dailybeast--2019-12-29--Did Ancient Jews Change Hanukkah to One-Up the Competition?

It’s the end of Hanukkah, the ‘festival of lights,’ or ‘Jewish Christmas,’ as some insensitively like to say. This holiday commemorates an event during the Maccabean revolt in the second century B.C. when the candelabrum in the Jerusalem Temple miraculously burned for eight days despite only having enough oil for one. It’s for that reason, we all know, that Jews today light one additional candle of their Hanukiah (nine-armed candlestick) on each successive night of Hanukkah. Or is it?  New research into the origins of Hanukkah shows that this joyful holiday developed and evolved alongside other gentile light-based festivals like Saturnalia.  In the Books of the Maccabees, which describe the first celebration of Hanukkah, there is no reference to lights of the menorah, which we today see as the focal point of the holiday. The earliest sources make no reference to the miracle of the oil that lasted eight days. Instead, they concentrate on the military victory of the Maccabees over the Greeks and see the festival as a commemoration of the rededication of the Temple (which had been desecrated by the Greeks). Oddly, the first-century Jewish historian Josephus, who first refers to a holiday called the “Festival of Lights,” never calls it Hanukkah or explains why it is associated with light. There are some unanswered questions, therefore, about how Hanukkah moved from being a celebration of military victory to a festival of lights.  At the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature conference held in San Diego last month, Dr. Catherine Bonesho, an assistant professor in Early Judaism at UCLA, presented a paper on religious competition in the ancient world. In her research, Bonesho examined ancient traditions about Hanukkah preserved in the writings of rabbinic authors in order to see what ancient Jews thought the holiday was about. Bonesho told The Daily Beast that our traditions about Hanukkah started much later than most people know. After Josephus, “the ritual of lighting lamps does not appear in textual form until the Mishnah (200 CE), nor does the tradition of the miracle of oil appear until the Babylonian Talmud (edited between 5th-7th centuries CE),” Bonesho said.  The group known as the rabbis who would eventually write and edit the Babylonian Talmud emerged in Roman Palestine after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 A.D. They were largely located in Palestine and Sasanian Babylon and “imagined themselves as the leaders of Judaism.” Their influence grew and their writings remain foundational for many Jewish communities to this day. It’s these later traditions found in the Babylonian Talmud that provide the basis for modern celebrations of Hanukkah.  But these later discussions of the purpose of Hanukkah didn’t emerge in a vacuum. As the festival of Hanukkah grew and the ritual of candle-lighting moved to the center of its celebration, it did so alongside other religious traditions that also celebrated light and fire.  One important influence, which is often noted in conversations about the origins of Christmas, was the popular ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia. Saturnalia emphasizes the importance of light during the winter solstice. One scholar, Moshe Benovitz, has argued that in the first century B.C. King Herod turned Hanukkah into a kind of solstice festival by associating it with other popular festivals of light. He even claims that in the Roman period the lighting of candles originally marked the solstice, not the oil miracle. For the authors of the Babylonian Talmud, the local Sasanian rituals of Zoroastrianism were another important influence. Drawing upon the work of Michael Shenkar, Bonesho notes how important the worship of fire was to the ancient Zoroastrian cult.  What all of this means is that when the rabbis were discussing the origins of Hanukkah there were a number of competing celebrations of light that also occurred in close proximity to the solstice.  In their work, the authors of the Babylonian Talmud collected together some of the traditions about Hanukkah and “reinvented” it as a festival about light and control of light and fire. According to Bonesho, they linked Hanukkah not just to the miracle during the Maccabean revolt, but also to the book of Genesis and the original creation of light.  In particular, they connect Hanukkah to a story about the biblical Adam. In a story found in the Babylonian Talmud, Adam grows afraid of the growing darkness that takes place before the solstice. Understandably, Adam is afraid that the light might never return. As the days grow longer after the solstice and the sun returns, he grows increasingly joyful.  In discussing the origins and purpose of Hanukkah, the rabbis don’t ignore the fact that there are other religious festivals that are interested in light and fire; instead they explain them as a kind of perversion of the original Adamic festival. Bonesho told me that they even link the Hebrew spelling of Saturnalia with light and Hanukkah. As she puts it, “The way the rabbis explain the existence of Saturnalia is by making it a perversion of Hanukkah. Interestingly the Babylonian Talmud’s origin story for the Roman festival of Saturnalia traces the festival back to the biblical Adam and his joy because of the increase in daylight after the winter solstice. According to the passage, because of his joy, Adam establishes an eight-day festival for the sake of God, which the Romans later corrupt into Saturnalia.”  What these origins stories do, Bonesho said, is allow “the rabbis to claim that it is only their God who controls light and fire.” This is religious competition in action. Rather than ignoring the reality of and similarities with other contemporary non-Jewish religious practices, the rabbis seem to place those traditions into a relationship with their own festival. By integrating those non-Jewish practices into their version of Hanukkah they are able to neutralize any potential threat that these rituals posed to their own religious claims.  Liane Feldman, an assistant professor in the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at NYU, told The Daily Beast that Bonesho’s work “helps to shed light on one of the ways in which ancient Jews relied on literary production to reconstruct their origin stories to reflect the realia of the world around them. Bonesho’s argument suggests that Jewish identity, even in a seemingly minor case such as Hanukkah, is constantly being redefined to adopt and etymologize local practices as far as possible so that the rabbis can in turn argue that the local communities adopted originally Jewish practices and rendered them idolatrous.”  They say that the proof of the pudding is in the eating and in this instance that may well be true. Today there continues to be widespread (erroneous) claims that Christians ‘stole’ Saturnalia and turned it into Christmas, but there’s no popular debate about the growth and origins of Hanukkah. And that, arguably, is because the rabbis headed that accusation off at the pass.


dailyheraldchicago--2019-09-10--Officials 31 Iraqi pilgrims die in stampede during holiday

Officials: 31 Iraqi pilgrims die in stampede during holiday

BAGHDAD -- A walkway collapsed and set off a stampede in the holy city of Karbala on Tuesday as thousands of Shiite Muslims marked one of the most solemn holy days of the year. At least 31 people were killed and about 100 were injured, officials said.  It was the deadliest stampede in recent history during Ashoura commemorations, when hundreds of thousands of people converge on the city, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of Baghdad, for the occasion every year.  The incident happened toward the end of the Ashoura procession, causing a panicked rush among worshippers near the gold-domed Imam Hussein shrine, according to two officials who spoke to The Associated Press from Karbala.  The somber day of Ashoura commemorates the killing of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson, the Imam Hussein, by a rival Muslim faction in Karbala in what is now Iraq, in 680 A.D. Hussein and his descendants are seen by Shiites as the rightful heirs to the prophet. Hussein's killing has been attributed with cementing the schism between Shiite and Sunni Islam.  In recent years, Ashoura processions have been attacked by extremist Sunni militants. In 2004, at the height of Iraq's sectarian violence, 143 people were killed in near simultaneous suicide and other bombings at shrines in Baghdad and Karbala during the Ashoura procession.  In 2005, rumors of a suicide bomber among worshippers crossing a bridge during a different religious holiday caused a massive stampede killing more than 950 people, many of whom jumped, in their panic, into the Tigris River.  Tuesday's commemorations were peaceful until the walkway collapsed, triggering the chaos.  The incident took place during the so-called "Tweireej" run, when tens of thousands of people run toward the shrine of Imam Hussein in Karbala around noon.  The 2-3 kilometer (1-2 mile) run symbolizes when the maternal cousins of Imam Hussein's half-brother al-Abbas ran from the nearby village of Tweireej to rescue him, only to find out that he had been killed.  Earlier in the day, hundreds of thousands of black-clad pilgrims held Ashoura processions amid beefed-up security in Karbala and in the capital, Baghdad, marching through the streets. Many of the faithful beat their chests and lashed themselves with chains in a symbolic expression of grief and regret for not being able to help Hussein before his martyrdom.  On Sunday night, thousands marched toward the holy shrine of Imam Hussein in Karbala, which had been lit up on the eve of the celebration.  This year's commemoration comes amid rising tensions in the Middle East and the crisis between Iran and the U.S. and its ally Israel in the wake of the collapsing nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers.  Israel has recently expanded its war on Iran and its allies in the region, and is believed to have struck targets as far out as Iraq in recent weeks, drawing outrage and pledges of retaliation.


drudgereport--2019-01-17--Mysterious naked holy men a huge draw at religious festival

Mysterious naked holy men a huge draw at religious festival...

PRAYAGRAJ, India (Reuters) - Ash-smeared and dreadlocked Naga sadhus or Hindu ascetics, naked except for rosary beads and garlands and smoking wooden pipes, are a huge draw at the world’s largest religious festival that began this week in India.  At the Kumbh Mela, or “festival of the pot”, held this year in Prayagraj in north India, organizers expect up to 150 million people to bathe at the confluence of three holy rivers: the Ganges, the Yamuna and a mythical third river, the Saraswati.  The festival is one of the only opportunities to see the reclusive Naga sadhus, some of whom live in caves after taking a vow of celibacy and renouncing worldly possessions.  Their charge down to the waters to bathe at the opening of the Kumbh, many armed with tridents and swords, is one of the highlights of the festival.  “It is a confluence of all Naga sadhus at the meeting point of these holy rivers,” said Anandnad Saraswati, a Naga sadhu from Mathura, a holy city in north India.  “They meet each other, they interact with each other and they meditate and pray here at the holy confluence. They give their message to the people and they transform people.”  Most of the Nagas enter the orders in their early teens, leaving their friends and families to immerse themselves in meditation, yoga and religious rituals. It can take years to be conferred with the title of a Naga, they say.  “One has to live a life of celibacy for six years. After that the person is given the title of a great man and 12 years after that he is made a Naga,” said Digambar Kedar Giri, a Naga sadhu from Jaipur.  During the eight-week Kumbh, generally held every three years in one of four cities in India, the Nagas live in makeshift monasteries called Akhara erected on the eastern banks of the Ganges.  They spend their days meditating, smoking cannabis and receiving a stream of visitors who come to pay their respects.  “It feels surreal: all this time you have read about them. They are almost like fictional characters and then you meet them,” said a woman who gave her name as Pallavi, on a visit to the Akharas.  The Kumbh Mela has its roots in a Hindu tradition that says the god Vishnu wrested a golden pot containing the nectar of immortality from demons. In a 12-day fight for possession, four drops fell to earth, in the cities of Prayagraj, Haridwar, Ujjain and Nasik, who share the Kumbhs as a result.


drudgereport--2019-01-20--From pariah to demi-god Trans leader star at massive festival

From pariah to demi-god: Trans leader star at massive festival...

