Paul McCartney Mull Of Kintyre-Original Video-HQ Uploaded on Nov 25, 2011 Paul McCartney Mull Of Kintyre Lyric Mull of kintyre Oh mist rolling in from the sea, My desire is always to be here Oh mull of kintyre Far have I traveled and much have I seen Dark distant mountains with valleys of green. Past […]
__ Paul McCartney – Wonderful Christmas Time Wonderful Christmastime From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia “Wonderful Christmastime” Single by Paul McCartney B-side “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reggae” Released 16 November 1979 Format 7-inch 45 rpm Recorded 30 August 1979, Lower Gate Farm, Sussex Genre Christmas pop rock synthrock Length 3:45 Label Parlophone Columbia Writer(s) Paul McCartney Producer(s) Paul […]
__ Bob Dylan Press Conference 1965 Part 2 This is a tribute to Keith Green who died 32 years ago today!!! On July 28, 1983 I was sitting by the radio when CBS radio news came on and gave the shocking news that Keith Green had been killed by an airplane crash in Texas with […]
Bob Dylan Press Conference 1965 Part 1 ___ Bob Dylan played on one of Keith Green’s last albums and on the 6:19 min mark of part 5 it shows Bob Dylan: The Keith Green Story pt 5/7 The Keith Green Story pt 3/7 Keith Green had a major impact on me back in 1978 […]
________ Quinton Aaron of “The Blindside” talks “Greater” and the faith and character of Brandon Burlsworth Published on Oct 28, 2015 Quinton Aaron, star of “The Blindside”, discusses why he is so proud to be a part of “Greater”, and talks about the faith and character of Brandon Burlsworth, the greatest walk-on in college football […]
MUSIC MONDAY “Foreigner Top 10 Songs” Part 3 Top 10 Foreigner Songs By Matt Wardlaw Elsa, Getty Images ‘Waiting for a Girl Like You’ From: ‘4’ (1981) Mick Jones calls “Waiting” the “song that wrote itself,” telling Classic Rock that he felt like the “conduit” for the track and that “something was coming down through […]
MUSIC MONDAY “Foreigner Top 10 Songs” Part 2 Top 10 Foreigner Songs By Matt Wardlaw Elsa, Getty Images 7 ‘Feels Like the First Time’ From: ‘Foreigner’ (1977) “Feels Like the First Time” is a pretty genius name for your first single, and it certainly paid plenty of dividends for Foreigner, striking the Top Five. For […]
__ MUSIC MONDAY “Foreigner Top 10 Songs” Part 1 Top 10 Foreigner Songs By Matt Wardlaw Elsa, Getty Images Read More: Top 10 Foreigner Songs | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/top-10-foreigner-songs/?trackback=tsmclipForeigner‘s lone remaining founding member, guitarist Mick Jones, has been at the helm of the legendary American rock group since 1976. But if you’ve seen the band […]
__ Glen Campbell’s Greatest Hits Compilation – Complete Set Related posts: MUSIC MONDAY Washed Out: ‘I wish I could have a 9 to 5 life’ Ernest Greene’s debut album confirms his place at the forefront of the chillwave scene. So why is he so worried? August 22, 2016 – 12:36 am _ Washed Out – Life […]
_ Washed Out – Life Of Leisure (Full Album) | HD Washed Out: ‘I wish I could have a 9 to 5 life’ Ernest Greene’s debut album confirms his place at the forefront of the chillwave scene. So why is he so worried? Ernest Greene, aka Washed Out: ‘At no point was I actively […]
Tomorrow (Sunday) is Milton Friedman’s birthday — he was born on July 31 in 1912 and would have been 104 years old today. Unfortunately, Milton died on November 16, 2006 when he was 94 years old. In an editorial in the Wall Street Journal following Professor Friedman’s death, they reported his loss with the same tribute Milton used when Ronald Reagan died, saying “few people in human history have contributed more to the achievement of human freedom.” In honor of his legacy and birthday, here are 20 of my favorite Milton Friedman quotes:
1. There is nothing as permanent as a temporary government program.
2. Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.
3. Inflation is caused by too much money chasing after too few goods.
4. Sloppy writing reflects sloppy thinking.
5. All learning is ultimately self-learning.
6. I’m in favor of legalizing drugs. According to my values system, if people want to kill themselves, they have every right to do so. Most of the harm that comes from drugs is because they are illegal.
7. Nobody spends somebody else’s money as carefully as he spends his own. Nobody uses somebodyelse’s resources as carefully as he uses his own. So if you want efficiency and effectiveness, if you want knowledge to be properly utilized, you have to do it through the means of private property.
8. The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.
9. The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy.
10. The high rate of unemployment among teenagers, and especially black teenagers, is both a scandal and a serious source of social unrest. Yet it is largely a result of minimum wage laws. We regard the minimum wage law as one of the most, if not the most, anti-black laws on the statute books.
11. Industrial progress, mechanical improvement, all of the great wonders of the modern era have meant relatively little to the wealthy. The rich in Ancient Greece would have benefited hardly at all from modern plumbing: running servants replaced running water. Television and radio? The patricians of Rome could enjoy the leading musicians and actors in their home, could have the leading actors as domestic retainers. Ready-to-wear clothing, supermarkets — all these and many other modern developments would have added little to their life. The great achievements of Western capitalism have redounded primarily to the benefit of the ordinary person. These achievements have made available to the masses conveniences and amenities that were previously the exclusive prerogative of the rich and powerful.
12. President Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.”… Neither half of that statement expresses a relation between the citizen and his government that is worthy of the ideals of free men in a free society. “What your country can do for you” implies that the government is the patron, the citizen the ward. “What you can do for your country” assumes that the government is the master, the citizen the servant.
13. On the difference between public vs. private education: “Try talking French with someone who studied it in public school. Then with a Berlitz graduate.”
14. ‘Fair’ is in the eye of the beholder; ‘free’ is the verdict of the market. The word ‘free’ is used three times in the Declaration of Independence and once in the First Amendment to the Constitution, along with ‘freedom.’ The word ‘fair’ is not used in either of our founding documents.
15. What most people really object to when they object to a free market is that it is so hard for them to shape it to their own will. The market gives people what the people want instead of what other people think they ought to want. At the bottom of many criticisms of the market economy is really lack of belief in freedom itself.
16. The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn’t construct his theory under order from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn’t revolutionize the automobile industry that way. In the only cases in which the masses have escaped from grinding poverty, the only cases in recorded history are where they’ve had capitalism and largely free trade. If you want to know where the masses are worst off, it’s exactly in the kinds of societies that depart from that, so that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear: that there is no alternative way so far discovered of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by a free enterprise system.
17. The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm; capitalism is that kind of a system.
18. With some notable exceptions, businessmen favor free enterprise in general but are opposed to it when it comes to themselves.
19. The case for prohibiting drugs is exactly as strong and as weak as the case for prohibiting people from overeating.
20. The government has no more right to tell me what goes into my mouth [including illegal drugs] than it has to tell me what comes out of my mouth.
Bonus 1: You’ll find a great collection here of more than 30 Milton Friedman videos (the “Milton Friedman Speaks” lectures) on a variety of topics including “What is America?”, “Is Capitalism Humane?”, free trade, energy policy, the role of government in a free society, education and vouchers, the rights of workers, consumer protection, equality and freedom, and the future of our free society.
Bonus 2: Below are some graphics created by AEI’s Olivier Ballou to honor Friedman’s birthday:
Milton Friedman on Donahue Show in 1979 Milton Friedman has the two solutions to the Black Teenage Unemployment Problem!!! The solutions would be first to lower the Minimum Wage Amount and second give students the opportunity to have vouchers so their parents can put them in the best schools when they start in the kindergarten […]
__ Obama loves the death tax but listen to what Milton Friedman had to say about it!!! Milton Friedman Redistribution of Wealth and the Death Tax ___________ The Obama Administration’s Assault on the Rule of Law September 6, 2016 by Dan Mitchell What’s the worst development in economic policy of the Obama years? The faux stimulus […]
_ Milton Friedman – Should Higher Education Be Subsidized? Published on Aug 14, 2013 Professor Friedman leads a roundtable discussion with students.http://www.LibertyPen.com Hillary Is Wrong: Subsidies for Higher Education Are the Problem, not the Solution August 24, 2016 by Dan Mitchell “So many bad ideas, so little time.” That’s my attitude about Hillary Clinton. She […]
__ Milton Friedman – A Conversation On Minimum Wage Published on Oct 4, 2013 A debate on whether the minimum wage hurts or helps the working class.http://www.LibertyPen.com Is Anybody Shocked that Higher Minimum Wage Mandates Are Resulting in Fewer Jobs? August 25, 2016 by Dan Mitchell While economists are famous for their disagreements (and […]
_ Milton Friedman on Medical Care (Full Lecture) Another Grim Reminder that Obamacare Has Made Healthcare More Expensive August 29, 2016 by Dan Mitchell Way back in 2009, some folks on the left shared a chart showing that national expenditures on healthcare compared to life expectancy. This comparison was not favorable to the United States, which […]
_ Milton Friedman on Immigration Part 2 Milton Friedman – Illegal Immigration – PT 1 Milton Friedman – Illegal Immigration – PT 2 _- Immigration and the Welfare State April 4, 2010 by Dan Mitchell My previous post dealing with whether citizenship should be automatic for babies born to illegals generated a lot of commentary, so […]
_ Milton Friedman – Illegal Immigration – PT 1 Milton Friedman – Illegal Immigration – PT 2 Milton Friedman stated , “you can’t have free immigration and a welfare state.” Below Dan Mitchell links back to this quote in one of his earlier posts: A Plan for Open Borders that Anti-Amnesty Folks Can Support August 18, […]
_ Milton Friedman on Immigration Part 2 Milton Friedman – Illegal Immigration – PT 1 Milton Friedman – Illegal Immigration – PT 2 _- Immigration and the Welfare State April 4, 2010 by Dan Mitchell My previous post dealing with whether citizenship should be automatic for babies born to illegals generated a lot of commentary, […]
_ Milton Friedman – Illegal Immigration – PT 1 Milton Friedman – Illegal Immigration – PT 2 Milton Friedman stated , “you can’t have free immigration and a welfare state.” Below Dan Mitchell links back to this quote in one of his earlier posts: A Plan for Open Borders that Anti-Amnesty Folks Can Support […]
Milton Friedman and Dan Mitchell on the Post Office!!! Ep. 10 – How to Stay Free [3/7]. Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980) Pat Brennan became something of a celebrity in 1978 because she was delivering mail in competition with the United States Post Office. With her husband she set up business in a basement […]
I am saddened by the passing of the brilliant Marvin Minsky who helped found MIT. I became interested in his writings and wrote him several letters and I took note especially of comments on freewill and population control.
Marvin Minsky: Health, population and the human mind
Uploaded on Sep 29, 2008
http://www.ted.com Listen closely — Marvin Minsky’s arch, eclectic, charmingly offhand talk on health, overpopulation and the human mind is packed with subtlety: wit, wisdom and just an ounce of wily, is-he-joking? advice.
SECOND Correspondence, John Shea Emailed the email below on 5-27-14
To Marvin Minsky, From Everette Hatcher
I wrote you last month and sent you a CD by Adrian Rogers called IS THE BIBLE TRUE? Did you have a chance to listen to it. Here is link to the same message on You Tube. In that letter I included some correspondence I had with the famous skeptics Antony Flew and Carl Sagan back in the 1990’s. Both men were kind enough to look at the evidence that presented them and respond to it and I was hoping you would take time to do that same.
Today, I just wanted to ask you this simple question. Do you think there is a categorical difference between humans and animals or are just different in just degrees?
Dr. John J. Shea appeared on the TV series APE MAN with Walter Cronkite back in the 1990’s and claimed that there is only a degree of difference between monkeys and humans and not a categorical difference. After that program aired I had the opportunity to correspond with Dr. Shea and he was kind enough to send me a two page response to my questions. (This correspondence took place back in 1994 and 1995.)
Dr. Shea also suggested that I read SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS by Carl Sagan and his wife Ann Druyan, and I did so. Here are my thoughts on the question.
First, only humans lie in the sense we are held morally responsible. Sagan wrote, “Deception in the social relations of animals…is an emerging and productive topic in biology…” (p. 379). This may be true, but are animals responsible to God? I think not. Romans 3:23 teaches that “All MEN have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Animals may deceive but they are not morally responsible.
Second, only men feel guilt. Sagan refers briefly to the fact that men feel guilt (p. 4.14), but he does not spend a lot of time on this. Romans 1:19 asserts, “For that which is known about God is evident to them and made plain in their inner consciousness, because God has show it to them” (Amplified Bible). Here Sagan turns to Thomas Henry Huxley who he quotes:
On all sides, I shall hear the cry–“We are men and women, not a mere better sort of apes, a little longer in the leg, more compact in the foot, and bigger in brain than your brutal Chimpanzees and Gorillas. The power of knowledge–the conscience of good and evil--the pitiful tenderness of human affections, raise us out of all real fellowship with the brutes, however, closely they may seem to approximate us.”
To this I can reply that the exclamation would be just and would be most just and would have my entire sympathy, if it were only relevant. But, it is not I who seek to base Man’s dignity upon this great toe, or insinuate that we are lost if an Ape has a hippocampus minor (in its brain). On the contrary, I have done my best to sweep away this vanity…
WHY DID SAGAN AND HUXLEY FACE SUCH A LARGE CHORUS THAT WAS OBJECTING TO THIS VIEW THAT WE DON’T HAVE A GOD-GIVEN CONSCIENCE? The answer is very simple and it deals with the consequences of Social Darwinism. Chuck Colson said that Larry King was not very impressed with his long talk on the historical accuracy of the scriptures, but when he touched on this subject things got interesting:
Larry King invited me to dinner. “I don’t believe in God,” Larry told me straight out. “But tell me why you believe.” I responded, “Have you seen Woody Allen‘s movie CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS?
