact, tea leaves. Take these statements as qualified in just the ways they ought to be qualified.

That said, as Dylan (not Thomas) once said, you don't need to be a weatherman to tell which way the wind is blowing.

This Time It Will be Different

More Big Failures on the Way

In 2006, the NZ Green Party launched the "Buy Kiwi Made" campaign.  You don't need us to tell you that it failed dismally.  It was touted by Central Planners as the answer to all sorts of economic ills--including avoiding the "evils" of open border trade (or free trade) for which the Greens have a long professed loathing.

Whenever politicians introduce "Buy Local" sentiments or policies you have a strong indication they have not understood Economics 101; they are obscurantists.

Studies in I Samuel

Saul Among the Prophets

Expository - Book of Samuel
Written by Douglas Wilson
Saturday, September 03, 2011


INTRODUCTION:
Although Saul continues his reign for some time after the incidents in this chapter, this chapter does mark the formal textual end of his reign. Call this definitive foreshadowing, as well as some sort of formal closure. Put another way, for Saul this is all over but the shouting.

THE TEXT:
“And Saul spake to Jonathan his son, and to all his servants, that they should kill David. But Jonathan Saul’s son delighted much in David: and Jonathan told David, saying, Saul my father seeketh to kill thee: now therefore, I pray thee, take heed to thyself until the morning, and abide in a secret place, and hide thyself . . .” (1 Sam. 19:1-24).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT:
Saul's hostility to David now comes completely out into the open (v. 1).

Through the Looking Glass

Professor Mutu Shifts the Paradigm

We always endeavour to give people a fair hearing before launching into a barrage of criticism.  Margaret Mutu not only deserves to be heard, she has some very positive things to say.  Professor Mutu of Auckland University  has been reported as saying there needs to be a cap on white immigrants to New Zealand because white immigrants tend to have racist attitudes.

Now while many have taken umbrage at her views we have listened carefully to her justification.

Stupendous Confidence Trick

Nabokov on Freud

Famously, Nabokov could not resist deriding Freud. And for good reason: Freud’s ideas were enormously influential, especially in Nabokov’s American years, but his claims were hollow. Nobel laureate Peter Medawar, perhaps the greatest of science essayists, declared in his book Pluto’s Republic, in terms akin to Nabokov’s, that Freudianism was “the most stupendous intellectual confidence trick of the twentieth century.” Nabokov saw the intellectual vacuity of Freudian theory and its pervasiveness in the popular and the professional imagination. He thought it corrupted intellectual standards, infringed on personal freedom, undermined the ethics of personal responsibility, destroyed literary sensitivity, and distorted the real nature of childhood attachment to parents–the last of which has been amply confirmed by modern developmental psychology.

From an essay by Brian Boyd, in The American Scholar. Boyd is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of English at the University of Auckland, New Zealand.

Pinot Noir On Its Way

Life Imitating Parody

The old saw is that a week in politics is a long time.  Anyone who is in the political prediction business is running a high-risk enterprise.  Predictions about elections that are over  year away are beyond high-risk--they are lunatic.

Yet, sometimes . . . . OK, so we are lunatics.  We are pretty confident that President Obama will lose next year's US election--which is just as well, since one of our beloved daughters has laid a bottle of Otago Pinot on the table over the outcome.  She up to now has taken the view that Obama will be re-elected. 

Why are we now more confident?  The ardent Obama advocates on the Left are deserting him.  That is a clear sign that it is over.  Here is Maureen Dowd penning a lamentation over her fallen and compromised former hero, in the New York Times.  It says it all.

Evolutionist Cant

Too Easily Gobsmacked

Atheism and Apologetics - Evolution
Written by Douglas Wilson
Saturday, September 03, 2011

"And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also" (Gen. 1:16).

Too many of us take this as saying nothing more than that God put a big shiny thing up in the sky for the daytime, and a small shiny thing for the nightime. But His craftsmanship and attention to detail are as apparent here as they are in the behavior of amino acids or the formation of crystals

"Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them" (Psalm 111:2, ESV).