PRAYAGRAJ, India (Reuters) - In a desert tent guarded by armed police and a thick-set bouncer, Laxmi Narayan Tripathi is blessing a constant stream of pilgrims, who garland her with marigolds and kneel to touch her feet.  Tripathi, a tattooed transgender leader and a former reality TV star, has become an unlikely icon at India’s Kumbh Mela, a huge religious festival being held on the banks of the Ganges river in the city of Prayagraj. Up to 150 million people are expected to attend by the time the festival ends in March.  On Tuesday, her religious movement, called the Kinnar Akhada, became the first transgender group to bathe at the confluence of the holy Ganges and the Yamuna rivers on the first day of the ancient festival, traditionally reserved for reclusive Hindu priests, almost all of whom are men.  “After centuries down the line, it was when the community finally got its due,” Tripathi told Reuters, seated on a pedestal next to her Michael Kors bag, juggling calls on an iPhone.  Many at the festival cheer Tripathi for reclaiming the lost place in Hinduism for India’s “third gender”, known as the hijras, worshipped as demi-gods for thousands of years, but ridiculed and sidelined during British colonial rule.  A law passed in 1871 classed the hijras as “criminals”.  Little changed after independence and hijras were pariahs, living in tribes, begging or soliciting for sustenance and harassed by police.  It was only in 2014 that the Supreme Court officially recognized transgender people as a third gender.  Tripathi is one of the best known. But her support for building a controversial Hindu temple on the site of a demolished mosque has angered some in the LGBT community, who allege she is courting support from India’s powerful religious right to further her own influence.  The place of hijras in Indian culture dates back to the Ramayana, a more-than 2,000 year-old Hindu epic poem venerated and performed across India.  In the text, the god-king Ram is exiled from the holy city of Ayodhya, with the entire kingdom following him into the forest. He orders them to turn back, but returning after 14 years, finds the hijras waiting for him in the same spot. Impressed by their devotion, he grants them the power to invoke blessings and curses on people.  For centuries, though their lives were far from easy, hijras held a special role in India’s royal courts, tasked with guarding harems and rising to influential positions.  Today, despite their legal recognition, many still face prejudice in what is a conservative country, forced into sex work or seeking alms at weddings and births, a long-held practice among hijras. Hate crimes against them are common and HIV prevalence within the community is many times higher than the general population.  “The ritual seeking of alms is now seen as begging,” said Anindya Hajra, a transgender activist at the Pratyay Gender Trust. “It criminalizes and pushes an already vulnerable community to its very brink.”  Born in 1979 in Thane, a suburb of India’s financial capital Mumbai, Tripathi says she had a difficult childhood scarred with abuse by a close relative. A sickly child who was bullied at school for being feminine, she grew in confidence after learning Bharatanatyam, a classical Indian dance.  “I chose not to remember the prejudice,” she said. “Rather I think (about) the good things that have happened to me, and be a flamboyant rainbow.”  Long recognized as one of the most influential figures in the LGBT community in India, she become famous across the country when she appeared on reality TV show “Bigg Boss” in 2011. She was a petitioner in the landmark court ruling that recognized transgender people.  In 2015, she founded her Akhara and began a campaign to have hijras represented at the at the first “Shahi Snan”, or royal bath, of the Kumbh Mela.  “It all started to reclaim the lost position in the dharma,” Tripathi said, referring to the Hindu cosmic law underlying correct behavior and social order. “I was not very religious until 2015 – life changed.”  Devout Hindus believe bathing in the waters of the Ganges absolves people of sins and doing so at the time of the Kumbh Mela, or the “festival of the pot”, brings salvation from the cycle of life and death.  At the festival, 13 religious orders, or Akhara, set up camp on the banks of the Ganges.  The umbrella body overseeing the Akharas initially refused to recognize the Kinnar Akhara as the 14th order.  But Tripathi has forged close bonds with the largest of the other holy orders at the Kumbh Mela, the Juna Akhara. They agreed to bathe together.  On the first royal bathing day on Tuesday, Tripathi rose at 4 a.m., dressed in a saffron sari and applied her makeup. She and her dozens of disciples then began the long procession to the river on a fleet of elaborately decorated trucks.  At the banks of the Ganges, they waited for their turn to bathe. Tripathi met with Hari Giri, the leader of Juna Akhara.  Her Kinnar Akhara “was there, is there, and will always be there”, Giri told Tripathi.  Shortly after sunrise, she plunged into the waters, to the cheers of the crowds who gathered to watch.  Tripathi has courted controversy with support for the building of a temple dedicated to Ram on the site of a former mosque in Ayodhya which was demolished by hardline Hindus in 1992, leading to riots in which thousands died.  Many Hindus claim the mosque was built over an ancient temple that marked the birthplace of Ram, and the row is expected to be a major issue in a general election due to be held in the country by May. Many activists of India’s ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party have been agitating for the construction of a temple at the site, alarming the country’s sizeable Muslim minority.  “There has been an attempt by the right to co-opt trans voices to suit a certain version of history,” said Hajra, the activist. “Our apprehension is also that some are trying to further (their) own personal career moves.”  A letter signed in November by hundreds of transgender people and rights groups accused Tripathi of fuelling “the right-wing politics of communal hatred”.  “Where my Lord Ram was born, there the temple has to come,” she said. The Mughals “brought (the temple) down and then they enslaved us all”, she said, referring to the Muslim emperors who ruled India in the 16th and 17th century.  Tripathi plans to spend the rest of the Kumbh festival at her Akhara, receiving visitors among her colorful band of followers, who have little in common with the holy men living monastic lives in the other camps.  “We are not celibate,” she said. “We are demi-gods, not saints. We have our own rules.”


Stampede kills dozens...

At least 31 people have been killed in a deadly stampede at a religious festival in Iraq.  More than 100 have been injured after pilgrims were crushed during the Shia holy day of Ashura in the city of Karbala.  The ceremony sees millions travel to Karbala to mark the death of Imam Husayn, grandson of the Prophet Mohammed.  Ashura worshippers often cut themselves as as a sign of their faith and devotion to Husayn.  Reports say the pilgrims were crushed as thousands recreated a battle in the city's narrow streets.  A spokesman for Karbala told the BBC that as hundreds of thousands of pilgrims ran through the streets, one person stumbled and fell other, causing others to fall and triggering the deadly stampede.  Security officials have said a walkway collapsed during the crush.  Authorities have warned the death toll is likely to rise.  Karbala, around 62 miles south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, was the site of a major battle in the year 680, which led to Husayn's death.  The day is marked as a national holiday in several countries, including Afghanistan, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and Pakistan.  One of the rituals is called the "Tuwairij run" which sees pilgrims run down the streets towards the Imam Hussein Mosque.  It commemorates the run from the ancient village of Tuwairij to Karbala, undertaken during the seventh century battle by the cousins of Husayn's half-brother Abbas.  The event has been the target of terror attacks in the past.  In 2004, more than 140 died after a number of bombs were set off at shrines in Karbala and Baghdad during Ashura.  The next year, at least 965 pilgrims died in a stampede on a Bridge in Baghdad during a different Shia holy day.  Panic had been sparked after rumours spread that suicide bombers were among the crowds.


eveningstandard--2019-03-18--Happy Holi 2019: What is the Indian Festival of Colours? Why do Hindus celebrate it?

Next month, Hindus will celebrate Holi, also known as “The Festival of Colours.”  The religious festival is intended to welcome the arrival of spring whilst also celebrating fertility, colour and love.  Celebrated mainly in India and Nepal, worshippers mark the event by throwing colourful powders at each other.  Thanks to this unique festivity and its joyful atmosphere, similar Holi events take place in cities all over the world.  As Holi fast approaches, here’s everything you need to know about the Hindu festival...  This year, Holi begins on Monday, March 9 and ends on Tuesday, March 10.  The festival celebrations start on the evening of the full moon that comes in ‘Phalguna,’ which is between the end of February and the middle of March.  Over the two days, the festival is split into two events. The night before the main festivities is referred to as Holika Dahan and is when people traditionally gather around a bonfire to celebrate the victory of good over evil.  The following day is known as Rangwali Holi, during which huge crowds gather and colourful powders known as gulal are thrown into the air. This is the event for which Holi is most renowned.  The origins of Holi can be linked to various Hindu legends, although one in particular appears to be the most well known – the Legend of Prahlada and Holika.  Holi derives from the name Holika, who in Hindu legend was a female demon and the sister of Hiranyakashipu, a demon king.  Hiranyakashipu was immortal and believed himself to be the ruler of the universe.  Appalled by his evil wielding of power, his son Prahlada refused to acknowledge him as his ruler and instead worshipped the Hindu god Vishnu.  Aware of his deviance, Hiranyakashipu and Holika plot to kill Prahlada by burning him alive. To protect herself from the fire, Holika wore a magical shawl but as the fire burned, the shawl flies from her shoulders and onto Prahlada, resulting in her perishing in the flames.  Lord Vishnu then appears as half-lion, half-man and kills Hiranyakashipu.  After his death, Prahlada rules as king in his father’s place.  The legend represents the triumph of good over evil and is heavily linked to the Holi festival.  Another legend from which Holi draws its origins is the love story between Hindu deities Radha and Krishna.  In the legend, Krishna is embarrassed by his dark blue skin and worried that his love Radha would not accept him. His mother tells him to colour Radha’s face in whatever shade he wanted and when he did the pair fell in love.  The legend of Krishna and Radha still lives on during Holi and it’s traditional for lovers to paint their faces the same colour.  The bonfires lit during Holika Dahan are meant to symbolise Holika’s death and sometimes worshippers mark their faces with ash to represent purification.  After Holika Dahan, Hindus take to the streets to sing, dance and throw coloured powder at each other.  The four main colours – red, blue, green and yellow- are all thought to be symbolic in Hinduism. Red reflects love and fertility, blue symbolises determination, green represents life and happiness whilst yellow signifies knowledge.


