The Death of Bigoted Writer Victor Thorn

An evil man and a promoter of lies and hatred is now dead by his own hand, even though, just like with everything else, there are those who will create ridiculous conspiracy theories to blame others on his death.

Victor Thorn, wasted his life penning books that promoted racial and religious hatred, especially Antisemitism, in addition to ridiculous conspiracy theories involving the Clinton, until he ended it yesterday.

While it may sound bad to rejoice in someone’s death, I hope that his end in this world will be a harbinger that the future will see last people like him, a hater of others based on their faith or ancestry, in a world where many of us not only have friends, who differ from us in these ways, but family members. My family has Baptists, Catholics, Jews and those who do not practice any religion.

I, personally, like the image in my head of him facing a Jewish messiah in the afterlife, who asked him, “Why do you persecute me?”

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A Sad Day to Be Right

While those of us who write about Islamic terrorism are accused of all sorts of things, including being racists (laughable because Muslim is not a race) and, of course, Islamaphobic, those of us who are to the left on other issues, such as abortion or gay rights have an extra bit of hostility against us from others, who agree with us on those issues. Obviously, “How dare you agree with me on some issues but not all?” is an inane question, but they do not ask us this directly.

For those of us in touch with reality, thinking everyone has a right to marry who they love and opposing those who would kill people for their sexual orientation are consistent positions, as are believing every girl should have the right to grow up to do whatever she wants and being against what Muslim-led governments do to women for wanting an education or walking outside. There is no hypocrisy in being against what Westboro Baptist Church wanting to execute people due to their religious beliefs and Islamofascists actually executing people for theirs.

On “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”, left-wing icon and titular host of “Real Time with Bill Maher” outlines how those on the left have been wrong to censor and censure any criticism of Islam, in the face of the reality of Islamic terrorism.

Christians Face ‘Religicide’ In Middle East as Thousands Kidnapped or Killed

I wish Middle East reporting was better in this country and that more people knew the truth about persecution and prejudice there.
And, I wish more Christians and other people of faith would become aware and active on this issue.

Normal Guy Called Ugly by Celebs, Others on Twitter — Where’s the Outrage?

Jame Lowe is a photographer. As he is not a male model or a movie star or a pop singer, to a lot of us, he can be forgiven for not looking like a male model or a movie star or a pop singer.

But, he is, also, the new boyfriend of Lorde, the latest project of the recording industry hype machine of young white female singers, which means that to some people that he has the nerve to exist, to be Asian, for not being conventionally handsome and to date someone famous, he is, therefore, somehow deserving of all sorts of abuse and harassment. On Twitter, both the famous and the unknown have taken it upon themselves to harass them.

The seventeen-year-old Lorde has attacked other young pop stars, so that Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, Lana Del Rey and Justin Bieber would want to fire back at her is not surprising. But, using her boyfriend to do so, and the appearance-based and (in Bieber’s case) racial nature of their comments is shocking.

“The Huffington Post” (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/10/lorde-james-lowe-cyber-bullied_n_4419637.html) and “Jezebel” (http://jezebel.com/teens-are-having-a-racist-meltdown-over-lordes-ugly-1479815260) have covered this. They both rightly pointed out the racism, but they missed the aspect of this of a non-celeb being held to celeb beauty (or handsomeness) standards.

While “Jezebel” called the fusillade of racial invective a “racist meltdown,” it seems more the case that it is just another piece of evidence disproving the myth of a post-racial America. While many young people may have friends of other races, be blase about interracial relationships and happily listen to Latin rap, Swedish metal and Japanese pop music, watch and read anime and idolize Jeremy Lin, Rey Mysterio, Tiger Woods and Anderson Silva, it seems that for many young people, the sins of their fathers and mothers are being carried on by them.

Human Rights of Christians in Palestinian Society

By

Justus Reid Weiner

Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs

On the heels of the Gaza disengagement, which was intended to empower the Palestinian Authority to improve the lives of its people, few journalists have reported on the acutely trying times facing the Christians residing in areas “governed” by the Palestinian Authority. In his book, Professor Weiner, Scholar in Residence at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, provides an in-depth look into the nearly uninterrupted persecution of Christians throughout the decade since the Oslo peace process began.

Living amidst a xenophobic Muslim population plagued by endemic violence bordering on anarchy, the Christians have shrunk to less than 1.7 percent of the population in the Palestinian areas. “Tens of thousands have abandoned their holy sites and ancestral properties to live abroad, while those who remain do so as a beleaguered and dwindling minority,” Weiner said.

“Their plight is, in part, attributable to the adoption of Muslim religious law (Sharia) in the Constitution of the Palestinian Authority. Moreover, the Christians have been abandoned by their religious leaders who, instead of protecting them, have chosen to curry favor with the Palestinian leadership.” Professor Weiner’s book reveals and analyzes why this persecution – largely ignored by the international community, the media, and even the human rights organizations – has metastasized to the extent that it threatens the very existence of this 2000-year-old community.