Yes, he loved it, in fact. It’s about a doctor who is haunted by GUILT after hiring a killer to murder his mistress. His Jewish father has taught him that God will surely bring justice. In the end the doctor suppresses his GUILT, convincing himself that LIFE IS AN DARWINIAN STRUGGLE WHERE ONLY THE RUTHLESS SURVIVE.
I asked Larry, “Is that our only choice–to be tormented by GUILT or else kill our conscience? Larry, how do you deal with your conscience?” He dropped his fork. I said, “What do you do with the GUILT that is in here? What do you do with what you know you have done wrong?
Then he was ready to listen. I went on and shared with him from Romans which teaches about the voice of conscience that God has given us.
__________
Third, men have a longing for significance which expresses itself most clearly in the fear of non being.
Fourth, I would point to the fact that only people worship.
Fifth, men are not satisfied unless they have their spiritual needs met. Carl Sagan quotes the poet Walt Whitman, “Not one (animal) is dissatisfied…Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth…” Sagan comments, “On this basis of the evidence presented in this book, we doubt if any of Whitman’s six purported differences between other animals and humans is true…” (p. 389).
I read Sagan’s book cover to cover and made over 15 pages of notes, and I have yet to find any of the “evidence” that Sagan speaks of on page 389. I find the comments of NOAM CHOMSKY more logical. He calls animal language an “evolutionary miracle” akin to “finding an island of humans who could be taught to fly.”
I like Francis Schaeffer‘s term “Mannishness” of man. He defines it as those aspects of man, such as significance, love, rationality and the fear of non being, which mark him off from animals and machines and give evidence of his being created in the image of a personal God.
The scientist Blaise Pascal is quoted by Sagan on page 364 and then Sagan notes, “Most of the philosophers adjudged great in the history of western thought held that humans are fundamentally different from other animals…”
As you know Pascal was the inventor of the barometer and he lived from 1623 to 1662. Pascal also observed, “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man,and only God can fill it.”
What is the solution? “For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). The scriptural directive is not for us to work harder to achieve God’s favor (Romans 3:20), but to accept God’s mercy through our repentance and receiving Christ as a free gift (Ephesians 2:8-10).
Thank you again for your time and I know how busy you are.
Jack Youngerman is an American abstract/ minimalist artist. Jack Youngerman was born in St. Louis, Missouri in the year 1926. Youngerman is a painter, jewelry designer, sculptor, and print maker.
Youngerman attended college at the University of North Carolina before graduating from the University of Missouri. He also served in the United States Navy.
The artist also studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts located in Paris.
In this clip we view a group show that features Jack Youngerman’s work. His is the first piece of art:
Youngerman married a well known french actress.
The artist is part of many prominent collections including the Denver Art Museum and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Youngerman has won a Guggenheim Fellowship and also awards from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Price range information: Works range from $10,000 to $60,000. The artist worked in oils, gouache, prints, and bronzes.
What I enjoy most about Youngerman’s style is his sense of graphic design. Many pieces seem to be very similar to First Nations art, especially those works featuring black, red, and white. His style is very similar to the First Nations style of art work, but with more modern line work.
________ H. J. Blackham H. J. Blackham, (31 March 1903 – 23 January 2009), was a leading and widely respected British humanist for most of his life. As a young man he worked in farming and as a teacher. He found his niche as a leader in the Ethical Union, which he steadfastly […]
H.J.Blackham pictured below: I had to pleasure of corresponding with Paul Kurtz in the 1990’s and he like H. J. Blackham firmly believed that religion was needed to have a basis for morals. At H. J. Blackham’s funeral in 2009 these words were read from Paul Kurtz: Paul Kurtz Founder and Chair, Prometheus Books and the […]
H. J. Blackham pictured below: On May 15, 1994 on the 10th anniversary of the passing of Francis Schaeffer I sent a letter to H.J. Blackham and here is a portion of that letter below: I have enclosed a cassette tape by Adrian Rogers and it includes a story about Charles Darwin‘s journey from […]
I featured the artwork of Ellsworth Kelly on my blog both on November 23, 2015 and December 17, 2015. Also I mailed him a letter on November 23, 2015, but I never heard back from him. Unfortunately he died on December 27, 2015 at the age of 92. Who were the artists who influenced […]
__ I featured the artwork of Ellsworth Kelly on my blog both on November 23, 2015 and December 17, 2015. Also I mailed him a letter on November 23, 2015, but I never heard back from him. Unfortunately he died on December 27, 2015 at the age of 92. Who were the […]
Andy, Ellsworth Kelly, Richard Koshalek and unidentified guest, 1980s I featured the artwork of Ellsworth Kelly on my blog both on November 23, 2015 and December 17, 2015. Also I mailed him a letter on November 23, 2015, but I never heard back from him. Unfortunately he died on December 27, 2015 at the age […]
How Should We Then Live – Episode 8 – The Age of Fragmentation I featured the artwork of Ellsworth Kelly on my blog both on November 23, 2015 and December 17, 2015. Also I mailed him a letter on November 23, 2015, but I never heard back from him. Unfortunately he died on December […]
Today I am bringing this series on William Provine to an end. Will Provine’s work was cited by Francis Schaeffer in his book WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? I noted: I was sad to learn of Dr. Provine’s death. William Ball “Will” Provine (February 19, 1942 – September 1, 2015) He grew up an […]
___ Setting the record straight was Will Provine’s widow Gail when she stated, “[Will] did not believe in an ULTIMATE meaning in life (i.e. God’s plan), but he did believe in proximate meaning (i.e. relationships with people — friendship and especially LOVE🙂 ). So one’s existence is ultimately senseless and useless, but certainly not to those […]
I was sad when I learned of Will Provine’s death. He was a very engaging speaker on the subject of Darwinism and I think he correctly realized what the full ramifications are when accepting evolution. This is the fourth post I have done on Dr. Provine and the previous ones are these links, 1st, 2nd […]
Annie Hall or Bananas? Blue Jasmine or Sleeper? Our critics Robbie Collin and Tim Robey rank all 47 Woody Allen movies
18. Radio Days (1987)
Radio Days is Allen being nostalgic about nostalgia: it’s the kind of film about the olden days they just don’t make any more. The model was Fellini’s free-flowing 1973 masterpiece Amarcord, with Rimini swapped for Rockaway Beach in Queens, where a working-class Jewish family buzz and drift through everyday life, while the music of Glenn Miller and Duke Ellington crackles comfortingly from the living room set. Allen weaves in further stories of stars and wannabes, muddling memory and fantasy. The result isn’t so much a collage as a patchwork quilt.
17. A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy (1982)
It sounds like Shakespeare laid the template for this gauzy upstate romp, but it was really the “weekend in the country” conceit of Bergman’s Smiles of a Summer Night (spun off by Stephen Sondheim, too, in A Little Night Music). There’s a lot of sneaking around, love being kindled, or rekindled, and so on: you imagine the Porky’s crowd lured in by the title may have been disappointed. As an Allen milestone, it’s mainly notable as the first of his (unlucky) 13 films with Mia Farrow, who took the role originally written for the too-busy Diane Keaton. She gets more dreamy close-ups than he’d ever give her again.
16. Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)
The best of Allen’s Europe-trotting films is the one most in touch with its touristic soul. Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall are two young American women who fall for Javier Bardem’s divorced artist during a Catalonian excursion – and like A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy, it’s the idea of romance as a mini-break for the soul that gives the film its rosily libidinous power. Of its unspeakably attractive cast, Penélope Cruz was the eventual Oscar-winner; oftentimes, you sense Allen’s just happy to be tagging along for the ride.
15. Take the Money and Run (1969)
Credit: Getty
“This is a bank robbery, not a movie,” complains Allen’s Virgil Starkwell – although in this case, it’s easy to get the two confused. Allen rushes into this mock-biopic of a hapless serial crook all puns blazing, with concepts pilfered from Chaplin and the Marx brothers, and an arsenal of brilliant sight gags, one-liners and physical comedy routines. (For the sheer comic density of the idea, the marching-band cellist might be the best thing he ever did.) It’s his archetypal early, funny film: one may have come earlier, but none were funnier.
14. Bullets Over Broadway (1994)
This is a throwback to when Allen’s sheer confidence with the pen ruled: the idea of a theatreland gangster farce, with playwright John Cusack finding an unexpectedly brilliant collaborator in the form of Chazz Palminteri’s Mob bodyguard, isn’t inspired per se, but the characters he flings together keep it brimful of pep and ideas. Jim Broadbent and Tracey Ullmann both ham it up marvellously as seen-it-all Broadway stars, and Jennifer Tilly scores as the squeaky moll cast to guarantee financing, but the jewel in this ensemble is Dianne Wiest, walking off with her second Allen-derived Oscar as the sublimely melodramatic diva Helen Sinclair.
I have posted so many reviews on Woody Allen’s latest movie CAFE SOCIETY and I even posted an open letter I wrote to Woody Allen about the film. A serious theme of the afterlife is brought up in this film too. Some reviewers liked the film and the lavish surroundings in it and some did […]
I have posted so many reviews on Woody Allen’s latest movie CAFE SOCIETY and I even posted an open letter I wrote to Woody Allen about the film. A serious theme of the afterlife is brought up in this film too. Some reviewers liked the film and the lavish surroundings in it and some did […]
I have posted so many reviews on Woody Allen’s latest movie CAFE SOCIETY and I even posted an open letter I wrote to Woody Allen about the film. A serious theme of the afterlife is brought up in this film too. Some reviewers liked the film and the lavish surroundings in it and some did […]
Café Society Official International Trailer #1 (2016) – Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart Movie HD LETTER DATED 8-28-16 The last time I wrote you about the film IRRATIONAL MAN and today I want to give my thoughts on the film CAFE SOCIETY. I was able to catch it in Chicago in July and again I caught […]
Café Society – Official Movie Review Café Society Official International Trailer #1 (2016) – Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart Movie HD Cafe Society Woody Allen returns with a 1930s-set tale of Hollywood glamour and New York nightlife Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart in ‘Café Society.’ Credit: Sabrina Lantos In a summer of VFX crowdpleasers, it’s a […]
Café Society – Official Movie Review Café Society Official International Trailer #1 (2016) – Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart Movie HD The Reel Thing The Reel Thing: Woody Allen Formula Fails With ‘Cafe Society’ By RAY COX 23 hrs ago Woody Allen has been making films for more than 50 years but “Cafe Society” is […]
Café Society – Official Movie Review Cafe Society Woody Allen’s latest is an unfocused, wistful glance at both old glamour and the afterlife. Alissa Wilkinson/ July 14, 2016 Cafe Society Amazon Studios 1 of 2 Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart in ‘Cafe Society’ Woody Allen has come under concentrated fire in the time since his […]
Café Society – Official Movie Review Café Society Official International Trailer #1 (2016) – Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart Movie HD __ ___ ______________ __ Kat Edmonson lives the NYC dream ___ __ __ OPEN LETTER TO WOODY ALLEN DATED 8-28-16 seen below: The last time I wrote you about the film IRRATIONAL MAN and […]
_ Cafe Society review: In Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Allen has found his acting surrogate Christiopher Hooton 11 hours ago But in this movie about making movies, it’s too tangible that a movie is being made I always get excited to watch a new Woody Allen film, not in spite of his prolificness but because of […]
_ Café Society Official International Trailer #1 (2016) – Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart Movie HD Review: ‘Café Society’ is minor, enjoyable Woody Allen Bill Goodykoontz, Gannett4:24 p.m. EDT July 28, 2016 (Photo: Amazon Studios) “Café Society” is probably what you’d call a placeholder Woody Allen movie, a small offering between more cerebral offerings, if he’s […]
I truly believe that many of the problems we have today in the USA are due to the advancement of humanism in the last few decades in our society. Ronald Reagan appointed the evangelical Dr. C. Everett Koop to the position of Surgeon General in his administration. He partnered with Dr. Francis Schaeffer in making the video below. It is very valuable information for Christians to have. Actually I have included a video below that includes comments from him on this subject.
Dr Francis Schaeffer – Whatever Happened to the Human Race – Episode 1
Published on Oct 14, 2012
more of the insightful Drs. Schaeffer & C. Everett Koop
Olphart you are right when you stated, “…I do think most people are uncomfortable with abortion…”
KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ wrote on 05/14/2013:
The right to a dead baby. That’s not pretty. That’s not a euphemism. That’s not how we talk about abortion in the United States of America. But that is the reality of abortion in the United States of America.
When a woman walks into an abortion facility, that’s what she expects from the doctor and that’s what the doctor is expected to provide.
That’s what the Kermit Gosnell trial exposed.
Now that he has been convicted of at least some of the deaths of women and babies under his care, history records this as a hinge moment. We cannot pretend to not understand the logic of legal abortion: Human dignity is not inherent; a child is not a human life unless its mother wills it to be. We choose to continue to tolerate this or we make it stop.
Kermit Gosnell provided the service expected of him, in his filthy, torturous practice, as officials looked away at complaints about conditions and crimes within.
In the shadow of his trial, Lila Rose’s Live Action released a series of undercover videos, raising grave questions about just what doctors are doing inside top-of-the-line abortion businesses, too. Dr. LeRoy Carhart tells the actress in her 26th week of pregnancy who approached him to schedule an elective late-term abortion: “I think you’ll be affected for the positive. I think you have — I think you can make very difficult, hard decisions that help shape the life — the rest of your future and [that will] make you work harder for the things, you know, that are important.”