eveningstandard--2019-03-23--20 stunning Greek Islands you need to visit

The Greek Islands have a magical air to them – which is why British travellers are drawn to the isles summer after summer.  From the whitewashed houses, blue-domed churches, the turquoise Aegean Sea and delicious gyros, it’s no wonder British nationals make around three million visits to Greece each year.  Yet, while the mainland holds the Acropolis and evidence of an ancient civilisation, it’s the islands that really draw us in.  A week or even a few days spent on a Greek island is a fantastic way to rewind, relax and refresh. Below are our pick of the most stunning Greek islands.  Known for its long stretches of powdery-white beaches flaked by the kind of unbelievably blue water Greece is known for, Naxos is a sun-worshipper’s paradise. The largest of the Cyclades, Naxos is a mix of cobbled alleyways and stunning waterfront scenes in the capital of Chora and boasts a vast countryside filled with mountain villages, idyllic beaches and historic sites.  A typical Cycladic island, you’ll find white villages spread across Serifos but without the usual tourist hubbub of nearby Ios and Santorini. With quiet harbours, golden beaches and a stunning landscape, the island is rugged and best explored by car.  In the sunniest corner of Greece, you’ll find the group of islands collectively called the Dodecanese. Found in the south-eastern Aegean Sea, closer to the Turkish mainland than the Greek, these lesser-known islands are the ultimate antidote to the tourist-heavy Cyclades. For the spiritual, the island of Patmos is best visited at Easter when the locals hold a number of religious festivals to celebrate Holy Week.  To the west of Naxos and Ios, you’ll find the fellow Cycladic island of Amorgos. The long and narrow island is mountainous with steep cliffs, narrow inlets and enchanting towns. An active holiday-lover’s dream, Amorgos is the ideal island to visit if you like hiking, diving and rock climbing.  Also spelt as Astypalaia, this butterfly-shaped island is where the Dodecanese meets the Cyclades. The hilltops here are covered with historic whitewashed villages and you’ll find sun-drenched beaches all around the island. The deep blue sea surrounding Astypalea accentuates the beauty of the island colours and the capital of Chora is one of the most picturesque towns in the Aegean, with a castle and blue domed church towering over the town.  A mainstay summer destination for British travellers, Corfu is one of the more urban islands. Corfu city offers a cosmopolitan element you won’t find on many other Greek islands, with a UNESCO world heritage Old Town, intertwined with historic monuments, stunning beaches and glorious natural landscape – it’s easy to see why this is a family favourite.  Located just off the coast of Turkey, Symi is part of the Dodecanese group and the foreign influence is prevalent. Instead of the whitewashed villages synonymous with the Greek Islands, Symi’s main town of Ano Symi is filled with colourful buildings that descend the hill slopes to the water’s edge. The neoclassical architecture was introduced by the Italians, who ruled the island until almost a century ago. Expect secluded beaches, blue coves and crystal-clear water. Combine your trip to Symi with a trip to Turkey’s Bodrum as the twice-weekly ferry is just an hour and 45 minutes.  There’s a reason why Santorini is the most revered Greek Island – and it’s largely due to the iconic pink-hued sunset. But Santorini is also home to the famous red beach, black sand beach and Akrotiri – a prehistoric village. Oia is the most aesthetically pleasing part of the island, with its blue-domed churches and white-washed cliff-perched houses. While there, make sure you rent a quad bike to make zipping around the island easy, and go cliff diving just under the cliffs of Oia.  The largest of the Greek islands, Crete is known for its varied terrain which can range from rocky beaches to fine sand beaches and the Samariá Gorge which lies in the Samariá National Park. At 11.1 miles long, the gorge is the longest in Europe and well worth the hike – even to see a Cretan badger or a spiny mouse. While in Crete, make sure you visit Elafonissi – a paradise of lush beaches and hidden coves.  With a buzzing food scene, gorgeous hotels and stunning villages – along with some great swimming spots – Sifnos is the little-heard-of Greek paradise you’ve been searching for. The island has 366 churches which are found on all corners of the isle. If you’re into hiking, swimming and good food – this is the island for you.  Mykonos and Ios have long been dubbed the ‘party islands’ and for good reason. Their party scene reaches its peak in the summer months so if you’re into a quieter holiday, visiting Mykonos in the shoulder months will still allow you to experience its beauty without many a drunkard stumbling across the cobbled pavements come nightfall. Mykonos is famous for its windmills that line the banks of the main town – the perfect spot to sit with a gyros and watch the sunset.  Ios is part of the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Another island that can become ‘party central’ during the warmer months, Ios is hilly with cliffs forming the edge of most of the island. Most of the beaches on Ios are fine sand beaches meaning days lying by the sea are a must. While there, make sure you also check out Sharkos Hill which is home to the island’s largest Bronze Age excavation site, to learn about the ancient lifestyle.  Paros is another sizeable island and is best known for its beaches and traditional Greek villages. This is another island where quad bike hire is a must so you can spend a day exploring all corners of the island – often finding private beaches you’ll have all to yourself. Paros is also home to the Panagia Ekatontapiliani, a landmark Byzantine church built around 300 AD.  You know that Greek beach all the Instagram travel influencers love to post pictures of? Yep, that’s Navagio beach in Zakynthos. Navagio beach is the site of a 1980 shipwreck and is surrounded by tall cliffs – only accessible by boat. Other than this beach, Zakynthos is home to some of the bluest water in Greece so whatever beach you visit, you will be guaranteed some stunning scenery.  Located in the Ionian Sea, this is the largest of the Ionian Islands and just west of mainland Greece. It is made up of limestone cliffs and white sand beaches – many of which are only accessible by foot. Myrtos beach located on the northwestern coast is a must-visit and is considered one of the best beaches in the world.  Just west of Santorini you’ll find the oft-forgotten Cycladic island of Milos. The rocky landscape contrasts with emerald waters to create a stunning juxtaposition. While there, make sure you visit the ancient city of Fylakopi which was among the most significant Aegean cities in prehistoric Greek times.  Lefkada is connected to the Greek mainland by a causeway – yet remains one of the more idyllic Greek Islands. Here you will find a number of traditional villages, sheer cliffs and, of course, turquoise waters.  If you’re an avid fan of Mamma Mia (the film) you’ll be pleasantly surprised to know that Skopelos is where you’ll find the church where the wedding is held and which acts as the backdrop to Meryl Streep’s dramatic (and excellent) rendition of ABBA’s ‘The Winner Takes It All’. Other than fawning over movie sites, Skopelos is home to a number of tavernas serving fresh seafood and traditional offerings like moussaka and souvlaki.  The northernmost island of the Greek Cyclades archipelago, Andros is home to a number of eateries, stunning beaches and … a Museum of Contemporary Art. MOCA, as it is known, has earned a reputation in the art work for its summer exhibitions of famous artists like Picasso and Matisse – definitely worth a visit while you’re there.  Skiathos is part of the Sporades archipelago and is best known for its gorgeous beaches and buzzing nightlife. Yet, unlike Ios and Mykonos, Skiathos' nightlife is less touristy but just as ‘happening’. If clubbing isn’t your scene, there are a number of sea caves to be explored and beaches to spend a lazy day reading a good book.


eveningstandard--2019-04-10--Easter church services in London Where to celebrate Eucharist on Good Friday Easter Sunday and Eas

Easter church services in London: Where to celebrate Eucharist on Good Friday, Easter Sunday and Easter Monday

London's spectacular churches and cathedrals are preparing to celebrate Easter weekend with a series of special services this year.  Eucharist will be taking place across the city on the Sunday, which falls on April 21 this year, as well as evening services on Good Friday, Easter Monday and even Easter Tuesday in some places.  The religious holiday is, of course, the apposite time to worship in some of the most impressive venues in the city, with the likes of Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s Cathedral all putting on services.  While every active church in the city will be celebrating Easter, these are some of our favourite places to spend time in over the weekend.  Southwark Cathedral, found by Borough Market, is home to some of the most stunning ecclesiastical design and stained glass in the city. This year, the venue is hosting a Walk of Witness from 10.15am on Good Friday, heading from Christ Church, Blackfriars Road to Waterloo Station. There will also be Preaching of the Passion at noon in the cathedral on the day, as well as Good Friday Liturgy at 1.30pm and Evening Prayer at 4pm. On Saturday April 20 the venue will host Dawn Vigil and Easter liturgy at 9am, followed by Evening Prayer at 4pm.  Easter Sunday will see worshipers take part in an early morning Dawn Vigil and Easter liturgy with Initiation at 5.10am, followed by breakfast. Morning Prayer follows at 8.30am, before Eucharist with Hymns at 9am, Choral Eucharist at 11am, Solemn Evensong at 3pm and Compline at 6pm.  Westminster Cathedral is the second largest church building in London, behind St Paul’s Cathedral, and one of the most impressive. The Neo-Byzantine design is arguably the finest example of its kind in the city, and it makes for a beautiful space to worship this Easter. Good Friday starts with Office of Readings at 10am, before Solemn Liturgy of the Passion at 3pm and Stations of the Cross at 6.30pm. On the Saturday, there’s another Office of Readings service at 10am, before the Easter Vigil in the Holy Night service at 8.30pm. Easter Sunday services begin with mass at 8am and 9am, before Morning Prayer at 10am, Solemn mass at 10.30am, mass at 12.15pm, Solemn Vespers and Benediction at 3.30pm, mass at 5.30pm and mass at 7pm.  Finally, Easter Monday schedule includes Morning Prayer at 10am, mass at 10.30am, mass at 12.30pm and mass at 5pm.  One of Fleet Street’s gems, St Dunstan in the West is tucked in among the area’s pubs and old printing offices, and is a beautiful, peaceful space. It’s a great example of gothic revival architecture in London, having been designed by John Shaw in the 1830s. A series of special services are taking place here across Easter weekend. Good Friday sees the Liturgy with address, Ante-Communion and Veneration of the Cross take place from 3pm, while the church is also hosting Eucharist and Blessing of the Paschal Candle at 12.30pm on Easter Tuesday.  St Paul’s Cathedral is one of the largest and grandest buildings in the capital. The London landmark was designed by Sir Christopher Wren and construction started on the magnificent building back in 1675. It was later rebuilt following bombing in World War II and it still stands as the highest point inside the City of London.  As well as being the city's biggest cathedral, it's putting on one of the biggest selections of services over Bank Holiday weekend. The Easter calendar starts off with the Good Friday Liturgy with the Veneration of the Cross and Distribution of the Sacrament at 5pm on Good Friday. Saturday sees the Easter Liturgy with Baptism, Confirmation and the First Eucharist of Easter take place at 6pm, before Easter Sunday begins with Holy Communion at 8am, followed by Sung Eucharist at 11.30, Festal Evensong at 3.15pm and Eucharist at 6pm.  Westminster Abbey is one of the most historic religious spaces in the country, although it's technically a Royal Peculiar due to it having no Bishop. It famously hosted the coronation of William Conqueror in 1066, and there's been a church here since the seventh century. It's opening its doors for a series of Easter celebrations this year, as it has done for over a millennia.  First up, a Vigil and First Eucharist of Easter will take place at 8pm on Saturday April 20. Easter Sunday will then begin with holy communion at 8am, before sung Eucharist at 10.30am and Evensong and Procession at 3pm.  The beautiful but understated St Martin in the Fields is a fabulous place to spend a little time and reflect — especially with the hustle and bustle of Trafalgar Square being right next door. The Neoclassical design is grand inside and out, with the East Window behind the altar marking one of the most unique ecclesiastical designs in the capital. The church’s packed Easter calendar begins on Good Friday with Morning Prayer at 8.30am, before a special Good Friday service at 10am and a three hour service from midday.  Saturday starts with Morning Prayer at 9am, with the Easter Vigil and the First Eucharist of Easter following at 5.30am. Easter Sunday begins with Easter Eucharist at 10am, followed by a joint service in Mandarin and Cantonese at 1.30pm and Choral evensong at 5pm.