Professor Weiner earned his Juris Doctor degree at the University of California at Berkeley (Boalt Hall) School of Law and is a member of the Israel and New York Bar Associations. Weiner previously taught as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Boston University Law School. Currently he teaches courses on international and comparative law at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. His scholarship has appeared in leading law journals and intellectual magazines.

I Was at LAX the Day of the Shooting, But I Don’t Want to Talk About It

I think it might make me feel better, though.
Following the Austin Film Festival, I boarded the filled-to-capacity plane to return to L.A. The pilot made an announcement that there was a shooting at LAX, so we might not be taking off right then. Then, they ordered us all off the plane, explaining that the situation was still (forgive the pun) up in the air and how waiting for a flight at the airport was a lot nicer than flying around extra to kill time until it was safe to land in L.A. or to end up having to land us somewhere else.
I grabbed lunch and read a book. I did not have a connecting flight or anyone waiting for me, so to me, personally, there was nothing to get stressed about.
Others weren’t so lucky. A few young women were going to fly in for a wedding that day then fly out the next day. After we were waiting in the airport a while to find out what would happen, they realized that they would no longer have a chance to attend the wedding. They decided to go home.
A few hours later, they boarded us back on the plane, saying the situation at LAX was over. Most of the people from earlier were gone. Most of us sat as the sole passenger in whatever three-person seat we took. The only people who sat next to anyone were, seemingly, those who wanted to, who knew their traveling companions.
I found myself wondering what “kind” of lunatic the shooter was. I figured he was a lunatic, yet another lost soul who for whatever combination of religious-political b.s. thought shooting a bunch of strangers who had never done anything to him was a good thing to do because of whatever type of b.s. was running through his mind and, no doubt, encouraged by the hatemongers of the Internet. Half of us don’t even both to vote.
Yes, I thought “he.” Let’s be honest.
But, I wondered, what particular cause did this guy find was just so important to justify murdering strangers?
With which holy book, if any, did he find justification? What group or groups did he blame?
Let’s be honest. They all blame others.
What political conspiracy did he prescribe to and what groups are victimized by this political conspiracy that most of us so-called “sheep” just don’t believe in because we’re too busy numbing ourselves with reality TV and the NFL to notice that aforementioned group or groups are doing whatever really bad things and how much worse it is going to get if people like him and the other people who read and write the things he agrees with don’t do something to put a stop to it?
As nonplussed as I was in Austin, my stress level rose after we landed at LAX. Some vehicles were being let onto the airport and some vehicles were not. The shuttle bus that connects people like me from the airport to Downtown L.A. to where we can take another train, if need be, to our urban homes, were not coming. No matter how long we all stood there waiting.
I began to wonder if it was as insane an idea as I thought it probably was to just walk off of the airport and keep walking until I could get a bus or a cab or something to get me home.
I started walking. I could not remember the configuration of the airport, if I was just going to walk into a highway or if there would be surface roads and bus stops and businesses. It’s funny how you don’t notice things like that when you don’t need to.
I quickly discovered a mass of humanity with the same idea, but with more luggage than I. (I only was in Austin for a week, and I travel light.) Rolling and hauling their suitcases, carrying or pulling the hands of small children, we all walked, like pilgrims toward a holy site.
Then, I noticed them. Another mass of humanity pulled and carried luggage and children onto the airport, realizing that for them, too, motorized transportation was not going to happen, and that they were going to do what they had to do.
So, now we all know, the shooter was a New World Order paranoid case/Alex Jones fan. That was one possibility I considered. I wondered if he was going to be a leftist Occupy-er or a fanatical Islamist (who were once the predominant terror suspects of the American imagination), but who now share the space in our minds where we keep our fears, along side those who bomb recruiting stations and factories where they test products on animals, men who feel sexually rejected by women and hurt by feminism and those opposed to . . . what? Abortion? Gay rights? Immigration? Gas-guzzling SUV’s? Logging?
Yes, I know about Timothy McVeigh, the Black Panthers, the Manson family, the Weather Underground, Neo-Nazis, the KKK and the other chapters of American terror.
But, I can’t help but feel like we’re entering into another chapter now. Mass shootings and bombings happen in quick succession.
Did anyone in the media even notice that LAX is not far from Santa Monica College, where not too long ago, another shooter with another cache of ammo made the same decision to kill a bunch of innocent strangers because of whatever justifications he made that whoever he was blaming for whatever he was blaming them for deserved to die by his hand?
When did we all get so blase about madmen and massacres?

Real Christianity and Jewish People

Too often Christianity and the Bible are used and to justify malice toward people based on race, religion or sexual orientation, when in reality not only are such usages perversions of what is really being said in scripture by both selectively choosing text and then twisting the text’s true meaning, but bigotry toward gays, Jews and people of different racial and ethnic groups is forbidden to Christians.

This is so wrong!

When is it right to demonize people for their religious beliefs?
When is it right to go to a house of worship and yell profanity and hatred toward the religion of that house of worship?
When is bigotry against people due to their gender, race, ethnicity or religion OK?
Never.