He goes on to say, “I think out of respect and love and honor for this baby that you’ve lost, you will find yourself being a better person.” He tells her that “postpartum depression is really very common, but post-abortion depression? I can honestly tell you that I haven’t seen one — one person that way.”
To do what he does, to tolerate what we have, we cling to delusions of the sanctification of evil as a drug to numb the conscience.
Kirsten Powers, a formerly pro-abortion-rights Democrat who led a campaign to shame the mainstream media into covering the Gosnell trial, reflected: “Medical advances since Roe v. Wade have made it clear to me that late-term abortion is not a moral gray area, and we need to stop pretending it is. NO SIX-MONTHS-PREGNANT WOMAN IS PICKING OUT NAMES FOR HER ‘FETUS.’ IT’S A BABY!!!! Let’s stop playing Orwellian word games. We are talking about human beings here.”
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ________________ What a great article below: Dr. Alveda King: Guilty Gosnell Verdict May Spark More Justice for Women and Babies Contact: Eugene Vigil, King for America, 470-244-3302 PHILADELPHIA, May 13, 2013 /Christian Newswire/ […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ________________ May 14, 2013 Murdered Thousands, Convicted for Three: The Kermit Gosnell Verdict By Drew Belsky Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/05/murdered_thousands_convicted_for_three_the_kermit_gosnell_verdict.html#ixzz2TMstLk1c Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on FacebookPhiladelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell was convicted […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ________________ A Verdict Doesn’t End the Gosnell Story By: Chairman Reince Priebus (Diary) | May 13th, 2013 at 03:27 PM | 28 RESIZE: AAA The horrors that unfolded in the clinic of Dr. […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ________________ All-American Horror Story: Top 10 Kermit Gosnell Trial Revelations by Kristan Hawkins | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 4/12/13 3:38 PM Since so many in the media have failed/refused to report on […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis _____________ Tony Perkins: Gosnell Trial – FOX News Published on May 13, 2013 Tony Perkins: Gosnell Trial – FOX News ________________ Hey Obama, Kermit Gosnell Is What a Real War on Women Looks Like […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ___ _____________ Tony Perkins: Gosnell Trial – FOX News Published on May 13, 2013 Tony Perkins: Gosnell Trial – FOX News ________________ Family Research Council Praises Jury for Bringing Justice to Victims of Abortionist […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ________________ _____________ Tony Perkins: Gosnell Trial – FOX News Published on May 13, 2013 Tony Perkins: Gosnell Trial – FOX News ________________ Kermit Gosnell and the Logic of “Pro-Choice” by Matthew J. Franck within […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ________________ Fr. Pavone: Right to choose must yield to right to life STATEN ISLAND, NY — Father Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life, had the following comment on the verdict in […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ________________ The truth of abortion … the hope for Gosnell’s repentance A conviction in the murder trial of Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell has boosted the efforts of pro-lifers to demonstrate what abortion really […]
The Selfishness of Chris Evert Part 2 (Includes videos and Pictures) _________________________________ _____________________ _______________________ __________________________ Tennis – Wimbledon 1974 [ Official Film ] – 05/05 Published on May 1, 2012 John Newcombe, Ken Rosewall, Bjor Borg, Jimmy Connors, Cris Evert… ___________________ Jimmy Connors Reflects Published on May 13, 2013 Jimmy Connors visits “SportsCenter” to discuss his memoir, […]
and you will hear what far smarter people than I have to say on this matter. I agree with them.
Harry Kroto
Nick Gathergood, David-Birkett, Harry-Kroto
I have attempted to respond to all of Dr. Kroto’s friends arguments and I have posted my responses one per week for over a year now. Here are some of my earlier posts:
In the second video below in the 78th clip in this series are his words and my response is below them.
50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 1)
Another 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 2)
A Further 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 3)
_________________________________
Below is my letter to Dr. Rodolfo Llinas and my response to his quote:
6-6-16
Dr. Rodolfo Llinas, Professor of Neuroscience; University Professor; Department ofNeuroscience and Physiology, NYU
Dear Dr. Llinas,
Back in 1981 I got to visit 20 European trips with 42 girls and 5 boys on a college trip for a copy of months. When I was in Rome or Athens I had 13 girls that would walk with me and when a foreign guy would approach them they would say that they were with me. I was a legend in those towns in Europe!!!! On that trip I met a good friend named Carlos and he was from Columbia, and he always was trying to get me to come visit him but I was afraid of dangers I had read about down there. He told he would meet me at the airport and escort around the country in the safe areas. I was reminded of that lately when I watched the hit TV show MODERN FAMILY because Gloria is from Columbia and she always joked about the safety in Columbia.
In the popular You Tube video “Renowned Academics Speaking About God” you made the following statement:
“I have no measure possible, I know that even those who believe in God deeply know that there is no possible way of discerning his existence. Measure something that tells me that God exists, anything. ARE WE SAYING THAT DISCERNMENT IS THE SAME THING AS MEASUREMENT? Yes, indeed, in this case for me it is…”
As a scientist you emphasis the need to have things confirmed through observational data.Have you taken time to really look at the historical claims of the Bible and if they are really accurate or not?
Let me respond with the words of Francis Schaeffer from his book HE IS THERE AND HE IS NOT SILENT (the chapter is entitled, “Is Propositional Revelation Nonsense?”
Of course, if the infinite uncreated Personal communicated to the finite created personal, he would not exhaust himself in his communication; but two things are clear here:
1. Even communication between once created person and another is not exhaustive, but that does not mean that for that reason it is not true.
2. If the uncreated Personal really cared for the created personal, it could not be thought unexpected for him to tell the created personal things of a propositional nature; otherwise as a finite being the created personal would have numerous things he could not know if he just began with himself as a limited, finite reference point. In such a case, there is no intrinsic reason why the uncreated Personal could communicate some vaguely true things, but could not communicate propositional truth concerning the world surrounding the created personal – for fun, let’s call that science. Or why he could not communicate propositional truth to the created personal concerning the sequence that followed the uncreated Personal making everything he made – let’s call thathistory. There is no reason we could think of why he could not tell these two types of propositional things truly. They would not be exhaustive; but could we think of any reason why they would not be true? The above is, of course, what the Bible claims for itself in regard to propositional revelation.
Below is a piece of that evidence given by Francis Schaeffer concerning the accuracy of the Bible. TRUTH AND HISTORY (chapter 5 of WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?, under footnote #94)
We now take a jump back in time to the middle of the ninth century before Christ, that is, about 850 B.C. Most people have heard of Jezebel. She was the wife of Ahab, the king of the northern kingdom of Israel. Her wickedness has become so proverbial that we talk about someone as a “Jezebel.” She urged her husband to have Naboth killed, simply because Ahab had expressed his liking for a piece of land owned by Naboth, who would not sell it. The Bible tells us also that she introduced into Israel the worship of her homeland, the Baal worship of Tyre. This led to the opposition of Elijah the Prophet and to the famous conflict on Mount Carmel between Elijah and the priests of Baal.
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‘The Woman at the Window’ – an ivory artifact from Samaria. Photo source.
Here again one finds archaeological confirmations of what the Bible says. Take for example: “As for the other events of Ahab’s reign, including all he did, the palace he built and inlaid with ivory, and the cities he fortified, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel?” (I Kings 22:39).
This is a very brief reference in the Bible to events which must have taken a long time: building projects which probably spanned decades. Archaeological excavations at the site of Samaria, the capital, reveal something of the former splendor of the royal citadel. Remnants of the “ivory house” were found and attracted special attention (Palestinian Archaeological Museum, Jerusalem). This appears to have been a treasure pavilion in which the walls and furnishings had been adorned with colored ivory work set with inlays giving a brilliant too, with the denunciations revealed by the prophet Amos:
“I will tear down the winter house along with the summer house; the houses adorned with ivory will be destroyed and the mansions will be demolished,” declares the Lord. (Amos 3:15)
Other archaeological confirmation exists for the time of Ahab. Excavations at Hazor and Megiddo have given evidence of the extent of fortifications carried out by Ahab. At Megiddo, in particular, Ahab’s works were very extensive including a large series of stables formerly assigned to Solomon’s time.
On the political front, Ahab had to contend with danger from the Aramacaus king of Syria who besieged Samaria, Ahab’s capital. Ben-hadad’s existence is attested by a stela (a column with writing on it) which has been discovered with his name written on it (Melquart Stela, Aleppo Museum, Syria). Again, a detail of history given in the Bible is shown to be correct.
Jezebel was no doubt the wickedest woman in the Bible. In the book of Revelation her name was invoked in condemning a false prophetess in Thyatira who promoted sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols (Rv 2:20). Even today the name is emblematic of a sinful, shameless woman. Jezebel means “where is his highness (=Baal)?” (Korpel 2008: 37). Baal was the great Canaanite storm and fertility god. Jezebel’s father Ethbaal, whose name means “with Baal” or “man of Baal,” was king of the Phoenicians (1 Kgs 16:31). The Jewish historian Josephus tells us that Ethbaal was formerly a priest of Ashtoreth, consort of Baal, who usurped the throne and reigned over Tyre and Sidon for 32 years (Contra Apionem i.18.123).
Opal seal with the name of Jezebel. The inscription and symbols on the seal make it highly likely that it was the official seal of the wicked woman of the Old Testament. She was a woman of power as indicated by her title “Queen Mother” (2 Kgs 10:13). Although Jezebel had her own seal to authenticate official correspondence, when she forged the letters to the elders and nobles of Jezreel in order do away with Naboth and seize his vineyard, she used Ahab’s seal rather than her own for maximum authority (1 Kgs 21:8).
In order to form a political alliance with the Phoenicians, Ahab, king of Israel (874–853 BC), married Baal-worshipping Jezebel (1 Kgs 16:31). “Urged on by Jezebel his wife” (1 Kgs 21:25), Ahab became a follower of Baal, and even erected a temple and altar to the pagan deity in Samaria (1 Kgs 16:32). He had the distinction of being the king who “did more to provoke the LORD, the God of Israel, to anger than did all the kings of Israel before him” (1 Kgs 16:33). Jezebel bore Ahab a son, Joram, who ruled Israel for 12 years from 852 to 841 BC, and she herself became a strong political figure bearing the title “Queen Mother” (2 Kgs 10:13).
Baal the Canaanite storm god, also worshipped by the later Phoenicians. In his left hand he holds a spear which flashes lightning and in his right hand a mace. The relief, which dates to 1650–1500 BC, was found in a sanctuary in the Canaanite city of Ugarit, Syria, in 1932. It is now on display in the Louvre Museum in Paris.
Jezebel was zealous in her efforts to stamp out Yahwism and promote the worship of Baal. She mounted a campaign to kill the Lord’s prophets (1 Kgs 18:4, 13), while at the same time feeding 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of Asherah, the Canaanite mother goddess and consort of El, at the royal table (1 Kgs 18:19). This led to a confrontation between Elijah and the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel, resulting in the extermination of the prophets of Baal (1 Kgs 18:16–40).
Jezebel also figures prominently in the account of the appropriation of Naboth’s vineyard. Naboth refused to sell his vineyard to greedy Ahab. Conniving Jezebel arranged to have false charges brought against Naboth, which resulted in his death (1 Kgs 21). When Ahab went to take possession of the vineyard, Elijah was there with a message from God:
“I am going to bring disaster on you. I will consume your descendants and cut off from Ahab every last male in Israel— slave or free…because you have provoked me to anger and have caused Israel to sin.” And also concerning Jezebel the LORD says: “Dogs will devour Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel” (1 Kgs 21:21–23).
Shortly thereafter Ahab was killed in a battle against the Arameans (1 Kgs 22:29–40). Twelve years later a prophet of the Lord anointed Jehu, a general in the Israelite army, king with the following charge:
You are to destroy the house of Ahab your master, and I will avenge the blood of my servants the prophets and the blood of all the LORD’s servants the prophets and the blood of all the LORD’s servants shed by Jezebel (2 Kgs 9:7).
Statue of Elijah on Mt. Carmel memorializing Elijah’s encounter with Jezebel’s prophets. Elijah challenged the 450 prophets of Baal who ate at Jezebel’s table to a sacrifice cook-off: “you call on the name of your god and I will call on the name of the LORD. The god who answers by fire—he is God” (1 Kgs 18:24). Who do you think won? You can read the account in 1 Kings 18:16–40.
Jehu went on to wipe out Ahab’s descendants, including Jezebel’s son Joram. As the Lord had predicted through Elijah, Jezebel met a grisly end. Jehu went to the royal residence at Jezreel and found the Queen Mother, with her eyes painted and hair arranged, looking out a palace window. Jehu ordered her eunuchs to throw her out the window:
So they threw her down, and some of her blood spattered the wall and the horses as they trampled her underfoot. Jehu went in and ate and drank. “Take care of that cursed woman,” he said, “and bury her, for she was a king’s daughter.” But when they went out to bury her, they found nothing except her skull, her feet and her hands. They went back and told Jehu, who said, “This is the word of the LORD that he spoke through his servant Elijah the Tishbite: On the plot of ground at Jezreel dogs will devour Jezebel’s flesh” (2 Kgs 9:33–36).