eveningstandard--2019-04-18--The Exodus story inspires us to cherish our freedoms

When Boris Johnson urged the Prime Minister to tell the “Pharaoh in Brussels — let my people go”, he was invoking one of the greatest stories in history: the Exodus. Tomorrow, Jews in London and all over the world will recount the tale as they sit down for the Passover meal — how the Jews were enslaved in Egypt 3,300 years ago, how they escaped from slavery and how they trekked to freedom under the leadership of Moses.  As in most years, this year Passover coincides with Easter, a holy time for millions of Christians, marking the death and resurrection of Jesus.  The Exodus is not only a story attached to a religious festival, but it has had a significant impact on the development of our conception of freedom in the West. Back in the 18th century, as the American colonies sought their independence from Britain, many Americans identified themselves with the Jews from the account of the Exodus. Indeed in 1776, one of the Founding Fathers, Benjamin Franklin, proposed that the seal of the new country should be Moses lifting his stick to divide the Red Sea.  Two hundred years later in the US, the story inspired the civil rights movement of the Sixties. The battle cry of African Americans was “Let my people go”. Their talismanic leader Dr Martin Luther King used the tale in his speeches. In what turned out to be his final address in Tennessee in April 1968, the day before he was assassinated, he told the crowd that his vision was to “watch God’s children in their magnificent trek from the dark dungeons of Egypt through, or rather across the Red Sea, through the wilderness on toward the promised land”.  In a spirit of inter-faith co-operation, a leading American Rabbi, Abraham Joshua Heschel, marched arm-in-arm with Dr King at Selma in 1965. He famously explained afterwards that he felt a religious obligation to take part, and was “praying with his feet”.  Owing to their experience of persecution going back to the Exodus, many Jews strongly supported the civil rights movement and other freedom struggles, such as that against apartheid.  It also served as a template for liberation movements in South America — in El Salvador, Archbishop Oscar Romero, outraged by human rights abuses in his nation’s civil war, spoke out on behalf of these victims. He was assassinated while celebrating mass in 1980.  And here in Britain religious campaigners have taken the concept of liberty from the Bible and effected change, in cases from abolition of slavery to 20th-century welfare reforms.  The Exodus story reminds us of the value of liberty. Around the world it is under threat. Freedom House, in its annual surveys, has shown a decline in global freedom for 13 consecutive years. In Britain freedom of religion is protected, and Christians, Jews, Muslims and all minority groups benefit. As Londoners celebrate Passover and Easter we should cherish the freedoms we have.  Zaki Cooper is a trustee of the Council of Christians and Jews.


eveningstandard--2019-05-06--Eid 2019 UK How do Muslims celebrate Eid al-Fitr When does Ramadan end

Eid 2019 UK: How do Muslims celebrate Eid al-Fitr? When does Ramadan end?

When the Islamic holy month of Ramadan comes to an end, Muslims can look forward to the festival of Eid al-Fitr.  The joyous occasion, which means "Festival of Breaking the Fast", is celebrated for three days as it marks the end of Ramadan and its month-long fast.  One popular tradition sees Muslims enjoy a large meal following the fasting period, and along with the celebration the festival is also a time for forgiveness and making amends.  During this time, well-wishers often greet each other by saying "Eid Murbarak" - which means "happy holiday".  With Ramadan currently underway, here's everything you need to know about Eid al-Fitr.  Eid al-Fitr is celebrated at the end of Ramadan, but because the Islamic calendar is lunar the date will vary depending on the moon.  This year Ramadan began on the evening of Sunday May 5, which means Eid al-Fitr will is expected to begin on Tuesday, June 4.  Eid-al-Fitr typically lasts for one, two or three days.  The first Eid al-Fitr was celebrated by Prophet Muhammed with friends and relatives after the victory of the battle of Jang-e-Badr.  To many Muslims, Eid al-Fitr is an important show of gratitude to Allah for the help and strength he gave them throughout the previous fasting month to help them practice self-control.  A celebration that marks the end of Ramadan and the 30 days of fasting, Eid al-Fitr is an important religious holiday that is celebrated by Muslims worlwide.  During Eid al-Fitr, most Muslims will visit a mosque and participate in prayer before sitting down with family and friends for their first daylight meal after fasting.  Another Eid al-Fitr tradition is known as ‘Zakat al-Fitr,’ which is the practice of giving money to the poor so those less fortunate can join in the feast.

Mars El Brogy, Rob Le Mare, Georgia Chambers


eveningstandard--2019-09-25--Rosh Hashanah 2019 When is Jewish New Year and what is Shana Tova When is Yom Kippur

Rosh Hashanah 2019: When is Jewish New Year and what is Shana Tova? When is Yom Kippur?

Jewish people all over the world are getting ready to celebrate one of the most important days in the religious calendar.  Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year festival commemorating the creation of the world, and it marks the beginning the High Holy Days ('Days of Awe') which end with the holiday of Yom Kippur.  Lasting two days, Rosh Hashanah is celebrated with prayer services in the synagogue, candle lighting in the evening and delicious food.  A special instrument made from the horn of a kosher animal - known as a shofar - is blown during synagogue services while some Jews will perform the atonement ritual of tashlikh on the afternoon of the first day of Rosh Hashanah.  Here is everything you need to know about the religious holiday of Rosh Hashanah.  Rosh Hashanah is a Jewish celebration of the creation of the earth that marks the beginning of the year, and is the anniversary of the creation of Adam and Eve, and therefore humanity.  Rosh Hashanah is also a judgement day, when Jews believe that God observes the good deeds over the last year against their bad deeds, and decides what the next year will be like for them.  God will then record this judgment in the Book of Life, detailing who is going to live, who is going to die, who will have a good time and who will have a bad time in the upcoming year.  The book and judgement are sealed on Yom Kippur, which marks the end of the "Days of Awe" - known as 10 days of Repentance.  This is the concept behind the traditional Rosh Hashanah greeting "Be inscribed and sealed for a good year."  This year, Rosh Hashanah will begin on the evening of Sunday, September 29 and end on the evening of Tuesday, October 1.  The exact date varies each year as it's based on the lunar calendar, and marks the beginning of the Jewish New Year.  Rosh Hashanah marks the beginning of the "Days of Awe."  Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, begins on Tuesday October 8 and ends on the evening of Wednesday October 9.  A great deal of time may also be spent in the synagogue when there are special services that emphasise God's kinship.  One of the synagogue rituals is the sounding of the shofar, the ram's horn. Hearing the shofar's call is a reminder for us to look inward and repent for the sins of the past year.  You can wish others a Happy New Year by saying "Shana Tova", which means "good year" in Hebrew.  Sometimes people say "shanah tovah u'metukah" which literally translates to "a good and sweet new year".  In Hebrew, "Rosh Hashanah" translates to "the head of the year."  Food is an important part of Rosh Hashanah.  Sweet foods are often eaten as they are intended to symbolise hope for a sweet and happy year ahead, such as honey cakes and apples dipped in honey.  Apples are dipped in honey and a sweet carrot stew called a tzimmes is often served.  During Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish Challah bread comes as a round loaf rather than a plaited loaf, to symbolise the continuation of life and the year ahead.  There's also often a pomegranate on the table because of a tradition that pomegranates have 613 seeds, one for each of the commandments that a Jew is obliged to keep.


freedombunker--2019-04-22--Conservative Twitter Pounces on Obama Clinton for Expressing Sympathy for Easter Worshippers Kill

Conservative Twitter Pounces on Obama, Clinton for Expressing Sympathy for ‘Easter Worshippers’ Killed in Sri Lankan Attacks