Now for those who think that the solar system is just the detritus left over after the big blooey, here are just a couple things to think about.

The sun is 93 million miles away, and the moon is an average of 238,855 miles away. These two heavenly lights are supposed to be the size they are, and the distance they are from us as a function of chance. So why, in an eclipse, does the disk of the moon fit over the disk of the sun like they were a couple of quarters on your coffee table? What are the odds?

Here is another one, twice as boggling, and a hundred times more fun.

The Right to be Dissolute

Unbelief Always Increases Poverty

Poverty is back in the news again.  Maori and Polynesian poverty to be exact.  It would appear that it is finally dawning on some that poverty--persistent intergenerational poverty--will not be overcome by throwing gummint money at the problem.  It turns out that the problems are far "thicker" than those which can be solved by throwing (not-a-few) taxpayer dollars around.  Poverty has now become institutionalised; it has become a culture all of its own--self-affirming and self-perpetuating and relentlessly powerful.   The Borg is assimilating the ship.

Politically Incorrect Science

Lawrence Solomon: Science getting settled

Lawrence Solomon Aug 26, 201, Financial Post.

New, convincing evidence indicates global warming is caused by cosmic rays and the sun — not humans

The science is now all-but-settled on global warming, convincing new evidence demonstrates, but Al Gore, the IPCC and other global warming doomsayers won’t be celebrating. The new findings point to cosmic rays and the sun — not human activities — as the dominant controller of climate on Earth.

The research, published with little fanfare this week in the prestigious journal Nature, comes from über-prestigious CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research,

The Smart Money

Buyer Beware

We have been approached by several folk wondering about the investment wisdom of buying some of the state owned electricity companies when they come on the block.  On the surface of it, power companies usually provide stable income flows, a good dividend stream, and solid earnings growth.  The stuff blue chips are made of.

But--there is always a but--let's not neglect the big-picture, or helicopter view.

Black Theology and the Beginnings of Jazz

The Origins of Jazz

Here is a neat lecture on the Christian foundations of jazz.

We came across it posted on Justin Taylor's website.  

In the video below Dr. William Edgar, Professor of Apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary, gives a combination of piano concert and historical-theological lecture on the African-American musical heritage of pain and joy expressed through spirituals, jazz, ragtime, gospel, and blues. It was delivered at the Gordon College Convocation on February 20, 2009.

You can listen to an audio version of the same lecture delivered at the Chesterton House in 2007. In that version he plays with his quartet.

For a CD of the full concert, go here.

For related materials, see also Edgar’s essay “The Deep Joy of Jazz” and Stephen Nichols’s Getting the Blues: What Blues Music Teaches Us about Suffering and Salvation.

Chris Carter, on His Merits

The Opportunities are Breathtaking

At this blog, as our readers know, we are anti-UN.  It is a hopeless, thoroughly compromised institution--as any grand Babelesque edifice erected to the praise of Man will inevitably be--but every now and again we have to acknowledge, the UN shows some smarts, and gets things right.  Praise where it is due, and all that.

Former Labour MP (and government minister) Chris Carter is off to Kabul, Afghanistan to fight corruption.  This, from the NZ Herald:

It's Only Democracy If We Get Our Way

Crocodile Outrage

The spectre of Christians running for political office has again surfaced in the US on the Left.  Actually the fact that it has surfaced again is a clear sign that the Left is worried about the electoral prospects of one Barack Hussein Obama in 2012.  If the Left did not think that there is a strong probability that the Presidency will be won by a Republican, they would not have even bothered with raising the issue.  But, by all accounts, they are busily knotting up their underwear with febrile fervency. 

A helpful (and hopefully influential) article in the New York Times has appeared, by Ross Douthat.  It is reasonably sane and perceptive.  The upshot?  Calm down and unknot the underwear.

We Have Seen Our Future

Not Pretty

The recent British riots have provoked a variety of reactions.  Here is one.  It does not reflect a Christian position, but it does convey cynicism, sarcasm, anger and bitterness.  As UK (and Western) society continues to crumble, from the family outwards, we are likely to see much more of this kind of discourse.