In the early 1960s a seal was purchased on the antiquities market and donated to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. The late Nahman Avigad, a leading Israeli paleographer (one who studies ancient writing), published an article about the seal in 1964. He suggested the name on the seal was possibly Jezebel, but there was a problem—the first letter of the name was missing. And so, little attention was paid to the seal and it languished in the Israel Museum for decades. Then, Dutch researcher Marjo Korpel (Associate Professor of Old Testament, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands) became interested in it. Korpel was first drawn to the seal because of its imagery, but then became intrigued with the inscription. She noticed that a piece had broken off at the top and this could very well have been where the missing letter was originally located. She conjectured that there were initially two letters in the area of the break: a Hebrew lamed, or L, which stood for “(belonging) to” or “for,” and the missing first letter of Jezebel’s name.
Seal of Jezebel with missing letters restored. The top of the seal has been damaged and it is in this area that Old Testament scholar Marjo Korpel suggests that there were originally two letters: alamed, meaning “(belonging) to” and an aleph, the first letter of Jezebel’s name. The restored inscription would then read “(belonging) to Jezebel.” The seal is scheduled to go on display at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem in 2010 when renovation work at the museum is completed.
Apart from the inscription, there are other compelling reasons for identifying the seal as that of Jezebel. First, as Avigad observed, it is very fancy, suggestive of royalty. It is made of the gemstone opal and is larger than average, being 1.24 in (31 mm) from top to bottom (Avigad 1964: 274). Secondly, the form of the letters is Phoenician, or imitates Phoenician writing (Korpel 2008: 37). Thirdly, the seal is fi lled with common Egyptian symbols that were often used in Phoenicia in the ninth century BC and are suggestive of a queen. At the top is a crouching winged sphinx with a woman’s face, the body of a lioness and a female Isis/Hathor crown. To the left is an Egyptian ankh, the sign of life. In the lower register, below a winged disk, is an Egyptian style falcon, symbol of royalty in Egypt. On either side of the falcon is a uraeus, the cobra representation of Egyptian royalty worn on crowns. At the bottom left is a lotus, a symbol often associated with royal women. All of these icons taken together denote female royalty (Korpel 2008: 36–37).
Although 100% certainty cannot be attained, Korpel’s assessment of the evidence leads her to conclude, “I believe it is very likely that we have here the seal of the famous Queen Jezebel” (2008: 37). Bibliography Avigad, Nahman 1964 The Seal of Jezebel. Israel Exploration Journal 14: 274–76. Korpel, Marjo C.A. 2008 Fit for a Queen: Jezebel’s Royal Seal. Biblical Archaeology Review 34.2: 32–37, 80.
Now the rest of the acts of Ahab, and all that he did, and the ivory house which he made, and all the cities that he built, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?
(The Bible, 1 Kings 22: 39)
According to the Old Testament, King Ahab was the seventh king of the northern kingdom of Israel since Jeroboam I, and reigned during the 9th century B.C. In the Old Testament, Ahab, along with his wife, Jezebel, gets a rather negative portrayal for the various things that they did, such as the worship of Baal.
According to the Old Testament, Ahab’s father, Omri, purchased the hill of Samaria and founded a city there: “In the thirty and first year of Asa king of Judah began Omri to reign over Israel, twelve years: six years reigned he in Tirzah. And he bought the hill Samaria of Shemer for two talents of silver, and built on the hill, and called the name of the city which he built, after the name of Shemer, owner of the hill, Samaria.” (The Bible, 1 Kings 16: 23-24)
It was on this hill that Ahab built his ‘ivory palace’. It is often pointed out that the existence of such a structure has been confirmed by archaeological evidence. However, it will be shown that this is not as straightforward as it seems, and that the phrase “Ivory Palace of King Ahab” is a rather problematic one. In 1932, the Joint Expedition to Samaria, located in present-day West Bank, discovered a large quantity of ivory objects and decorations (a total of 250 fragments were recorded) near the northern area of Samaria’s summit. This has led people, including the archaeologists, to believe that they have found King Ahab’s Ivory Palace.
There are two problems with this interpretation. The first problem involves the question of what is meant by an ‘ivory palace’. One may envision an ivory palace to be a building somehow constructed literally from ivory (that’s what I’d imagine anyway). After all, if King Ahab were to be depicted as a really wealthy king, this would be a pretty good way to do so. However, these fragments were probably once attached to wooden furniture. The ivories from Fort Shalmaneser in Nimrud, Iraq, may be seen as parallels to those found in Samaria. Of course, one might argue that an ‘ivory palace’ was a building that had lots of ivory-decorated furniture, or ivory carvings, rather than a structure built of ivory.
The bigger problem, however, is the fact that this structure was not even built by King Ahab. Based on the Kathleen Kenyon’s stratigraphic notes and summaries of the site, it seems that most of these ivory fragments date to the Hellenistic and Roman periods, several hundreds of years after the reign of King Ahab.
Although a structure containing ivory fragments was discovered by archaeologists, it was not King Ahab’s Ivory Palace. So, why was it identified as such then? Perhaps it was only natural that the Biblical reference produced an impulse to date these ivory fragments to the reign of King Ahab. The area where the ivories were found was also initially thought to be part of the royal palace (the large “palace” discovered to its west by the Harvard team in 1908-1910 was relegated to the status of a ‘supplementary building’). This view, however, was withdrawn in 1938, when the archaeologists realized that the walls of this building actually comprised only a section of a section of a second, inner enclosure wall, and that they could not “make a room or pavilion out of them.” By then, the damage was already done, and the ‘Ivory Palace of King Ahab’ is still regarded by some as having basis in archaeology.
If you think the score board is ‘Archaeology – 1, Bible – 0’, it isn’t quite as simple. Reliance on the Bible for the interpretation of archaeological evidence is very much like the reliance of any textual evidence. Although historical archaeology is said to be the “handmaiden to history”, it isn’t quite so. If you think archaeology’s here to support the textual evidence (of which history relies on), you’d better think again. I suppose, at the end of the day, one has to be critical of one’s sources, and not take the textual evidence at face value. Also, archaeologists ought to be careful with what they say, since there may be unforeseen repercussions, sometimes much worse than the misidentification of an ancient structure.
Featured image: An ivory plaque from Samaria depicting a lion attacking a bull. The lion symbolizes the sun, the bull the earth, the two creatures eternally warring for supremacy, with the lion better equipped to win. The plaque would have been attached to a screen or piece of furniture. Photo source. By Ḏḥwty
Archaeologists haven’t found only Assyrian evidence for the existence of King Ahab. While excavating Samaria they have found indications of another biblical description connected to Ahab’s reign—his house of ivory. The Bible says of Ahab, “Now the rest of the acts of Ahab, and all that he did, the ivory house which he built and all the cities that he built, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?” (2 Kings 22:39).
Herschel Shanks, editor of Biblical Archaeology Review, writes: “An important ivory find from the Iron Age comes from Ahab’s capital in Samaria where over 500 ivory fragments were found … The Bible speaks of Ahab’s ‘house of ivory’ (1 Kings 22:39). Does this refer to the paneling of the walls or to the furnishings? To put the matter differently, did the ivory fragments found at Samaria decorate the walls of the building or the furniture? There is some evidence from Nimrud that a room in an Assyrian palace was, in fact, paneled with ivory veneer. Was this the case at Samaria? On the basis of the evidence at hand, it is difficult to tell.
“Whether paneling for the wall or decoration for furniture, the houses of ivory—based on a highly sophisticated Phoenician ivory industry—were for the Hebrew prophets symbols of social oppression and injustice; the ‘ivory houses’ [mentioned in Amos 3.15] were also evidence of participation in the barbarous pagan practices and heathen worship of Phoenicia. Based on the archaeological evidence, the prophets knew what they were talking about” ( Biblical Archaeology Review,September-October 1985, p. 46).
Thank you again for your time and I know how busy you are.
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__________________ Beatles 1966 Last interview I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking and writing about them and their impact on the culture of the 1960’s. In this […]
_______________ The Beatles documentary || A Long and Winding Road || Episode 5 (This video discusses Stg. Pepper’s creation I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking and writing about […]
_______________ Francis Schaeffer pictured below: _____________________ I have included the 27 minute episode THE AGE OF NONREASON by Francis Schaeffer. In that video Schaeffer noted, ” Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band…for a time it became the rallying cry for young people throughout the world. It expressed the essence of their lives, thoughts and their feelings.” How Should […]
Crimes and Misdemeanors: A Discussion: Part 1 ___________________________________ Today I will answer the simple question: IS IT POSSIBLE TO BE AN OPTIMISTIC SECULAR HUMANIST THAT DOES NOT BELIEVE IN GOD OR AN AFTERLIFE? This question has been around for a long time and you can go back to the 19th century and read this same […]
____________________________________ Francis Schaeffer pictured below: __________ Francis Schaeffer has written extensively on art and culture spanning the last 2000years and here are some posts I have done on this subject before : Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 10 “Final Choices” , episode 9 “The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence”, episode 8 […]
Love and Death [Woody Allen] – What if there is no God? [PL] ___________ _______________ How Should We then Live Episode 7 small (Age of Nonreason) #02 How Should We Then Live? (Promo Clip) Dr. Francis Schaeffer 10 Worldview and Truth Two Minute Warning: How Then Should We Live?: Francis Schaeffer at 100 Francis Schaeffer […]
___________________________________ Francis Schaeffer pictured below: ____________________________ Francis Schaeffer “BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY” Whatever…HTTHR Dr. Francis schaeffer – The flow of Materialism(from Part 4 of Whatever happened to human race?) Dr. Francis Schaeffer – The Biblical flow of Truth & History (intro) Francis Schaeffer – The Biblical Flow of History & Truth (1) Dr. Francis Schaeffer […]
Paul McCartney Mull Of Kintyre Lyric
Mull of kintyre
Oh mist rolling in from the sea,
My desire is always to be here
Oh mull of kintyre
Far have I traveled and much have I seen
Dark distant mountains with valleys of green.
Past painted deserts the sunsets on fire
As he carries me home to the mull of kintyre.
Mull of kintyre
Oh mist rolling in from the sea,
My desire is always to be here
Oh mull of kintyre
[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/p/paul+mcc… ]
Sweep through the heather like deer in the glen
Carry me back to the days I knew then.
Nights when we sang like a heavenly choir
Of the life and the time of the mull of kintyre.
Mull of kintyre
Oh mist rolling in from the sea,
My desire is always to be here
Oh mull of kintyre
Smiles in the sunshine
And tears in the rain
Still take me back to where my memories remain
Flickering embers growing higher and higher
As they carry me back to the mull of kintyre
Mull of kintyre
Oh mist rolling in from the sea,
My desire is always to be here
Oh mull of kintyre
Mull of kintyre
Oh mist rolling in from the sea,
My desire is always to be here
Oh mull of kintyre
Denny Laine (born Brian Frederick Hines, 29 October 1944) is an English musician, singer, songwriter and guitarist. He was an original member of the Moody Blues, singing the band’s first hit “Go Now” in 1964, and was a member of Wings with Paul McCartney from 1971 to 1981.
Laine was born in Birmingham, where he attended Yardley Grammar School, and took up the guitar as a boy under the influence of gypsy jazz (jazz manouche) legend Django Reinhardt; he gave his first solo performance as a musician at the age of 12 and began his career as a professional musician fronting Denny Laine & the Diplomats, which also included future Move and Electric Light Orchestra drummer Bev Bevan.
In 1964, Laine left the Diplomats to join Mike Pinder in the Moody Blues[1] and sang the group’s first big hit, “Go Now“; other early highlights included I Don’t Want To Go on Without You, another UK hit, plus two minor UK chart hits “From The Bottom of My Heart ( I Love You)”, Everyday (both written by Laine and Pinder), “Can’t Nobody Love You” and the harmonica-ripping “Bye Bye Bird” (a big hit in France). A self-titled EP and ‘The Magnificent Moodies’ LP on Decca followed. Laine and Pinder wrote most of The Moody Blues ‘B’ sides during the 1965-66 period, such as You Don’t (All the Time),And My Baby’s Gone and This Is My House. However, Laine’s tenure with the MB’s was relatively short-lived and, after a number of comparative chart failures,[citation needed] Laine quit the band in October 1966. The last record issued by the Moody Blues that featured Laine was “Life’s Not Life”/”He Can Win” in January 1967, just after Justin Hayward had replaced him in the band.
After leaving the Moody Blues, he formed the Electric String Band in December 1966, which featured himself on guitar and vocals, Trevor Burton (of the Move) on guitar, Viv Prince on drums and electrified strings in a format not dissimilar to what Electric Light Orchestra would later attempt. Laine made two singles, “Say You Don’t Mind”/”Ask The People” (April 1967, Deram) and “Too Much in Love”/”Catherine’s Wheel” (January 1968, Deram); and, in June 1967, the band shared a bill with the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Procol Harum at the Saville Theatre in London. However, it did not achieve national attention, and the pioneering Electric String Band broke up. (There was apparently a third single recorded called “Why Did You Come?”. Why it was never released is unknown, but there have been rumors that the finished track – and probably the B side as well – was mailed to Decca and was lost.)[citation needed] Laine and Burton then went on to the band Balls from February 1969 until the band’s breakup in 1971, with both also taking time to play in Ginger Baker’s Air Force in 1970.[2]
Only one single was issued by Balls: “Fight for My Country”/”Janie, Slow Down” on UK Wizard Records.[2] The top side was re-edited and reissued on UK Wizard and issued in the UK on Wizard and in the United States on Epic under the name of Trevor Burton; Laine and Burton shared lead vocals on the B side. The single was reissued again as B.L.W. as “Live in the Mountains” for a small Pye-distributed label, “Paladin”. Twelve tracks were recorded for a Balls album, but it has never been released.[2] Laine’s 1967 song “Say You Don’t Mind” was a hit when recorded in 1972 by ex-ZombieColin Blunstone.