In the wake of the terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka that have left some 290 dead (and many more injured), a number of prominent Democratic politicians and ex-politicians have taken to Twitter to express sympathy and solidarity with the victims—many of whom were Sri Lankan Christians attending Easter church services.  At first read, these statements come across as perhaps boilerplate, but nevertheless sincere expressions of grief following the horrible attacks that struck the island nation.  Not for many conservatives on Twitter however, who saw in Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton's use of the term "Easter worshippers" an attempt to minimize the Christian identity of many of the victims, and obfuscate the religious motivations of the recent attacks.  These barbs are little more than partisan point-scoring. The reference to "Easter worshippers," while perhaps clumsy phrasing, is hard to see as anything but an attempt to highlight the religious motivations of these attacks, and the fact that they struck at Christian churchgoers as they were peacefully observing a religious holiday. What else is an Easter worshipper but a Christian?  Indeed, President Donald Trump's failure to say the word "Christian" in his tweeted response to these attacks attracted notably less outrage.  Silly as this is, it is nevertheless an incredibly predictable response, whereby any tragedy around the globe is quickly filtered through the lens U.S. domestic politics as a way of opportunistically attacking one's partisan opponents.  Often these attacks will seize on the most innocuous words or phrases in an effort to convert someone's expressions of sympathy or sadness into dog whistles to a much more nefarious agenda.  This is not an exclusively right-wing tactic. Take, for instance, the left-wing attacks on Ben Shapiro, who responded to the Notre Dame cathedral fire by bemoaning the loss of "a magnificent monument to Western civilization." This was reported as a covertly racist sentiment, meant to stir up violence against Muslims.  I can't help but think that bickering over the precise phrases we need to use in the aftermath of the terroristic violence in Sri Lanka, even if it's not being done for cynical or partisan reasons, is not the best way to express sympathy for the victims or their families.


hitandrun--2019-10-10--EEOC: Employers Can't Require a Note from Your Rabbi …

Center One, LLC, a Buffalo, N.Y.-based call center company with operations in Pennsylvania and New York, violated federal law by refusing to provide religious accommodations for an employee's religious observance, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit it announced today.  According to the EEOC's lawsuit, in October 2016, a call center employee at Center One's Beaver Falls, Pa., location, who is an adherent of Messianic Judaism, sought a reasonable accommodation of his religious beliefs and practice that he abstain from work on days of religious observance. The lawsuit states that Center One imposed disciplinary points against the Messianic Jewish employee for his absences in observance of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Center One required that the employee provide a certification from a religious leader or religious organization "on letterhead" as a precondition of granting him time off as a reasonable accommodation and imposed disciplinary points against the Messianic Jewish employee for his absences in observance of those religious holidays, the EEOC said.  The Messianic Jewish employee was not a member of a congregation at the time of his requests, but supplied other documents supporting his need for the religious accommodation. The EEOC charged that Center One wrongfully persisted in its demand that the employee provide certification from a religious leader or organization and forbade the employee from taking any additional days off for upcoming religious holidays. The employee was compelled to resign due to Center One's refusal to accommodate his sincerely held religious beliefs, according to the suit.  Such alleged conduct violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits religious discrimination and mandates that employers provide reasonable accommodations, such as excused absences, for the sincerely held religious beliefs and practices of their employees unless it would pose an undue hardship. The EEOC filed suit (EEOC v. Center One, LLC, Civil Action No. 2:19-cv-01242) in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, after first attempting to reach a prelitigation settlement through its conciliation process.


humansarefree--2019-08-29--Why the British Should Apologise to India Genocide Depopulation

Why the British Should Apologise to India (Genocide, Depopulation)

The centenary of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre is the right occasion for Britain to apologise for the evils of colonialism. Two years ago,...  The centenary of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre is the right occasion for Britain to apologise for the evils of colonialism.  Two years ago, on the UK publication of my book  [Inglorious Empire: What The British Did to India](https://amzn.to/2zsKRQ4)  , I took the unusual step of demanding an apology from Britain to India. I even suggested the time and place – the centenary, on April 13, 2019, of the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre in Amritsar. This single event was in many ways emblematic of the worst of the “Raj”, the  [British Empire in India](http://humansarefree.com/2019/08/british-colonials- starved-to-death-60.html)  .  The background to the massacre lay in the British betrayal of promises to reward India for its services in the  [First World War](http://humansarefree.com/2011/03/3-world-wars-planned-by- illuminati.html)  . After making enormous sacrifices, and an immense contribution in men and materiel, blood and treasure, to the British war effort, Indian leaders expected to be rewarded with some measure of self-government. Those hopes were belied.  When protests broke out, the British responded with force. They arrested nationalist leaders in the city of Amritsar and opened fire on protestors, killing ten. In the riot that ensued, five Englishmen were killed and an Englishwoman assaulted (though she was rescued, and carried to safety, by Indians).  Brigadier General Reginald Dyer was sent to Amritsar to restore order; he forbade demonstrations or processions, or even gathering in groups of more than three.  The thousands of people who had gathered in the walled garden of Jallianwala Bagh to celebrate the major religious festival of Baisakhi were unaware of this order. Dyer did not seek to find out what they were doing.  **** **He took a detachment of soldiers in armoured cars, equipped with machine-guns, and without ordering the crowd to disperse or issuing so much as a warning, ordered his troops to open fire from close quarters.** **They used 1,650 rounds, killed at least 379 people (the number the British were prepared to admit to; the Indian figures are considerably higher) and wounded 1,137. Barely a bullet, Dyer noted with satisfaction, was wasted.**  Dyer did not order his men to fire in the air, or at the feet of their targets. They fired, on his orders, into the chests, the faces, and the wombs of the unarmed, screaming, defenceless crowd.  After it was over, he refused permission for families to tend to the dead and the dying, leaving them to rot for hours in the hot sun, and inflicted numerous other humiliations on Indians, from forcing them to crawl on their bellies on a street, where an Englishwoman had been assaulted (and beating them with rifle butts if they lifted their heads), to pettier indignities like confiscating electric fans from their homes.  Dyer never showed the slightest remorse or self-doubt.  This was a “rebel meeting,” he claimed, an act of defiance of his authority that had to be punished. “It was no longer a question of merely dispersing the crowd” but one of producing a ‘moral effect’ that would ensure the Indians’ submission. He noted that he had personally directed the firing towards the five narrow exits because that was where the crowd was most dense:“the targets,” he declared, “were good.”  News of Dyer’s barbarism was suppressed by the British for six months, and when outrage at reports of his excesses mounted, an attempt was made to whitewash his sins by an official commission of enquiry, which only found him guilty of ‘grave error’.  Finally, as details emerged of the horror, Dyer was relieved of his command and censured by the House of Commons, but promptly exonerated by the House of Lords and allowed to retire. Rudyard Kipling, the flatulent poetic voice of  [British imperialism](http://humansarefree.com/2019/05/exposed-all-queens- agents-and.html)  , hailed him as ‘The Man Who Saved India’.  Even this did not strike his fellow Britons as adequate recompense for his glorious act of mass murder. They ran a public campaign for funds to honour his cruelty and collected the quite stupendous sum of £26,317, 1s 10d, worth over a quarter of a million pounds today. It was presented to him together with a jewelled sword of honour.  The Jallianwala Bagh massacre was no act of insane frenzy but a conscious, deliberate imposition of colonial will. Dyer was an efficient killer rather than a crazed maniac; his was merely the evil of the unimaginative, the brutality of the military bureaucrat. But his action that Baisakhi day came to symbolize the evil of the system on whose behalf, and in whose defence, he was acting.  Everything about the incident – the betrayal of promises made to India, the cruelty of the killings, the brutality and racism that followed, the self- justification, exoneration and reward – collectively symbolized everything that was wrong about the Raj.  It represented the worst that colonialism could become, and by letting it occur, the British crossed that point of no return that exists only in the minds of men – that point which, in any unequal relationship, both ruler and subject must instinctively respect if their relationship is to survive.  The massacre made Indians out of millions of people who had not thought consciously of their political identity before that grim Sunday. It turned loyalists into nationalists and constitutionalists into agitators, led the Nobel Prize-winning poet  [Rabindranath Tagore](https://amzn.to/2Pm0FyK)  to return his knighthood and a host of Indian appointees to British offices to turn in their commissions.  And above all it entrenched in Mahatma Gandhi a firm and unshakable faith in the moral righteousness of the cause of Indian independence from an empire he saw as irremediably evil, even  [satanic](http://humansarefree.com/search/label/Satanism)  .  It is getting late for atonement, but not too late. Neither the Queen nor Theresa May were alive when the atrocity was committed, and certainly no British government of 2019 bears a shred of responsibility for that tragedy, but the nation that once allowed it to happen should atone for its past sins.  That is what German Chancellor Willy Brandt did by going onto his knees in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1970, even though as a Social Democrat he was himself a victim of Nazi persecution and innocent of any complicity in it.  It is why Prime Minister Justin Trudeau apologised in 2016 on behalf of Canada for the actions of his country’s authorities a century earlier in denying permission for the Indian immigrants on the  [Komagata Maru](https://www.dailyo.in/politics/justin-trudeau-narendra-modi- donald-trump-komagata-maru-secularism-sikhs-islamophobia-india-canada- ties/story/1/10043.html)  to land in Vancouver, thereby sending many of them to their deaths.  Brandt’s and Trudeau’s gracious apologies need to find their British echo. Former Prime Minister  [David Cameron](http://humansarefree.com/2016/03/david-cameron-running-scared- of-david.html)  ’s rather mealy-mouthed description of the massacre in 2013 as a “deeply shameful event” is hardly an apology. Nor is the ceremonial visit to the site in 1997 by  [Queen Elizabeth](http://humansarefree.com/2015/05/queen-elizabeth-ii-is- direct-lineage-of.html)  and the Duke of Edinburgh, who merely left their signatures in the visitors’ book, without even a redeeming comment.  My call is for a British minister or a member of the Royal Family to find the heart, and the spirit, to get on his or her knees at Jallianwala Bagh in 2019 and apologise to the Indian people for the unforgivable massacre that was perpetrated at that site a century earlier.  Along with such an apology, the British could start teaching unromanticized colonial history in their schools and decolonise their museums, which are full of looted artefacts from other countries.  The British public is woefully ignorant of the realities of the British empire, and what it meant to its subject peoples. These  [Brexit](http://humansarefree.com/2016/07/brexit-is-victory-over-rothschilds- eu.html)  days have rekindled in the UK a yearning for the Raj, in gauzy romanticised television soap operas and overblown fantasies about reviving the Empire as an alternative to Europe.  If British schoolchildren can learn how those dreams of the English turned out to be nightmares for their subject peoples, true atonement – of the purely moral kind, involving a serious consideration of historical responsibility rather than mere admission of guilt – might be achieved. An apology for, and at, Jallianwala Bagh would be the best place to start, and its centenary the best time to do so.  _By Dr. Shashi Tharoor,[RT News](https://www.rt.com/op-ed/455406-jallianwala- bagh-massacre-apologise-britain/)      Dr. Tharoor is an Indian politician, author, and former international civil servant._


liberaldemocratvoice--2019-04-21--Lib Dems mark Passover and Easter

Lib Dems mark Passover and Easter

This weekend sees two important religious festivals. On Friday, jewish communities marked Passover, which marks the Israelites’ freedom from slavery and bondage and today Christians celebrate one of the most important days of the year for them, Easter Sunday.  On the Lib Dem website, Lib Dem Peer Monroe Palmer writes about the significance of Passover:  Across the world, Jewish families will sit around the Seder table to share food and recount the tale of how Moses led the Jewish people to their emancipation and deliverance. In retelling the story of the Exodus, we are reminded that the forces of oppression, hate and tyranny are not insurmountable. The traditions we observe are symbolic reminders of both the hardships endured by the Israelites as well as the triumph of faith. let us all come together to choose unity over division, understanding over intolerance and faith over fear. Across the world, we are witnessing worrying increases in acts of terror and hate targeted at religious communities. It’s hard to believe that even in 2019 anti-Semitism is still prevalent and growing- even in the UK. However, even in the face of intensifying anti-Semitic sentiment, Jewish communities continue to persevere in challenging bigotry and prejudice. In this growing anti-Semitic climate, festivals such as Passover are timely reminders of the strength of community and power of resistance. The UK has long been a home for people of all backgrounds, and we are a shining example that different faiths, identities and ethnicities can thrive and co-exist. The history of Jewish people in the UK goes back centuries and British Jewish communities are undoubtedly an integral part of our society. At moments like this, we ought to take the opportunity to recognise the tremendous and invaluable contributions of these communities to our great country.  And Lizzie Jewkes, whose idea to raise the tax threshold was one of the flagship policies during the coalition years, writes about what Easter means to her.  As a Christian, I find a great deal of overlap between my faith and Liberal Democracy. In both, we are encouraged to think of others, to value everyone equally and to work for the greater good of all. Likewise, in both, people are seen as individuals. Jesus came in for a great deal of criticism during his lifetime from those who objected to the way he challenged vested interests, societal norms, privilege and injustice where ever he found them. He treated everyone as equals – women, foreigners, Roman soldiers, the disabled, divorcees, those who collaborated with the occupying forces and children, despite the mores of the age. Following his resurrection, he appeared first to women and told them to tell the men, even though the testimony of women was not considered reliable in Roman society. As Christians, we’re often asked to consider “What Would Jesus Do?” (WWJD). Well, to be honest, as well as healing people and generally doing good, he also made a whip and whipped the money changers and traders out of the temple as they were overcharging pilgrims and using the temple to do it. Christians are not called to be wishy-washy but to speak up for the voiceless and the marginalised and to challenge wrongdoing. Indeed, for many great reformers, their Christian faith was the reason they campaigned for social reform – Wilberforce, Elizabeth Fry, Dr Barnardo, Lord Shaftsbury and Florence Nightingale to name just a few.  Whatever you are doing this weekend, and for many Liberal Democrats up and down the country, that will involve very sore feet and many leaflets delivered and doors knocked, the LDV team hopes that you have health, happiness and peace.