In 1971, Laine joined Paul McCartney to form Wings,[1] and stayed with the group for 10 years until it disbanded in 1981. Laine provided lead and rhythm guitars, lead and backing vocals, keyboards, bass guitar and woodwinds, as well as writing or co-writing some of the group’s material. Laine, McCartney, and McCartney’s wife, Linda McCartney formed the nucleus of the band. With Wings, Laine enjoyed the biggest commercial and critical successes of his career, including co-writing the hit Mull of Kintyre. He also co-wrote and sang lead vocal on Deliver Your Children, which was released as a Wings B-side but charted in the Netherlands.
In January 1980, McCartney was arrested for possession of marijuana on arrival at an airport for a tour in Japan. The tour was cancelled and the band members, except Linda, returned to England. After returning to England, McCartney decided to release his solo album, McCartney II, and plans for an autumn U.S. tour were dropped. Meanwhile, Laine released the single “Japanese Tears” and formed the short-lived Denny Laine Band with Steve Holley and released a solo album Japanese Tears that December. On 27 April 1981, Laine announced he was leaving Wings due to McCartney’s reluctance to tour in the wake of John Lennon’s murder.[3]
He signed with Scratch records and began working on a new album, Anyone Can Fly. He then went on to record other solo albums such as Hometown Girls,Wings on Your Feet and Lonely Road before returning to Scratch to do his Wings at the Sound of Denny Laine. He has also had three fanzine publications, Ahh Laine, wrote the musical Arctic Song and released two more albums, Master Suite and Reborn.
Laine moved to the United States in the 1990s, where he continues to tour, originally with the World Classic Rockers and later with the Cryers.
He was briefly married to Jo Jo Laine, with whom he had a son, Laine Hines, and a daughter, Heidi Hines.[4] He has three other children from other relationships: Lucianne Grant (with Helen, daughter of Led Zeppelin manager Peter Grant), Damian James (with model Catherine James)[5] and Ainsley Laine-Adams.
__ Bob Dylan Press Conference 1965 Part 2 This is a tribute to Keith Green who died 32 years ago today!!! On July 28, 1983 I was sitting by the radio when CBS radio news came on and gave the shocking news that Keith Green had been killed by an airplane crash in Texas with […]
Bob Dylan Press Conference 1965 Part 1 ___ Bob Dylan played on one of Keith Green’s last albums and on the 6:19 min mark of part 5 it shows Bob Dylan: The Keith Green Story pt 5/7 The Keith Green Story pt 3/7 Keith Green had a major impact on me back in 1978 […]
________ Quinton Aaron of “The Blindside” talks “Greater” and the faith and character of Brandon Burlsworth Published on Oct 28, 2015 Quinton Aaron, star of “The Blindside”, discusses why he is so proud to be a part of “Greater”, and talks about the faith and character of Brandon Burlsworth, the greatest walk-on in college football […]
MUSIC MONDAY “Foreigner Top 10 Songs” Part 3 Top 10 Foreigner Songs By Matt Wardlaw Elsa, Getty Images ‘Waiting for a Girl Like You’ From: ‘4’ (1981) Mick Jones calls “Waiting” the “song that wrote itself,” telling Classic Rock that he felt like the “conduit” for the track and that “something was coming down through […]
MUSIC MONDAY “Foreigner Top 10 Songs” Part 2 Top 10 Foreigner Songs By Matt Wardlaw Elsa, Getty Images 7 ‘Feels Like the First Time’ From: ‘Foreigner’ (1977) “Feels Like the First Time” is a pretty genius name for your first single, and it certainly paid plenty of dividends for Foreigner, striking the Top Five. For […]
__ MUSIC MONDAY “Foreigner Top 10 Songs” Part 1 Top 10 Foreigner Songs By Matt Wardlaw Elsa, Getty Images Read More: Top 10 Foreigner Songs | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/top-10-foreigner-songs/?trackback=tsmclip Foreigner‘s lone remaining founding member, guitarist Mick Jones, has been at the helm of the legendary American rock group since 1976. But if you’ve seen the band […]
__ Glen Campbell’s Greatest Hits Compilation – Complete Set Related posts: MUSIC MONDAY Washed Out: ‘I wish I could have a 9 to 5 life’ Ernest Greene’s debut album confirms his place at the forefront of the chillwave scene. So why is he so worried? August 22, 2016 – 12:36 am _ Washed Out – Life […]
_ Washed Out – Life Of Leisure (Full Album) | HD Washed Out: ‘I wish I could have a 9 to 5 life’ Ernest Greene’s debut album confirms his place at the forefront of the chillwave scene. So why is he so worried? Ernest Greene, aka Washed Out: ‘At no point was I actively […]
__ Washed Out – Within and Without (Full Album) Washed Out’s Ernest Greene Finds Fulfillment in 9-to-5 Grind, ‘Portlandia’ Fame Laura Ferreiro Live Nation•August 27, 2014 On Monday, Sept. 1 at 7:45 p.m. PT/10:45 p.m. ET, Yahoo Live will live stream Washed Out’s concert from First Avenue in Minneapolis. Tune in HERE to watch! Anyone […]
It’s a tragedy that Milton Friedman—born one hundred years ago on July 31—did not live long enough to combat the big-government ideas that have formed the core of Obamanomics. It’s perhaps more tragic that our current president, who attended the University of Chicago, where Friedman taught for decades, never fell under the influence of the world’s greatest champion of the free market. Imagine how much better things would have turned out, for Obama and the country.
Friedman was a constant presence on the pages of the Wall Street Journal until his death in 2006 at age ninety-four. If he could, he would surely be skewering today’s $5 trillion expansion of spending and debt to create growth—and exposing the confederacy of economic dunces urging more of it.
In the 1960s, Friedman famously explained that “there’s no such thing as a free lunch.” If the government spends a dollar, that dollar has to come from producers and workers in the private economy. There is no magical “multiplier effect” by taking from productive Peter and giving to unproductive Paul. As obvious as that insight seems, it keeps being put to the test. Obamanomics may be the most expensive failed experiment in free-lunch economics in American history.
Equally illogical is the superstition that government can create prosperity by having Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke print more dollars. In the very short term, Friedman proved, excess money fools people with an illusion of prosperity. But the market quickly catches on, and there is no boost in output, just higher prices.
Next to Ronald Reagan, in the second half of the twentieth century there was no more influential voice for economic freedom worldwide than Milton Friedman. Small in stature but a giant in intellect, he was the economist who saved capitalism by dismembering the ideas of central planning when most of academia was mesmerized by the creed of government as savior.
Friedman was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics in 1976—at a time when almost all the previous prizes had gone to socialists. This marked the first sign of the intellectual comeback of free-market economics since the 1930s, when John Maynard Keynes hijacked the profession. Friedman’s 1963 book A Monetary History of the United States, written with Anna Schwartz (who died June 21), was a masterpiece and changed the way we think about the role of money.
More influential than Friedman’s scholarly writings was his singular talent for communicating the virtues of the free market to a mass audience. His two bestselling books, Capitalism and Freedom (1962) and Free to Choose (1980), are still wildly popular. His videos on YouTube on issues like the morality of capitalism are brilliant and timeless.
Friedman would surely skewer today’s $5 trillion expansion of spending and debt to create growth—and expose the dunces urging more of it.
In the early 1990s, Friedman visited poverty-stricken Mexico City for a Cato Institute forum. I remember the controversy ginned up by the media and Mexico’s intelligentsia: how dare this apostle of free-market economics be given a public forum to speak to Mexican citizens about his “outdated” ideas? Yet when Milton arrived in Mexico he received a hero’s welcome as thousands of business owners, students, and citizen activists hungry for his message encircled him everywhere he went, like crowds for a rock star.
Books by Milton Friedman and other economists are promoted at a national book fair in China. Andrei Shleifer said the Friedman era “witnessed remarkable progress of mankind. As the world embraced free-market policies, living standards rose sharply while life expectancy, educational attainment, and democracy improved and absolute poverty declined.”
Once in the early 1960s, Friedman wrote the then–U.S. ambassador to New Delhi, John Kenneth Galbraith, that he would be lecturing in India. By all means come, the witty but often wrong Galbraith replied: “I can think of nowhere your free-market ideas can do less harm than in India.” As fate would have it, India did begin to embrace Friedmanism in the 1990s, and the economy began to soar. China finally caught on too.
Well over 200 million people were liberated from poverty thanks to Friedman’s urging to rediscover the free market.
Friedman stood unfailingly and heroically with the little guy against the state. He used to marvel that the intellectual left, which claims to espouse “power to the people,” so often cheers as states suppress individual rights.
While he questioned almost every statist orthodoxy, he fearlessly gored sacred cows of both political parties. He was the first scholar to sound the alarm on the rotten deal of Social Security for young workers—forced to pay into a system that will never give back as much as they could have accumulated on their own. He questioned the need for occupational licenses—which he lambasted as barriers to entry—for everything from driving a cab to becoming an attorney, or getting an MD to practice medicine.
He loved turning the intellectual tables on liberals by making the case that regulation often does more harm than good. His favorite example was the Food and Drug Administration, whose regulations routinely delay the introduction of lifesaving drugs. “When the FDA boasts a new drug will save ten thousand lives a year,” he would ask, “how many lives were lost because it didn’t let the drug on the market last year?”
He supported drug legalization (much to the dismay of supporters on the right) and was particularly proud to be an influential voice in ending the military draft in the 1970s. When his critics argued that he favored a military of mercenaries, he would retort: “If you insist on calling our volunteer soldiers ‘mercenaries,’ I will call those whom you want drafted into service involuntarily ‘slaves.’ ”
By the way, he rarely got angry, and even when he was intellectually slicing and dicing his sparring partners he almost always did it with a smile. It used to be said that over the decades at the University of Chicago and across the globe, the only one who ever defeated him in a debate was his beloved wife and co-author, Rose Friedman.
The issue to which he devoted most of his later years was school choice for all parents, and his Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice is dedicated to that cause. He used to lament that “we allow the market, consumer choice, and competition to work in nearly every industry except for the one that may matter most: education.”
As for congressional Republicans who are at risk of getting suckered into a tax-hike budget deal, they may want to remember another Milton Friedman adage: “Higher taxes never reduce the deficit. Governments spend whatever they take in and then whatever they can get away with.”
No doubt because of his continued popularity, the left has tried to tie Friedman and his principles of free trade, low tax rates, and deregulation to the global financial meltdown in 2008. Economist Joseph Stiglitz charged that Friedman’s “Chicago School bears the blame for providing a seeming intellectual foundation” for the “idea that markets are self-adjusting and the best role for government is to do nothing.” Occupy Wall Street protesters were often seen wearing T-shirts that read “Milton Friedman: Proud Father of Global Misery.”
He won the Nobel Prize in economics at a time when almost all the previous prizes had gone to socialists.
The opposite is true: Friedman opposed the government spending spree in the 2000s. He hated the government-sponsored enterprises like housing lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
In a recent tribute to Friedman in the Journal of Economic Literature, Harvard’s Andrei Shleifer describes 1980–2005 as “The Age of Milton Friedman,” an era that “witnessed remarkable progress of mankind. As the world embraced free-market policies, living standards rose sharply while life expectancy, educational attainment, and democracy improved and absolute poverty declined.”
Well over two hundred million people were liberated from poverty thanks to the rediscovery of the free market. And now as the world teeters close to another recession, leaders urgently need to rediscover Friedman’s ideas.
I remember asking Milton, a year or so before his death, during one of our semiannual dinners in downtown San Francisco: what can we do to make America more prosperous? “Three things,” he replied instantly. “Promote free trade, school choice for all children, and cut government spending.”
How much should we cut? “As much as possible.”