This Pilgrim Republic

If we can't see the cost of our remoteness from America's origins, it is only because we choose not to.  Come out from among them, and be ye separate.   — II Corinthians 6:17  The story does not begin in 1776. It does not begin with Concord, the Boston Tea Party, Bunker Hill, Common Sense, the Declaration of Independence, or the Constitution. It does not really even begin in the Dutch city of Leiden, where a colony of English Christian nonconformists settled after its members decided upon the spiritual necessity of separating themselves from the Church of England and hence, the times being what they were, with the English state. From King Henry II and the martyr Thomas à Becket to King Henry VIII and the martyr Thomas More, the consistent stupidity of the English state left its enforcers unable to distinguish between disloyalty to the crown and loyalty to the kingdom that is not of this world. And so the Puritans were persecuted. That much was inevitable.  They fled England and found tolerance in Holland — in fact, they found too much of it for their liking. The Dutch have been Dutch for a very long time, and they are not what you would call natural ascetics. The libertine Dutch culture (along with the notoriously difficult Dutch language) left the Puritans alienated. But it did not have the same effect on the Puritans’ children, who, to the dismay of their pious parents, began to acclimate themselves, becoming more Dutch by the day and less Puritan. Some of the refugees had made very comfortable livings for themselves in the university town of Leiden, enough to help to provide for those whose were less prepared to thrive in the university precincts. Compared with the commercial city of Amsterdam, Leiden offered relatively little opportunity to make a living by manual labor. But give the old Protestant work ethic its due. William Bradford, the colony’s unofficial historian, wrote: “They fell to such trads & imployments as they best could; valewing peace & their spirituall comforte above any other riches whatsoever. And at length they came to raise a competente & comforteable living, but with hard and continuall labor.”  Hard work, comfortable living. The Puritans would have recognized exactly where they were: The Land of Goshen, in which the Israelites thrived and grew complacent in spite of the heavy burden of labor laid upon them by the Egyptians. And that’s where the story really begins.  The Jewish people had always remained distinct, never having been fully assimilated into any of the civilizations that exercised domination over them: the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Romans, etc. It is possible that the Jewish dietary laws, which forbid the consumption of many foods that were eaten ceremonially in adjacent cultures (the Israelites’ frequent Old Testament antagonists the Hittites, for example, seem to have consumed pork ritually) were in effect a complex code for keeping the ancient Jews from participating in pagan religious festivals and thereby assimilating into foreign cultures and forfeiting their unique national identity. (No, it wasn’t trichinosis, which wasn’t linked to undercooked pork until the 19th century.) Understanding themselves as the new Israelites, the Puritans had their laws, too, probably more of them than they really needed: The oppressive and at times bloodthirsty character of John Calvin’s experiment with totalitarianism at Geneva did not keep the theocratic project from being widely admired. And with a little bit of sympathetic historical imagination, we might understand that without condoning it. The implicit tradeoff — a measure of harsh government in this life against eternal torment in the next — must have seemed reasonable, especially to a people who had a much more communal and less individualistic understanding of Christianity than we have today. The Puritans were dedicated above all to fulfilling the mandate of Paul to the Corinthians: “Be ye separate.”  Paul links this mandate to something that haunted the Puritans intensely: idolatry.  Paul is in that passage echoing Exodus: “I will dwell among the children of Israel and will be their God. And they shall know that I am the Lord their God, that brought them forth out of the land of Egypt.” Why did God bring the Israelites out of Egypt? The Israelites were comfortable in Goshen. They became a political problem for the Egyptians precisely because they were so prosperous and numerous: They were in a position of what the Christian might understand as implicit idolatry.  Pharaoh was understood to be a god on Earth, like Roman emperors, Japanese emperors, Alexander the Great, and other exemplars of sacral kingship, both historical and legendary. Romulus, the mythical founder of Rome, was descended from Aphrodite through Aeneas; Clovis was said to be of divine descent, which must have proved embarrassing after his conversion to Christianity. By Charlemagne’s time, divine ancestry had been downgraded to mere divine appointment, an idea that in Puritan political thinking would outlive monarchy per se, with mere assemblymen and administrators ruling in theory by the grace of God and with His delegated authority. What should be here kept in mind is that the belief that political relations are modeled on supernatural relations was of intense interest to the Puritans, who understood political sovereigns to be participants in God’s own sovereignty. Political disputes were necessarily religious disputes, and the tyranny of ancient Egypt was therefore not merely political: Pharaoh’s boast was not divine right but divinity itself.  The god-king mode of government holds that the divine ruler is either the direct source or the sacred channel of the supernatural forces that bring happiness and prosperity to the kingdom, making the crops grow, the rains come, the livestock fecund, and the people prosperous. It is this idea — a theory of government — that God Himself attacks in the Exodus story.  The plagues that descend upon Egypt under the watch of Moses and Aaron are not random torments and degradations but instead are a focused attack on the ideological infrastructure of the pharaonic system in which political, economic, and spiritual life converged, with the divine ruler himself at their nexus. The first assault is on the Nile itself, which is turned to blood, thereby ruining both agriculture and aquaculture in one swoop, a profanation with religious consequences. The annual Nile flood, the cornerstone of Egyptian prosperity, was religiously welcomed as the “return of Hapi,” the Nile god who is attended by frogs. Frogs, a fertility symbol, constituted the second plague, ironically invading the beds and private spaces of Egypt.  There is a Christian tradition (I do not insist that it is beyond argument in every particular) that holds that each of the plagues mocks a particular Egyptian deity or religious principle. But note well the political and economic character of the plagues, too: Though Hapi and Heqet, the Nile fertility deities, were insulted by the first two plagues, the immediate threat from the Nile’s pollution was the eminently earthly concern of starvation; Geb, the god of earth who blessed the crops, was transmuted into a plague of lice; flies (possibly) associated with Osiris plagued the royal household and the houses of Egypt’s officials, ruining the formerly productive Egyptian land while the Israelites were left unmolested; Hathor was associated with cattle, the economic commodity wiped out in the fifth plague along with draft animals and other livestock; the healing goddess Isis was no defense against the handful of dust — taken from the brick-baking ovens over which the enslaved Israelites labored — that set an infection of boils upon the people, who were thereby made religiously unclean by their own industrial implements; the plague of hail spared the wheat but wiped out the flax, which was used to make priestly robes, and barley, which was associated with Osiris and used to make the beer that was consumed at many public festivals and sometimes used as wages; what grain survived the hail was devoured next by locusts. Those plagues were an attack on Egyptian ideology, administration, and capital, as indeed were the final two afflictions: The solar deity Ra, who was associated with the pharaohs personally, was blotted out as darkness covered the land, prefiguring the especial horror of the tenth and final plague, the death of all of the firstborn of all of the families of Egypt, including Pharaoh’s son, and the surviving livestock, too.  In case the plagues did not make the point entirely clear, God explained: “I will execute judgment against all the gods of Egypt.” Pharaoh was one of them.  Exodus keeps hammering home the same point. Upon hearing the story, Moses’s father-in-law is struck with awe: “Blessed be the Lord, who hath delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of Pharaoh, who hath delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians. Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods: for in the thing wherein they dealt proudly he was above them.” God Himself insists: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me. . . . Ye shall not make with me gods of silver, neither shall ye make unto you gods of gold . . . make no mention of the name of other gods, neither let it be heard out of thy mouth. . . . Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their works: but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their images. . . . Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against me: for if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare unto thee.”  No gods of silver, no gods of gold — still less gods made of such flimsy stuff as barley, rain, and flax, or something as petty and transitory as mere political power. “Put not your faith in princes” is a warning against one of the least subtle but most irresistible practices of idolatry.  If the Israelites needed the spur of Pharaoh’s tyranny to shock them out of their complacency in Goshen, the Puritans had the shadow of another tyrant — the Spanish king — to awaken them to the fragility of their comfortable Dutch Goshen. The long-term problem was the seduction of the Puritans’ children by the liberal and freethinking ways of the Dutch. (Galileo’s Two New Sciences would be published at Leiden by the House of Elzevir in 1638; while that was necessary to avoid the Inquisition, consider that in a sermon on idolatry, no less a Reformation figure than John Calvin himself had condemned heliocentrism as satanic.) But the Puritans faced the specter of a more immediate political crisis as the fragile truce that had ended the Eighty Years’ War began to unravel, raising the possibility that the Netherlands would be brought back under the control of the Spanish crown, which was unshakably Catholic and not famous for its toleration of dissent. To the Puritan mind, the Catholic Church was synonymous with idolatry; it was, after all, the echoes of Roman practice in the Church of England that rendered that communion intolerable to them.  There was no place left to go — not in Europe. And so the Puritans became the Pilgrims, new Israelites wandering in a new wilderness.  Landing in Massachusetts in November of 1620 presented the Pilgrims with a rough and dreary Promised Land after two miserable months at sea during which one member of the crew and one of the Pilgrims had died. (One child was born during the journey and named Oceanus.) Things did not improve — they grew much worse. By March, more than half of the Pilgrims were dead, and half of the Mayflower’s crew, too. They loved their children, just like you do. Watching them die — and die horribly, hungry and in pain — do you think they thought to themselves: “Thank God we are not still in England, where the clergy wear surplices!” It must have been difficult to distinguish the love of liberty from the loathing of idolatry, courage from fanaticism, the promise of the continent before them from the terror of the sea at their backs. But they endured. That we all know. How and why they endured is a question about which we are increasingly foggy.  The Pilgrims brought with them to the New World a definite religious system and a less fully articulated set of related political ideas. Their model of political life was the covenant, which is to say it was contractual and a little bit ad hoc. Their politics were utilitarian in a sense: They did not come to Massachusetts for the purpose of living life under a new kind of political settlement, but for the purpose of living a Christian life in community, a purpose to which all questions of political administration ultimately were subordinated. Government was for them a means, not an end. It was legitimate to the extent that it was in harmony with their religious doctrine and desirable to the extent that it enabled them to live the holy life they had in mind for themselves. There was an element of procedural democracy in the Mayflower compact, but the Pilgrim political mind recoiled from democracy as such in all but its most limited form.  Instead, the first thing resembling a bill of rights to be enacted in New England, the Massachusetts Body of Liberties of 1641, begins: “The free fruition of such liberties Immunities and priveledges as humanitie, Civilitie, and Christianitie call for as due to every man in his place and proportion without impeachment and Infringement hath ever bene and ever will be the tranquillitie and Stabilitie of Churches and Commonwealths. And the deniall or deprivall thereof, the disturbance if not the ruine of both.” Churches and commonwealths — in that order. And, yet, even therein was contained a germ of Anglo-American liberalism: “Every man whether Inhabitant or fforreiner, free or not free shall have libertie to come to any publique Court, Councel, or Towne meeting, and either by speech or writeing to move any lawfull, seasonable, and materiall question, or to present any necessary motion, complaint, petition, Bill or information, whereof that meeting hath proper cognizance, so it be done in convenient time, due order, and respective manner.”  Government, understood from this point of view, is an instrument. An instrument of what? Liberty, in the context of a Puritan polity. But liberty, too, is only an instrument: Liberty to do what? The Puritans answered that question before they set up their systems of government, and as their understanding of the Christian life evolved, so, too did their political thinking. It is worth keeping in mind that all this “wall of separation between church and state” stuff came into vogue approximately the day before yesterday; when the Constitution was ratified, most of the states still maintained established churches, and continued to do so for years after the fact, with no constitutional problem apparent to the men who wrote and ratified the document.  In a remarkably short period of time, the pilgrim people of what would become the United States went from divesting themselves of absolute monarchy in favor of a limited monarchy operating on a principle of consent to liberating themselves from the idea of monarchy entirely. If that seems like a radical and unlikely political development, consider it from another point of view: They were not liberating themselves from a particular system of political organization. They were liberating themselves from idolatry.  It was the Puritans’ hatred of idolatry and their disgust at idols that enabled colonial Americans to escape so heroically from the intellectual confines of their times and imagine a form of government fit for the life they desired for themselves, and this act of radical imagination spread from Puritan New England to the rest of the colonies and to American civilization at large. With the example of the Divine Covenant before them, the challenge of negotiating a temporal and administrative covenant among themselves was daunting — but possible. It was possible because they were able to think that which had been unthinkable. The view from the wilderness is not like the view from Goshen.  Naturally, the American Founders, like the educated Puritans before them, were familiar with other models of government from other nations and other epochs: the Roman republic and the moral warning of its decline; the Greek democracy that John Adams so despised; the Venetian and Dutch republics; the absolute monarchies of Europe and the constrained monarchy of Great Britain; classical and more recent aristocracies; even the idea of a caliphate was not unknown to the most widely read of them. And, of course, they knew the various forms of political organization described in the Bible. (James Madison became Princeton’s first graduate student when he lingered after graduation to study Hebrew under John Witherspoon.) The American sense of identification with the Israelites only deepened from the Pilgrims’ time. Rich Lowry argues that the national idea of the Israelites in fact is the prototype of our own national idea.  The contours of that idea may be found in the sermon delivered by John Winthrop before his Puritan fleet sailed to fortify the English presence in Massachusetts. Winthrop, too, saw a problem of government, but one that was subordinate to the question of what kind of life was to be lived in the New World. Consequently, he warned his congregation not to assume that “the Lord will bear with such failings at our hands as he doth from those among whom we have lived.”  The end is to improve our lives to do more service to the Lord; the comfort and increase of the body of Christ, whereof we are members, that ourselves and posterity may be the better preserved from the common corruptions of this evil world, to serve the Lord and work out our salvation under the power and purity of his holy ordinances. The means whereby this must be effected . . . are twofold, a conformity with the work and end we aim at. These we see are extraordinary, therefore we must not content ourselves with usual ordinary means. Whatsoever we did, or ought to have done, when we lived in England, the same must we do, and more also, where we go. That which the most in their churches maintain as truth in profession only, we must bring into familiar and constant practice; as in this duty of love, we must love brotherly without dissimulation, we must love one another with a pure heart fervently. We must bear one another’s burdens. We must not look only on our own things, but also on the things of our brethren. . . . Thus stands the cause between God and us. We are entered into covenant with Him for this work. We have taken out a commission. The Lord hath given us leave to draw our own articles. We have professed to enterprise these and those accounts, upon these and those ends. We have hereupon besought Him of favor and blessing. Now if the Lord shall please to hear us, and bring us in peace to the place we desire, then hath He ratified this covenant and sealed our commission, and will expect a strict performance of the articles contained in it; but if we shall neglect the observation of these articles which are the ends we have propounded, and, dissembling with our God, shall fall to embrace this present world and prosecute our carnal intentions, seeking great things for ourselves and our posterity, the Lord will surely break out in wrath against us, and be revenged of such a people, and make us know the price of the breach of such a covenant. Now the only way to avoid this shipwreck, and to provide for our posterity, is to follow the counsel of Micah, to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God.  And what believer can read those words without holy terror? “Such failings at our hands as from those among whom we have lived”? All that and more, Reverend, beginning with me. More, more, and too much more. Cardinal Torquemada would have been ashamed of our prisons, Cardinal Richelieu scandalized by our indifference, Nero embarrassed by our luxury. And, of course, we have fallen back into the old idolatry, too: gods of silver and gold and silicon and electricity and noise and flesh. The soybean crop has failed in South Dakota — what does it mean for the president? What will he do? What must he do? He will speak about it in the State of the Union address, in the divine assembly, before the wise men in their black robes, interpreting the new scripture.  Winthrop then continues with his most famous passage:  Perhaps it is not the Christian alone who is able to see the prophecy in that.  We feast on this day of Thanksgiving, to acknowledge the inexplicable blessings of peace and prosperity that have been poured out on this pilgrim republic and its people without any thought or possibility of our deserving it. And peace and prosperity are worthy of being celebrated. But what about purpose? Are we so remote from that wretched winter at Plymouth that we have forgotten that this nation was founded for a particular purpose, and that the government was constituted not to raise up men over us to keep us in awe but only as a convenience suited to that purpose? If we cannot see the bone under the skin in ourselves as obviously as we do in the turkey, it is only because we choose not to see. We do not want to see, because we have returned, in spite of our regenerate national greatness and our considerable skill in map-making, to the Land of Goshen, to the land of comfortable idolatry under the watchful and benevolent gaze of the god-king. We are happy in harness, pleased to be liberated from that terrible liberty and all its unreasoning demands. We do not dare raise our eyes, because we are terrified of the prayer we would then be compelled to say. But we do not need prayers! We have silver and gold, and plenty of it, and a king to perform the needful rituals to satisfy the gods, that the crops and the GDP may grow. Or else we will, come next election.  Smile, Pharaoh. You will have the last laugh, if not the final word.