Free to Choose Part 6: What’s Wrong With Our Schools Featuring Milton Friedman
Free to Choose Part 7: Who Protects the Consumer Featuring Milton Friedman
Free to Choose Part 8: Who Protects the Worker Featuring Milton Friedman
Free to Choose Part 10: How to Stay Free Featuring Milton Friedman
Milton Friedman on Donahue Show in 1979 Milton Friedman has the two solutions to the Black Teenage Unemployment Problem!!! The solutions would be first to lower the Minimum Wage Amount and second give students the opportunity to have vouchers so their parents can put them in the best schools when they start in the kindergarten […]
__ Obama loves the death tax but listen to what Milton Friedman had to say about it!!! Milton Friedman Redistribution of Wealth and the Death Tax ___________ The Obama Administration’s Assault on the Rule of Law September 6, 2016 by Dan Mitchell What’s the worst development in economic policy of the Obama years? The faux stimulus […]
_ Milton Friedman – Should Higher Education Be Subsidized? Published on Aug 14, 2013 Professor Friedman leads a roundtable discussion with students.http://www.LibertyPen.com Hillary Is Wrong: Subsidies for Higher Education Are the Problem, not the Solution August 24, 2016 by Dan Mitchell “So many bad ideas, so little time.” That’s my attitude about Hillary Clinton. She […]
__ Milton Friedman – A Conversation On Minimum Wage Published on Oct 4, 2013 A debate on whether the minimum wage hurts or helps the working class.http://www.LibertyPen.com Is Anybody Shocked that Higher Minimum Wage Mandates Are Resulting in Fewer Jobs? August 25, 2016 by Dan Mitchell While economists are famous for their disagreements (and […]
_ Milton Friedman on Medical Care (Full Lecture) Another Grim Reminder that Obamacare Has Made Healthcare More Expensive August 29, 2016 by Dan Mitchell Way back in 2009, some folks on the left shared a chart showing that national expenditures on healthcare compared to life expectancy. This comparison was not favorable to the United States, which […]
_ Milton Friedman on Immigration Part 2 Milton Friedman – Illegal Immigration – PT 1 Milton Friedman – Illegal Immigration – PT 2 _- Immigration and the Welfare State April 4, 2010 by Dan Mitchell My previous post dealing with whether citizenship should be automatic for babies born to illegals generated a lot of commentary, so […]
_ Milton Friedman – Illegal Immigration – PT 1 Milton Friedman – Illegal Immigration – PT 2 Milton Friedman stated , “you can’t have free immigration and a welfare state.” Below Dan Mitchell links back to this quote in one of his earlier posts: A Plan for Open Borders that Anti-Amnesty Folks Can Support August 18, […]
_ Milton Friedman on Immigration Part 2 Milton Friedman – Illegal Immigration – PT 1 Milton Friedman – Illegal Immigration – PT 2 _- Immigration and the Welfare State April 4, 2010 by Dan Mitchell My previous post dealing with whether citizenship should be automatic for babies born to illegals generated a lot of commentary, […]
_ Milton Friedman – Illegal Immigration – PT 1 Milton Friedman – Illegal Immigration – PT 2 Milton Friedman stated , “you can’t have free immigration and a welfare state.” Below Dan Mitchell links back to this quote in one of his earlier posts: A Plan for Open Borders that Anti-Amnesty Folks Can Support […]
Milton Friedman and Dan Mitchell on the Post Office!!! Ep. 10 – How to Stay Free [3/7]. Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980) Pat Brennan became something of a celebrity in 1978 because she was delivering mail in competition with the United States Post Office. With her husband she set up business in a basement […]
I am saddened by the passing of the brilliant Marvin Minsky who helped found MIT. I became interested in his writings and wrote him several letters and I took note especially of comments on freewill and population control. Below is a story on his life from the JEWISH JOURNAL:
Marvin Minsky, the artificial intelligence pioneer who helped make machines think, leading to computers that understand spoken commands and beat grandmasters at chess, has died at the age of 88, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said.
Minsky, who died on Sunday, suffered a cerebral hemorrhage, the school said.
Minsky had “a monster brain,” MIT colleague Patrick Winston, a professor of artificial intelligence and computer science, said in a 2012 interview. He could be intimidating without meaning to be because he was “such a genius,” Winston said.
Minsky’s greatest contribution to computers and artificial intelligence was the notion that neither human nor machine intelligence is a single process. Instead, he argued, intelligence arises from the interaction of numerous processes in a “society of mind” – a phrase Minsky used for the title of his 1985 book.
“Marvin basically figured out that thinking isn’t a thing but an embarrassing mess of dumb things that work together, as in a society,” said Danny Hillis, a former Minsky student and now co-chairman of the Applied Minds technology company.
Minsky’s insight led to the development of smart machines packed with individual modules that give them specific capabilities, such as computers that play grandmaster-level chess, robots that build cars, programs that analyze DNA and software that creates lifelike dinosaurs, explosions and extraterrestrial worlds for movies.
Artificial intelligence is also essential to almost every computer function, from web search to video games, and tasks such as filtering spam email, focusing cameras, translating documents and giving voice commands to smartphones.
Minsky was co-founder in 1959 of the now-legendary Artificial Intelligence Group at MIT. He also built the first computer capable of learning through connections that mimic human neurons.
Minsky lent his expertise to one of culture’s most notorious thinking machines – the HAL 9000 computer from the book and film “2001: A Space Odyssey” that turned against its astronaut masters. Minsky served as an adviser for the movie, which he called “the most awesome film I’d ever seen.”
Minsky, who was born in New York City in 1927, was drawn to science and engineering as a child, enthralled by the works of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells.
He also composed music in the style of Bach – an interest he pursued into his later years.
Minsky graduated from Harvard in 1950 with a degree in mathematics and in 1954 earned a Ph.D. in math from Princeton University.
Below is the first letter I wrote to Dr. Minksy:
Marvin L. Minsky, MIT Media Lab, Cambridge, MA
April 16, 2014
Dear Dr. Minsky,
I was very interested in what you said in the “Do Science and Religion Conflict?” interview for CLOSER TO TRUTH. In it you said that religion is a wonderful psychological device in the short run but it teaches people not to ask questions in the long run since you can always resort to saying that God did it. Let me throw that back on you and ask you if you think that the Jews deserve full credit for restoring the country of Israel in 1948 or was it predicted beforehand by God and God made it happen?
Today I am writing you for two reasons. First, I wanted to appeal to your Jewish Heritage and ask you to take a closer look at some Old Testament scriptures dealing with the land of Israel. Second, I wanted to point out some scientific evidence that caused Antony Flew to switch from an atheist (as you are now) to a theist. Twenty years I had the opportunity to correspond with two individuals that were regarded as two of the most famous atheists of the 20th Century, Antony Flew and Carl Sagan. (I have enclosed some of those letters between us.) I had read the books and seen the films of the Christian philosopher Francis Schaefferand he had discussed the works of both of these men. I sent both of these gentlemen philosophical arguments from Schaeffer in these letters and in the first letter I sent a cassette tape of my pastor’s sermon IS THE BIBLE TRUE? (CD is enclosed also.) You may have noticed in the news a few years that Antony Flew actually became a theist in 2004 and remained one until his death in 2010. Carl Sagan remained a skeptic until his dying day in 1996.
You will notice in the enclosed letter from June 1, 1994 that Dr. Flew commented, “Thank you for sending me the IS THE BIBLE TRUE? tape to which I have just listened with great interest and, I trust, profit.” It would be a great honor for me if you would take time and drop me a note and let me know what your reaction is to this same message.
Robert Lewis noted that many orthodox Jews believed through the centuries that God would honor the ancient prophecies that predicted that the Jews would be restored to the land of Israel, but then I notice the latest film series on the Jews done by an orthodox Jew seemed to ignore many of these scriptures. Recently I watched the 5 part PBS series Simon Schama’s THE STORY OF THE JEWS, and in the last episode Schama calls Israel “a miracle” but he is hoping that Israel can get along with the non-Jews in the area. Schama noted, “I’ve always thought that Israel is the consummation of some of the highest ethical values of Jewish traditional history, but creating a place of safety and defending it has sometimes challenged those same ethics and values”. There is an ancient book that sheds light on Israel’s plight today, and it is very clear about the struggles between the Jews and their cousins that surround them. It all comes down to what the Book of Genesis had to say concerning Abraham’s son by Hagar.
Genesis 16:11-12 (NIV)
11 The angel of the Lord also said to her:
“You are now pregnant and you will give birth to a son. You shall name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard of your misery. 12 He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.”
The first 90 seconds of episode 5 opened though by allowing us all to experience the sirens and silence of that day in Spring, each year, when Israel halts to mark the Holocaust and I actually wept while I thought of those who had died. Schama noted, “”Today around half the Jews in the world live here in Israel. 6 million people. 6 million defeats for the Nazi program of total extermination.”
After World War II Schama tells about the events leading up to the re-birth of Israel. Here again Schama although a practicing Jewish believer did not bring in scripture to shed light on the issue. David O. Dykes who is pastor of Green Acres Baptist Church in Tyler, Texas has done just that:
The nation of Israel was destroyed in 70 A.D…Beginning in the early 20th century Jews started trickling back into Palestine at the risk of their lives. Then after World War II, the British government was given authority over Palestine and in 1948, Israel became a nation again through the action of the United Nations…This should not have come as a surprise to any Bible scholar, because this regathering of Israel is predicted many times in scripture. The prophet Amos wrote in Chapter 9:
14 And I will bring back the exiles of My people Israel, and they shall build the waste cities and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards and drink the wine from them; they shall also make gardens and eat the fruit of them.
15 And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be torn up out of their land which I gave them, says the Lord your God.
Some people think the Amos prophecy was referring to the return of Israel after their Babylonian captitvity in 586 B.C. But the nation was uprooted in 70 A.D. And notice God said they would “NEVER AGAIN TO BE UPROOTED.”
Even the preservation of their language is a miracle. For centuries, Hebrew was a dead language spoken nowhere in the world. But within the last century, this dead language has been resurrected and now millions of Israelis speak Hebrew...Have you noticed how often Israel is in the news? They are only a small nation about the size of New Jersey.
I have checked out some of the details that David O. Dykes has provided and they check out. Philip Lieberman is a cognitive scientist at Brown University, and in a letter dated in 1995 he told me that only a few other languages besides Hebrew have ever been revived including some American Indian ones along with Celtic.
Also Zechariah 12:3 also verifies the newsworthiness of Israel now: And in that day I will make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all peoples; all who lift it or burden themselves with it shall be sorely wounded. And all the nations of the earth shall come and gather together against it.
I do think that Isaiah also predicted the Jews would come from all over the earth back to their homeland Israel. Isaiah 11:11-12 states, “And in that day the Lord shall again lift up His hand a second time to recover (acquire and deliver) the remnant of His people which is left, from Assyria, from Lower Egypt, from Pathros, from Ethiopia, from Elam [in Persia], from Shinar [Babylonia], from Hamath [in Upper Syria], and from the countries ordering on the [Mediterranean] Sea. And He will raise up a signal for the nations and will assemble the outcasts of Israel and will gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth. (Amplified Bible)
I was reading THE BOOK OF DANIEL COMMENTARY (CambridgeUniversity Press, 1900) by the Bible critic SamuelRolles Driver, and on page 100 Dr. Driver commented that the country of Israel is obviously a thing of the past and has no place in prophecy in the future and the prophet Daniel was definitely wrong about that. I wonder what Dr. Driver would say if he lived to see the newspapers today?
In fact, my former pastor Robert Lewis at Fellowship Bible Church in his sermon “Let the Prophets Speak” on 1-31-99 noted that even the great Princeton Theologian Charles Hodge erred in 1871 when he stated:
The argument from the ancient prophecies is proved to be invalid because it would prove too much. If those prophecies foretell a literal restoration, they foretell that the temple is to be rebuilt, the priesthood restored, sacrifices again offered, and that the whole Mosaic ritual is to be observed in all its details, (Systematic Theology. [New York: Charles Scribner & Sons, 1871; reprint Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdman’s Publishing Co., 1949], 3:807).__
Robert Lewis went on to point out that the prophet Amos 2700 years ago predicted the destruction of Aram, Philistia, Tyre, Edom, Ammon, Moab and Israel, but at the end of the Book he said Israel would one day be returned to their land and never removed. We saw from Isaiah 11:11-12 that the Lord “will assemble the outcasts of Israel and will gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.” And that certainly did happen after World War II. I corresponded with some secular Jewish Scholars on this back in the 1990’s such as Irving Kristol and Daniel Bell but they dismissed these type of Old Testament prophecies. In his letter of September 23, 1995, Daniel Bell wrote, “As to the survival of the Jewish people, I think of the remark of Samuel Johnson that there is nothing stronger than the knowledge that one may be hanged the next day to concentrate the mind–or the will.”
After looking at the accuracy of Old Testament, I want to turn my attention to the accuracy of the New Testament. Recently I was reading the book GOD’S NOT DEAD by Rick Broocks and in it he quotes Sir William Ramsay who was a scholar who originally went to Palestine to disprove the Book of Luke. Below is some background info on Ramsay followed by his story.
Sir William Mitchell Ramsay (15 March 1851, Glasgow –20 April 1939) was a Scottisharchaeologist and New Testament scholar. By his death in 1939 he had become the foremost authority of his day on the history of Asia Minor and a leading scholar in the study of the New Testament. From the post of Professor of Classical Art and Architecture at Oxford, he was appointed Regius Professor of Humanity (the Latin Professorship) at Aberdeen. Knighted in 1906 to mark his distinguished service to the world of scholarship, Ramsay also gained three honorary fellowships from Oxford colleges, nine honorary doctorates from British, Continental and North American universities and became an honorary member of almost every association devoted to archaeology and historical research. He was one of the original members of the British Academy, was awarded the Gold Medal of Pope Leo XIII in 1893 and the Victorian Medal of the Royal Geographical Society in 1906.
William Mitchell Ramsay was born on March 15, 1851 in Glasgow, Scotland. His father was a lawyer, but died when William was just six. Through the hard work of other family members, William attended the University of Aberdeen, achieving honors. Through means of a scholarship, he was then able to go to Oxford University and attend the college there named for St. John. His family resource also allowed him to study abroad, notably in Germany. It was under one of his professors that his love of history began. After receiving a new scholarship from another college at Oxford, he traveled to Asia Minor.