newsbiscuit--2019-05-27--Almost everyone unsure why weve got Spring Bank Holiday

Almost everyone unsure why we’ve got Spring Bank Holiday

Most Britons are unaware of any justification for today’s Spring Bank Holiday, a survey has revealed, but no one is mentioning it in case it’s an administrative error and by bringing it to the attention of the bankers it gets cruelly whipped away.   Bank holiday fan Martin Jones pondered to himself on waking naturally without the screeching banshee of his alarm clock that the bank holiday earlier in May brings back delicious memories from school of country dancing round a maypole, holding the hands of actual girls, the Easter and Christmas bank holidays are obvious religious holidays, the August one was to allow bankers to play cricket, but this one seems to have just plonked itself down in the calendar for no particular reason.   Expert in public holidays, Cecil Perkins, was consulted.   “It was Whit Monday” said Cecil.   “What Monday?” we asked.   “Whit Monday, it’s to do with Pentecost” replied Cecil.   “What’s a Pentecost?”   “About a tenner, or fifteen for a really nice one.”


newsbusters--2019-03-28--Grisly Syfy Series Villain Vows to Make Easter Great Again

Grisly Syfy Series' Villain Vows to 'Make Easter Great Again'

From the season premiere alone, Syfy’s Happy! is, looking to be one big violent, tasteless, abhorrent mess this year. Based on a limited-run comic series, the show is charting new territory in its second season, and by the look of things, it isn’t pretty. It even just might rival Preacher in hating Christianity.  The March 27 premiere title “The War on Easter” should tell you all you need to know. Nick Sax (Christopher Meloni) is a former cop and hitman who last season successfully rescued his estranged daughter Hailey (Bryce Lorenzo) with the help of her imaginary friend, an animated winged horse named Happy (Patton Oswalt). Now he attempts to better improve his life for Hailey’s sake. However, that’s quickly derailed when children’s TV entertainer and secret crime lord “Sonny Shine” (Christopher Fitzgerald) develops a new disturbing holiday-themed scheme. Considering his Christmas scheme to kidnap children, including Hailey, backfired, now he's back with an Easter one.  Within the first minute alone, we’re treated to the bizarre image of nuns in suicide vests self-destructing near an Easter festival. What purpose does this violent and probably sacrilegious image serve? Apparently, it’s part of a new scheme that Sonny proposes in front of the literal Pope to, I kid you not, “Make Easter Great Again.” The scene just makes you want to vomit up a chocolate bunny.  Points for the show recognizing that Easter is the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That just makes it all the worse for the garbage that follows. There’s the flamboyant bedazzled TV host attempting to “re-brand” a religious holiday. There’s him labeling Easter as the “Alzheimer’s ravaged mother-in-law of holidays,” despite the fact that hundreds of millions of people recognize it as a holy day worldwide. There’s Sonny casually throwing in a “MAGA” reference just because he’s a bad guy and that’s what they do, apparently. Worst of all, there’s the Pope actually agreeing to this at the end of the scene.  With that unfortunate development, we can only expect things to get worse on this plot. In fact, these incredibly repugnant anti-Christian thoughts are shared by the series creator and original comic artist Grant Morrison. In an interview regarding the new season, Morrison describes Easter as “a kind of lame-ass holiday, the one no one cares about” that needed revitalizing for his new season. And he’s in charge of the whole show.  I can’t expect too much decency from a show that seems steps away from crossing into nudity (the one thing that’s censored), but the least they could do is leave the Church out of it. It’s times like this that make me wish the only thing we had to deal with on this show was blood and unnecessary swearing.  Sadly, we still get an unhealthy amount of both when Nick eventually runs into trouble in a seedy part of town. A shady group attempts to harvest a woman's organs until Nick interrupts them. After some missteps, Nick gets himself out of that mess by making a new one - literally. He stabs one guy in the gut with a forklift and watches him bleed like a geyser all over the floor. Then he flattens another man with another vehicle and hangs his last perp on a chain. When everything is done, he takes the remains of a kidney to sell on the black market. Syfy is no stranger when it comes to graphic violence, but that doesn’t make this any less unsettling.  While I’m thankful this isn’t on any primetime network, the fact that Happy! exists at all is disgusting. It seems to have taken the first season as a springboard to get even worse. For the record, I am not happy, and neither should you be.


newsbusters--2019-04-21--NY Times Columnist Kristof Happy Easter Is the Virgin Birth a Bizarre Claim

NY Times Columnist Kristof: Happy Easter! Is the Virgin Birth a ‘Bizarre Claim’?

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof spent yet another Easter Sunday trying to see just how little one can believe of Christianity’s anchoring ideas, and still consider oneself a Christian.  Kristof refers to these regular interviews with theological figures as “my occasional series of conversations about Christianity.” All have the same theme -- seeing if one can get away with calling oneself a Christian if you don’t actually buy that whole virgin birth and Resurrection mythology. Fortunately for him, this year’s interviewee was on Kristof’s wavelength.  This year he talked with Serene Jones, Protestant minister and president of Union Theological Seminary for “Reverend, the Virgin Birth is ‘a Bizarre Claim’?" Kristof led off: “Happy Easter, Reverend Jones! To start, do you think of Easter as a literal flesh-and-blood resurrection? I have problems with that.”  Rev. Jones actually agreed: “When you look in the Gospels, the stories are all over the place. There’s no resurrection story in Mark, just an empty tomb. Those who claim to know whether or not it happened are kidding themselves..."  So theologically liberal was Jones, that Kristof was seemingly pressed into playing, um, devil’s advocate for a bit, asking: “But without a physical resurrection, isn’t there a risk that we are left with just the crucifixion?...Isn’t a Christianity without a physical resurrection less powerful and awesome?”  After getting a bonus question in by bringing up the Virgin Birth, Kristof laid out his show-stopper:  I’ve asked this of other interviewees in this religion series: For someone like myself who is drawn to Jesus’ teaching but doesn’t believe in the virgin birth or the physical resurrection, what am I? Am I a Christian?  Jones gave him an answer he was likely pleased to hear: “Well, you sound an awful lot like me, and I’m a Christian minister.”  Kristof hardly ever misses a Christmas or Easter holiday without asking, gee, do you really need to believe that Jesus returned from the dead to be a Christian? In previous years, Kristof would at least talk to more conservative Christian figures who would push back on his claims, while Jones nodded along with his theological incoherence. Here’s a recent rundown of Kristof’s religious holiday interviews:  Christmas 2018: “Professor, Was Jesus Really Born to a Virgin?”  Christmas 2016: “Am I a Christian, Pastor Timothy Keller?” He actually asked Keller, “Since this is the Christmas season, let’s start with the virgin birth. Is that an essential belief, or can I mix and match?”


newsbusters--2019-11-12--'Empire' Proudly 'Denounces' Church and 'Christian Values'

Fox’s Empire seems to really dislike religious pro-life people. Sure, plenty of shows have introduced an abortion plot recently, but Empire is the only show to continue this plot for multiple episodes. In fact, this may be the season's worst take since it seems to revel in “denouncing the church.”  The November 12 episode “Heart of Stone” continues the fallout from Tiana (Serayah) revealing to the world that she is pro-life. Although she’s moved to a new recording company, Bossy Media, she’s still facing backlash for daring to think an unborn child has the right to life. Even one of her managers, Becky (Gabourey Sidibe), openly shows her distaste for Tiana’s beliefs, calling her “anti-choice” and comparing her scandal to R. Kelly’s rape allegations (“I'm sure R. Kelly didn't find anything wrong with his love of little girls either.”)  Fortunately for her, Bossy Media co-founder Giselle (Nicole Ari Parker) tries a different route by appealing to a Megachurch known as Tower of Hope. The congregation is run by a black female pastor who organizes a massive Hope Festival yearly and wants Tiana to headline. Considering that they support Tiana’s pro-life beliefs and have a young black market interested in her songs, Bossy Media quickly says yes to the offer.  I’m surprised Empire is willing to admit religious black conservatives even exist, but that sweet sentiment doesn’t last. Although the church supports her pro-life beliefs, the pastor encourages her to use the festival to renounce her “past mistakes” like sex out of wedlock and supporting same-sex marriage. Tiana doesn’t agree with that outlook, but Giselle and Becky tell her to stay regardless to revive her career. Suffering the religious stuff, at this point, is only a means to an end.  Tiana still performs as the headliner of the Hope Festival and even appears to dress modestly for the occasion. However, she soon removes her clothing to perform a provocative song in a skintight suit in front of a church congregation. Giselle and Becky are, at first horrified, but quickly bounce back when they find Tiana trending for “denouncing the Church and its Christian values.” They celebrate that Tiana is officially “back.”  Tiana: Oh ♪ ♪ Yeah ♪ ♪ Tell me what you mad for? ♪ ♪ Why you gotta be so particular ♪ ♪ Why you care about what I think? ♪ ♪ You might need a drink ♪ ♪ 'Cause you upset ♪ ♪ And I'm out here living my life ♪ ♪ With no regrets ♪ ♪ Reason number one ♪ ♪ I ain't trying to be told what I'm supposed to be like ♪ ♪ Two ♪ ♪ I'm gonna live the way I want ♪ ♪ 'Cause it's my life ♪ ♪ Three ♪ ♪ You can say what you want ♪ ♪ Ain't losing my focus ♪ Giselle: It all looks good. Tiana: ♪ I'm gonna make you mad in the worst way ♪ Tiana: ♪ Then I'ma act like it's my birthday ♪ ♪ Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah ♪ ♪ All about my business while you're thirsty ♪ ♪ Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah ♪ Gonna take ♪ ♪ a lot more just to hurt me ♪ ♪ Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah ♪ ♪ Coins or chips ♪ ♪ Gonna be mad ♪ Tiana: ♪ I'ma make you mad in the worst way ♪ ♪ Oh, yeah ♪ ♪ 'Cause you gonna hang on ♪ ♪ Every single word I say ♪ ♪ I don't wanna have no bad vibes ♪ Giselle: I did not plan this. Did you put her up to this? Giselle: Did you know about this? Becky: No, I'm just as surprised as you are. Even though I really love that she had the stones to pull it--oh, my God. Wait, so do her fans. She is trending like crazy, but in a good way. Giselle: They think that she is "Denouncing the church and its Christian values." Does this mean that— Tiana: ♪ 'Cause you gonna hang on every single word I say  The fact that the show displays a character singing and dancing sexually at a religious festival is already a low point. That the series seems proud that she’s denouncing said religious festival’s values makes it even worse. Empire is clearly emboldened by this being its last season, but let’s pray it doesn’t get any worse than this.