William, however, is most noted for beliefs pertaining to the Bible, not his early life. Originally, he labeled it as a ‘Book of Fables,’ having only third-hand knowledge. He neither read nor studied it, skeptically believing it to be of fiction and not historical fact. His interest in history would lead him on a search that would radically redefine his thoughts on that Ancient Book…
Some argue that Ramsay was originally just a product of his time. For example, the general consensus on the Acts of the Apostles (and its alleged writer Luke) was almost humouress:
“… [A]bout 1880 to 1890 the book of the Acts was regarded as the weakest part of the New Testament. No one that had any regard for his reputation as a scholar cared to say a word in its defence. The most conservative of theological scholars, as a rule, thought the wisest plan of defence for the New Testament as a whole was to say as little as possible about the Acts.”[1]
It was his dislike for Acts that launched him into a Mid-East adventure. With Bible-in-hand, he made a trip to the Holy Land. What William found, however, was not what he expected…
As it turns out, ‘ole Willy’ changed his mind. After his extensive study he concluded that Luke was one of the world’s greatest historians:
The more I have studied the narrative of the Acts, and the more I have learned year after year about Graeco-Roman society and thoughts and fashions, and organization in those provinces, the more I admire and the better I understand. I set out to look for truth on the borderland where Greece and Asia meet, and found it here [in the Book of Acts—KB]. You may press the words of Luke in a degree beyond any other historian’s, and they stand the keenest scrutiny and the hardest treatment, provided always that the critic knows the subject and does not go beyond the limits of science and of justice.[2]
Skeptics were strikingly shocked. In ‘Evidence that Demands a Verdict’ Josh Mcdowell writes,
“The book caused a furor of dismay among the skeptics of the world. Its attitude was utterly unexpected because it was contrary to the announced intention of the author years before…. for twenty years more, book after book from the same author came from the press, each filled with additional evidence of the exact, minute truthfulness of the whole New Testament as tested by the spade on the spot. The evidence was so overwhelming that many infidels announced their repudiation of their former unbelief and accepted Christianity. And these books have stood the test of time, not one having been refuted, nor have I found even any attempt to refute them.”[3]
The Bible has always stood the test of time. Renowned archaeologist Nelson Glueck put it like this:
“It may be stated categorically that no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a Biblical reference. Scores of archaeological findings have been made which conform in clear outline or exact detail historical statements in the Bible.”[4]
1) The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness of the New Testament (1915) 2) Ibid 3) See page 366 4) See page 31 of: Rivers in the Desert: A History of the Negev (1959)
Tom Flynn in his article “Easter: What Really Happened?” April/May 2014, FREE INQUIRY MAGAZINE, asserted, “If Christianity is not true, how on earth did it manage to assume so central a role in the unfolding of the West?” As you know I am a firm believer that the Bible is correct about the creation of the world by a creator and it is also correct about Easter. I want to challenge you to attend a Bible believing church this Easter Sunday April 20, 2014 and just ask the Lord to reveal himself to you. That would be quite an experiment! Thank you again for your time and I know how busy you are.
PS: My good friend John George was an atheist like you are and we loved each others’ company. I was very sad when he passed away. Since you are in the Boston area you need to check out Park Street Church at 1 Park Street in downtown Boston and their Easter services are at 8am, 9:30, 11, and 4pm and I love going to church there surrounded by all those Harvard and MIT students.
__
David Perry interviews legendary poet, artist and activist Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Lawrence Ferlinghetti was in his early 30s when he wrote a poem of hope and innocence about a penny candy store in New York and the magic to be found in jellybeans and licorice sticks, about the evanescence of a rainy September afternoon.
Sixty years later, Ferlinghetti has written a new book-length poem, “Time of Useful Consciousness,” where “technocracy” dominates the heart, where corporations rule the people, where man is greedy and badly educated, andWalt Whitman‘s optimism is needed – as time is running out.
Since the 1950s, Ferlinghetti has been a San Francisco institution. He openedCity Lights in North Beach, a renowned bookstore that attracts visitors from across the world. He stood behind the publication of Allen Ginsberg‘s “Howl,” an act of daring that changed the course of publishing in America. He penned dozens of books, published breakthrough works – including the Beat writers, who insisted on oral incantations – and became San Francisco’s first poet laureate and its most lyrical town crier.
“My poetry, including ‘The Time of Useful Consciousness,’ is activism,” Ferlinghetti said, sitting in a cafe in North Beach near his home. “Ecologically and politically, it’s a totally dim prospect.”
The 93-year-old poet spends one day a week at City Lights, and on other days can be found at his painter’s studio in Hunters Point. Painting, he says, is the lighter antidote to his more painstaking poetry. With his keen blue eyes, white beard and snazzy, paint-streaked sneakers, he looks every bit the part of painter, poet and gentleman radical.
“The norm is that when people get older, they get more politically conservative, but it’s been the opposite for me,” Ferlinghetti said with a laugh.
Striving to improve world
Ferlinghetti’s biographer, Bill Morgan, an archivist and bibliographer for Ginsberg, said the San Francisco poet has always been “interested in making things better and calling attention to the crazy things going on.”
“Lawrence is still an activist interested in the politics of our time,” Morgan said. “He’s a really good performer of his poetry. He does not consider himself a Beat poet, but he was a publisher of the Beats. And City Lights is one of the best book stores in the country – and it’s been there for 60 years.”
Barry Gifford, the Bay Area author, screenwriter and poet who was friends with Ginsberg, was introduced to Ferlinghetti’s poetry in high school.
“When I was a kid in high school, I remember someone had ‘A Coney Island of the Mind,’ and it made a real impression,” Gifford said of Ferlinghetti’s book of poetry, which has sold more than 1 million copies. “Lawrence has a way of saying what he needs to say in a style that is immediately comprehensible. He’s always been able to communicate with his poetry better than most.”
Gifford added, “Lawrence’s connection with the Beats is not to be underestimated, but he has made – and continues to make – a lasting contribution to American literature.”
Ferlinghetti was born in Yonkers, N.Y., in March 1919. His father, Carlo Ferlinghetti, died before he was born. His mother, Clemence, overcome by stress, asked a relative to care for Lawrence, the youngest of her five boys. Only later did he reconnect with his family.
Awakened to activism
He earned his bachelor’s degree in journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; his master’s at Columbia University, with a thesis on critic John Ruskin and painter J.M.W. Turner; and his doctorate at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1950, where he studied comparative literature and delivered his thesis (in French) on “The City as a Symbol in Modern Poetry.”
He attended the Sorbonne on the GI Bill, having served as a lieutenant commander in the Navy during World War II.
“I was the all-American boy, the Eagle Scout,” Ferlinghetti said. “I remember I was at my girlfriend’s apartment, and there were these strange publications like the Nation and the New Republic. I started looking at them and thought, ‘Gee, this is weird; people saying things against America?’ It was an awakening. On the East Coast, I’d never even heard of conscientious objectors.”
Ferlinghetti came to San Francisco in January 1951, knowing no one and having little money. He walked up Market Street from the Ferry Building, and asked a passer-by for the Bohemian part of town. Soon settled in North Beach, he began listening to KPFA, the free, independent FM radio station that included a weekly segment by Kenneth Rexroth, the poet, essayist and philosophical anarchist.
KQED Spark – Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Partnering for City Lights
The idea of City Lights came about by chance.
“I was coming up from my painting studio, and I drove up Columbus Avenue,” Ferlinghetti said. “It was a route I wouldn’t normally take, and I saw a guy putting up a sign where City Lights is now.” Ferlinghetti hopped out of his car and went to say hello.
“I said, ‘What are you doing?’ and he said, ‘I’m starting a paperback bookstore, but I don’t have any money. I’ve got $500.’ I said, ‘I have $500.’ The whole thing took about five minutes. We shook hands, and the store opened in June 1953 as City Lights Pocket Bookshop.”
Ferlinghetti’s partner was Peter Martin, a sociology student at San Francisco State who had been publishing a small magazine called City Lights. Martin was the first to publish the works of Pauline Kael – who was another KPFA contributor and would go on to be a film critic for the New Yorker.
“Peter’s idea was to sell quality paperbacks, which were just coming onto the market,” Ferlinghetti said. “At the time, paperback books weren’t considered real books by the trade. They were just these 25-cent pocketbooks that were merchandized like newspapers on the newsstands, but the newsstand guys didn’t understand what they had.”
Around the same time, Ferlinghetti married Selden Kirby-Smith, who went by “Kirby.” She was the granddaughter of a Civil War general and the daughter of a successful doctor, and she had earned her master’s degree from Columbia. The two met in 1946 aboard a ship en route to France. They were both heading to Paris to study at the Sorbonne.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti & Timothy Leary
[l to r: Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Timothy Leary, at the Human Be-In, Golden Gate Park, 1967 January 14], photograph by Gene Anthony, courtesy, .
Dylan & Ferlinghetti
Ferlinghetti & Burroughs. Lawrence Ferlinghetti …
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, born March 24, 1919
[The City Lights in North Dakota Conference, in Grand Forks, North Dakota, sponsored by the UND English Department, was the first of many Beat related conferences recognizing the cultural importance of the Beats. Clockwise from top left: Michael McClure,Gregory Corso, Miriam Patchen, Kenneth Rexroth, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Peter Orlovsky, Gary Snyder, Janie McClure, Shig Murao, Curator (name unknown – female), Joanne McClure Curator (name unknown – male), March 18, 1974. – Photo by D.Sorensen ]
It was Ginsberg’s first public reading of his wild, graphic and shattering poem, “Howl,” which opens with the lines: “I saw the best of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix.”
“Allen gave me the manuscript a couple of weeks before the public reading,” Ferlinghetti said. “What a great poet does is let you see the world in a way you’ve never seen it before. That’s what Allen did.”
The day after the reading, Ferlinghetti sent a Western Union telegram to Ginsberg, who was staying in Berkeley. “I wrote, ‘I greet you at the beginning of a great career,’ which is what Emerson wrote to Whitman when he first read ‘The Leaves of Grass.’ I asked, ‘When do we get the manuscript?’ ”
“Howl and Other Poems” was the fourth book in Ferlinghetti’s City Lights’ Pocket Poets Series, and featured an introduction by William Carlos Williams. In 1957, hundreds of copies of the book were seized by U.S. customs officials – who stated, “You wouldn’t want your children to come across it” – and Ferlinghetti was charged with obscenity in a trial that drew international attention.
“We had submitted the manuscript to the ACLU ahead of time, asking if they would defend us if we were busted,” Ferlinghetti said. “They committed themselves ahead of time. Of course, when the trial began, I was young and stupid and thought a few months in jail would be OK; I’d have a lot of time to read.”
Free flow of literature
Ferlinghetti won that year, when the Municipal Court judge ruled that the poem couldn’t be deemed obscene because it had “redeeming social significance.”
“That established us as an independent bookstore,” Ferlinghetti said. “And after that, the floodgates were open. Grove Press – which spent a lot of money on the trial – was able to publish ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ and Henry Miller’s books and so on.” City Lights also was known for carrying the first gay, lesbian and transgender publications.
While many of his writers were known for drug and alcohol use – he once lent his Big Sur cabin to Kerouac to dry out – Ferlinghetti always made it home for dinner.
“My mother was very protective in terms of who we had over at the house,” said daughter Julie Ferlinghetti Susser, who now lives in Tennessee. “We had Gregory Corso to our house, and he once tried to shoot up. He was never allowed back. My mother did really like Kerouac. Ginsberg would come over whenever he was in town, and my mother tolerated him. He was never interested in what women had to say.”
Immediacy of painting
Throughout her childhood, Susser remembers something else: “I would sit by the door every night, waiting for my dad. … He was home every day by 5:30 or 6. I remember I begged and pleaded for a pony, and my dad got me one. I saw him as a businessman who went to work and came home at the same time. He always made things fun.”
The Ferlinghettis, who divorced in 1973 but remained close, also had a son, Lorenzo, who lives in Bolinas and has two children. Kirby Ferlinghetti died this year and is buried in their family plot in Bolinas.
These days, the poet is gravitating to painting. George Krevsky, Ferlinghetti’s longtime gallerist, said, “When I first met Lawrence, I said, ‘I’ve met two great poets – you and Robert Frost,’ and he said, ‘You should see my paintings.’ ”
For Ferlinghetti, painting is a “lyrical escape,” a way to express himself that has more immediacy than his poems.
“It’s easier to get high doing a painting,” he said, walking home from the North Beach cafe. “For one thing, it’s more instantaneous. A book – this new book of mine – is two years of work. Whereas a painting, I might have one in a day. I feel like I can take a lot of chances in painting.”
Ferlinghetti’s outlook, like his poetry and like his paintings, moves from dark to light, from foreboding to hopeful. He looks at poems such as “The Pennycandystore” as embodying a time of innocence for himself, and America.
“I wrote that in the early ’50s,” he said of the candy store poem. “America was full of hope.”
Sending a lifeline to culture
The title of his new work, “Time of Useful Consciousness,” to be released in October, comes from an aeronautical term denoting the time between when one loses oxygen and when one passes out, the moments when it’s still possible to save your life.
“It’s a statement about where culture is,” Ferlinghetti said. Smiling, his blue eyes taking in the sunshine in North Beach, he added, “I’m trying to be an optimist.”
Lawrence Ferlinghetti The Painter
1989
oil on canvas
36 1/2 x 40 in.
CLICK ON IMAGE FOR MORE DETAILED VIEW
LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI just returned from three weeks in Europe. One of his stops was in Florence for a book signing and poetry reading at City Lights Italia, a book store named after the one he had co-founded in San Francisco in 1952, but not otherwise connected with it. A man there walked up to him, “and he handed me a thousand dollars in American money. I said, ‘Well, what’s that for?’ He said, ‘Well, I’ll give you 2000 more if you’ll do ten designs relating to Leonardo Da Vinci. It’s his 500th anniversary, and then we’re going to have an exhibition. We’ve asked 70 artists around the world to do this, and the exhibition will be in Milan sometime around 2000.'” Turned out the man was Francesco Conz, a collector who had been a primary funder of the Fluxus movement in Europe. He also invited Ferlinghetti to his home in Verona, a four story building filled with surrealist and Fluxus art by the likes of Dali, Joseph Cornell, and André Breton.When Ferlinghetti returned to where he was staying, he took a supplement from the Sunday edition of La Repubblica-“sort of an illustrated history of art, 48 pages, saddle stitched. There was an illustration of Monet, and one of Gauguin-it went back centuries.” He chose several pages, and in French, English, or Italian wrote “‘Leonardo was here’-he had influenced all these artists. And on a couple of illustrations I put, ‘Leonardo was here’ with a question mark. And things like that. Then I did a little bit of collage on them, and that was it. I mounted them on story boards and sent them to him and he sent me $2000 more.”
One of his reasons for going to Italy was to select the final versions of glass plates that had been commissioned by a hotel in Venice and that were being produced by “the top maestro on the famous glass-making island of Murano. I was in his factory for two days. I had sent him the designs [in black and white] several months ago, and they produced some trial plates, which then I chose among. . . . I chose two colors, two of the designs. They did them in cobalt blue on very light transparent blue glass, and the other two are going to be on yellow ochre. Basically, the design was Auroboro, the snake eating its own tail, which fits onto a plate very nicely. Did several variations of that. Now they’re going to produce a limited edition.”
A week before he went to Italy, he attended the opening of his solo show at Dominican College in San Rafael CA. Curated by Diane Roby, it consisted of about a dozen paintings on canvas or burlap, and a similar number of drawings, lithographs, and other works on paper. The paintings ranged from about 17×13½” to 68×72″, and most of them referred directly or indirectly to such personages as El Greco, Freud, Ezra Pound, Magritte, Picasso, Van Gogh, or Motherwell. The works on paper included Serpent – Bird, a seven-panel suite of drawings in sumi-e ink on Japanese paper; done in Big Sur in 1997; it shows a serpent turning into a bird. There were also about 15 books, including such things as his most recent novel, a book of his drawings of the figure, When I Look at Pictures (images and poetry), as well as a number of broadsides.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti Liberty Series #6
1991
oil on canvas
50 x 56 in.
CLICK ON IMAGE FOR MORE DETAILED VIEW
Ferlinghetti started painting in 1948 while he was in Paris writing poetry and novels and preparing to get his doctorate in comparative poetry from the Sorbonne. “A guy I was rooming with left his painting equipment behind when he went home, so I picked it up and gave it a try.” He soon became serious about painting and began to attend drawing sessions to work from the figure (first at the open studio of theAcadémie Julien), a practice he continues to this day.Before the show, he had been collaborating on a series of pieces with Christopher Felver, who created photos of himself in various stages of clown makeup and which Ferlinghetti then wrote on. “On one of them I wrote, ‘I am not a clown.'” They hope to publish the series of 16 pieces in the near future.
Ferlinghetti / Felver I Am Not a Clown
1999
mixed media
CLICK ON IMAGE FOR MORE DETAILED VIEW
Last October, Gibbs Smith publishedFerlinghetti Portrait, a book of Felver’s photographs that also contains the subject’s long poem “Autobiography.” The shots include several of the painter in his studio, at City Lights, at Big Sur, and about 100 others. A documentary, also by Felver, The Coney Island of Lawrence Ferlinghetti, was shown last fall at the Mill Valley Film Festival at the Roxie in SF, and on PBS, where it will be shown again.Ferlinghetti’s work can be seen at the George Krevsky Gallery in San Francisco (415-397-9748) and at the Molly Barnes Gallery in Santa Monica (310-395-4404).
________ H. J. Blackham H. J. Blackham, (31 March 1903 – 23 January 2009), was a leading and widely respected British humanist for most of his life. As a young man he worked in farming and as a teacher. He found his niche as a leader in the Ethical Union, which he steadfastly […]
H.J.Blackham pictured below: I had to pleasure of corresponding with Paul Kurtz in the 1990’s and he like H. J. Blackham firmly believed that religion was needed to have a basis for morals. At H. J. Blackham’s funeral in 2009 these words were read from Paul Kurtz: Paul Kurtz Founder and Chair, Prometheus Books and the […]
H. J. Blackham pictured below: On May 15, 1994 on the 10th anniversary of the passing of Francis Schaeffer I sent a letter to H.J. Blackham and here is a portion of that letter below: I have enclosed a cassette tape by Adrian Rogers and it includes a story about Charles Darwin‘s journey from […]
I featured the artwork of Ellsworth Kelly on my blog both on November 23, 2015 and December 17, 2015. Also I mailed him a letter on November 23, 2015, but I never heard back from him. Unfortunately he died on December 27, 2015 at the age of 92. Who were the artists who influenced […]
__ I featured the artwork of Ellsworth Kelly on my blog both on November 23, 2015 and December 17, 2015. Also I mailed him a letter on November 23, 2015, but I never heard back from him. Unfortunately he died on December 27, 2015 at the age of 92. Who were the […]
Andy, Ellsworth Kelly, Richard Koshalek and unidentified guest, 1980s I featured the artwork of Ellsworth Kelly on my blog both on November 23, 2015 and December 17, 2015. Also I mailed him a letter on November 23, 2015, but I never heard back from him. Unfortunately he died on December 27, 2015 at the age […]
How Should We Then Live – Episode 8 – The Age of Fragmentation I featured the artwork of Ellsworth Kelly on my blog both on November 23, 2015 and December 17, 2015. Also I mailed him a letter on November 23, 2015, but I never heard back from him. Unfortunately he died on December […]
Today I am bringing this series on William Provine to an end. Will Provine’s work was cited by Francis Schaeffer in his book WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? I noted: I was sad to learn of Dr. Provine’s death. William Ball “Will” Provine (February 19, 1942 – September 1, 2015) He grew up an […]
___ Setting the record straight was Will Provine’s widow Gail when she stated, “[Will] did not believe in an ULTIMATE meaning in life (i.e. God’s plan), but he did believe in proximate meaning (i.e. relationships with people — friendship and especially LOVE🙂 ). So one’s existence is ultimately senseless and useless, but certainly not to those […]
I was sad when I learned of Will Provine’s death. He was a very engaging speaker on the subject of Darwinism and I think he correctly realized what the full ramifications are when accepting evolution. This is the fourth post I have done on Dr. Provine and the previous ones are these links, 1st, 2nd […]
Annie Hall or Bananas? Blue Jasmine or Sleeper? Our critics Robbie Collin and Tim Robey rank all 47 Woody Allen movies
25. Sleeper (1973)
The first film in which Allen directed Diane Keaton was also, perhaps not coincidentally, the first film to suggest he had more in him than than madcap, gag-driven comedies. (They appeared in a film together before his directing days). That’s not to say Sleeper isn’t as madcap and gag-driven as his earliest work: a film about a health food shop owner who falls into a vat of liquid nitrogen and wakes up 200 years later kind of has to be. But Allen’s painting with new colours here: romance, melancholy, and even – gasp! – coherent plotting, while the uproarious robot butler sequence showcased his talent for silent-era physical clowning.
24. Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask) (1972)
This anthology of seven sketches on a raunchy theme, loosely based on a best-selling bedroom manual of the day, has grown grubbier with age. But watched with a generous and forgiving eye, its legendary popularity (in the US, it was one of the 10 most successful films of its year) still makes sense. And three sequences still burst with visual ingenuity and laughs: an Italian cinema spoof, the famous science-fiction-like scene in which Allen plays a sperm on date night, and Gene Wilder’s tender love affair with a sheep.
23. Midnight in Paris (2011)
Depending on your point of view, this huge hit and Oscar Best Picture nominee – Woody’s first in a quarter-century – is either glass-half-full or half-empty Allen: an enjoyable, shiny bauble in which time-travel back to the Jazz Age reveals the grass to be always greener; or a shallow, rather pseudy coffee-table conceit whose present-day characters are cut-out irritants. Adherents to both viewpoints were surprisingly passionate, but there’s not all that much separating them, in truth. Owen Wilson’s jaunty flâneur takes the whole thing in his stride: hard not to, when Allen’s throwing so many easy conquests in his direction.
22. Bananas (1971)
Perhaps of all Allen’s early comedies, this is the one that could be remade today with the fewest concessions to modern taste. That might be because on its release, it already felt like a film out of time: it’s effectively the Marx brothers’ Duck Soup with a Cuban spin (Allen’s wilting New York nebbish accidentally becomes a dictator) and survives on its never-ending supply of lunatic gags, thundering past like an express train. It looks cheap, which is funny in itself, and satire and spoofery are crammed in until it bulges at the seams.
21. Deconstructing Harry (1997)
Allen’s sourest comedy is one of his more arresting, certainly of the increasingly wayward 1990s: it touches a few raw nerves. The structure is roughly lifted from Bergman’s reflections on a life in Wild Strawberries, as Allen’s flailing writer, Harry Block, is invited back to his alma mater to receive an honorary degree. This trip involves reckoning with the fallout from Harry’s failed relationships, not to mention some wacky swerves into sketch comedy – Robin Williams develops the medical condition of being out-of-focus, and Tobey Maguire plays a sex-obsessed alter ego. It’s an uneven grab bag, a flawed film à clef with biting and honest moments.
20. Cafe Society (2016)
It’s the Thirties, and young Bobby Dorfman (Jesse Eisenberg) has abandoned the sepia-tinted hubbub of the Bronx for the Technicolor vistas of Hollywood. After arriving in town, Bobby seeks out employment from his uncle Phil (Steve Carell), a bulldoggy agent who doesn’t so much drop names as scatter them in his wake like confetti. Work is hard to come by, but in the meantime Phil puts Bobby in touch with his secretary Vonnie (Kristen Stewart), who offers to show him the sights.
After a run of russet-hued collaborations with cinematographer Darius Khondji, Allen is working here for the first time with the venerable Vittorio Storaro, and the change has done him the good. A couple of scenes with Bobby and Vonnie together are the most visually beautiful sequences in an Allen film in goodness knows how long. And then there’s Stewart, who’s the best thing here from the moment she steps on screen. (Read the full review)
19. Love and Death (1975)
The smartest of Allen’s early run of scattershot comedies is a surprisingly accessible send-up of the Russian literature he was devouring at the time, and which would go on to shape his later, weightier work. Allen is Boris Grushenko, a “militant coward” who’s sent off to fight the French, and ends up involved in a plot to assassinate Napoleon with the help of his pretty cousin (Boris: “twice removed!”), played by Diane Keaton, who’s well on the way to the height of her comic powers. Parodies of Tolstoy, Eisenstein and Bergman rub shoulders with some vintage surreal and bawdy Allen riffs.
I have posted so many reviews on Woody Allen’s latest movie CAFE SOCIETY and I even posted an open letter I wrote to Woody Allen about the film. A serious theme of the afterlife is brought up in this film too. Some reviewers liked the film and the lavish surroundings in it and some did […]
I have posted so many reviews on Woody Allen’s latest movie CAFE SOCIETY and I even posted an open letter I wrote to Woody Allen about the film. A serious theme of the afterlife is brought up in this film too. Some reviewers liked the film and the lavish surroundings in it and some did […]
I have posted so many reviews on Woody Allen’s latest movie CAFE SOCIETY and I even posted an open letter I wrote to Woody Allen about the film. A serious theme of the afterlife is brought up in this film too. Some reviewers liked the film and the lavish surroundings in it and some did […]
Café Society Official International Trailer #1 (2016) – Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart Movie HD LETTER DATED 8-28-16 The last time I wrote you about the film IRRATIONAL MAN and today I want to give my thoughts on the film CAFE SOCIETY. I was able to catch it in Chicago in July and again I caught […]
Café Society – Official Movie Review Café Society Official International Trailer #1 (2016) – Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart Movie HD Cafe Society Woody Allen returns with a 1930s-set tale of Hollywood glamour and New York nightlife Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart in ‘Café Society.’ Credit: Sabrina Lantos In a summer of VFX crowdpleasers, it’s a […]
Café Society – Official Movie Review Café Society Official International Trailer #1 (2016) – Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart Movie HD The Reel Thing The Reel Thing: Woody Allen Formula Fails With ‘Cafe Society’ By RAY COX 23 hrs ago Woody Allen has been making films for more than 50 years but “Cafe Society” is […]
Café Society – Official Movie Review Cafe Society Woody Allen’s latest is an unfocused, wistful glance at both old glamour and the afterlife. Alissa Wilkinson/ July 14, 2016 Cafe Society Amazon Studios 1 of 2 Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart in ‘Cafe Society’ Woody Allen has come under concentrated fire in the time since his […]
Café Society – Official Movie Review Café Society Official International Trailer #1 (2016) – Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart Movie HD __ ___ ______________ __ Kat Edmonson lives the NYC dream ___ __ __ OPEN LETTER TO WOODY ALLEN DATED 8-28-16 seen below: The last time I wrote you about the film IRRATIONAL MAN and […]
_ Cafe Society review: In Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Allen has found his acting surrogate Christiopher Hooton 11 hours ago But in this movie about making movies, it’s too tangible that a movie is being made I always get excited to watch a new Woody Allen film, not in spite of his prolificness but because of […]
_ Café Society Official International Trailer #1 (2016) – Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart Movie HD Review: ‘Café Society’ is minor, enjoyable Woody Allen Bill Goodykoontz, Gannett4:24 p.m. EDT July 28, 2016 (Photo: Amazon Studios) “Café Society” is probably what you’d call a placeholder Woody Allen movie, a small offering between more cerebral offerings, if he’s […]
Baal the Canaanite storm god, also worshipped by the later Phoenicians. In his left hand he holds a spear which flashes lightning and in his right hand a mace. The relief, which dates to 1650–1500 BC, was found in a sanctuary in the Canaanite city of Ugarit, Syria, in 1932. It is now on display in the Louvre Museum in Paris.
Statue of Elijah on Mt. Carmel memorializing Elijah’s encounter with Jezebel’s prophets. Elijah challenged the 450 prophets of Baal who ate at Jezebel’s table to a sacrifice cook-off: “you call on the name of your god and I will call on the name of the LORD. The god who answers by fire—he is God” (1 Kgs 18:24). Who do you think won? You can read the account in 1 Kings 18:16–40.
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