Damaging Our Country from Wars of Choice � CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

Damaging Our Country from Wars of Choice � CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names: Here they go again. Another result of Bush’s war in Iraq. Washington has already expended thousands of American lives, hundreds of thousands of American injuries and illnesses, and over a million Iraqi lives. The achievement: the slaying or capture of Al Qaeda leaders, but with that came the spread of Al Qaeda into a dozen countries and the emergence of a new Al Qaeda on steroids called the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) which has nominal control over an area in Syria and Iraq larger than the territory of Great Britain.

Kenneth Hagin Sr.�s Renouncement of Word-Faith Teachings. - Sermon Index

Kenneth Hagin Sr.�s Renouncement of Word-Faith Teachings. - Sermon Index: Charismatic Bible teacher Kenneth Hagin Sr. is considered the father of the so-called prosperity gospel. The folksy, self-trained “Dad Hagin” started a grass-roots movement in Oklahoma that produced a Bible college and a crop of famous preachers including Kenneth Copeland, Jerry Savelle, Charles Capps, Jesse DuPlantis, Creflo Dollar and dozens of others—all of whom teach that Christians who give generously should expect financial rewards on this side of heaven.

Hagin taught that God was not glorified by poverty and that preachers do not have to be poor. But before he died in 2003 and left his Rhema Bible Training Center in the hands of his son, Kenneth Hagin Jr., he summoned many of his colleagues to Tulsa to rebuke them for distorting his message. He was not happy that some of his followers were manipulating the Bible to support what he viewed as greed and selfish indulgence.

The Posts Go Ever On: Guest Post on "War In Heaven" | The Oddest Inkling

The Posts Go Ever On: Guest Post on "War In Heaven" | The Oddest Inkling: War in Heaven, published in early summer, 1930, has, to my way of thinking, gone from a story set in the contemporary world to a classic ‘period piece’ without any loss of vitality. It was drafted, as The Corpse, four years earlier, having been finished in time to be offered to, and rejected by, Faber, by the end of May, 1926. I do not know how much or little The Corpse differs from War in Heaven as we know it. But the Twenties seem to have been a rapidly and even wildly changing literary landscape as far as ‘mystery’ and ‘detective’ stories went. And some facts about literary context at the turn of 1925-26 strike me as interesting.

It's Still Not the End of History - The Atlantic

It's Still Not the End of History - The Atlantic:

Most of us in the West are liberals, whether we admit it or not. We want equal rights for all, reject racial differences, cherish the freedom of worship while preserving the freedom to disagree, and seek an economic order that suits the ambitions of the individual. But there’s a growing sense that liberalism isn’t delivering at home and that it’s not as popular as we think it ought to be in the developing world. The problem is that hubris has blinded its defenders to the crisis consuming liberalism’s identity, leaving them unable or unwilling, to respond to pressing challenges around the world.

Notes from a Common-place Book: Philip Jenkins on the Reformation, both Protestant and Islamic

Notes from a Common-place Book: Philip Jenkins on the Reformation, both Protestant and Islamic:

2017 will mark the 500th anniversary of the start of the Protestant Reformation. In The Breaking of Images, noted Baylor scholar and author Philip Jenkins gets a jump on the anticipated flurry of commentary. The occasion of his piece is David Motadel's recent review of "The Politics of Iconoclasm: Religion, Violence and the Culture of Image-Breaking in Christianity and Islam" by James Noye. As Jenkins notes, "the review, and the associated scholarship, raises important questions about how we conceive of the Reformation, how we teach it, and significantly, how we will commemorate the 500th anniversary of the event in 2017."

Dalai Lama's visa still under consideration

In short: Dalai Lama’s visa yet under consideration: SA

New Delhi: Amid reports that South Africa has denied a visa to the Dalai Lama, the African nation’s High Commissioner to India France K Morule on Friday said his visa has not been denied yet and the application is under consideration. Morule said he will be meeting the Dalai Lama’s representatives here tomorrow on further action required to be taken on granting visa to the spiritual leader, who was going to attend the 14th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in Cape Town next month.

Putin is under Satan’s influence, says leader of Kiev Orthodox Church | FaithWorld

Putin is under Satan’s influence, says leader of Kiev Orthodox Church | FaithWorld: President Vladimir Putin has fallen under the spell of Satan and faces eternal damnation unless he repents, a top Ukrainian clergyman said in an unusually blunt statement that squarely blamed the Russian leader for the war in Ukraine.

Patriarch Filaret heads the Kiev Patriarchate, a branch of the Orthodox Church that broke away from Moscow in 1992 after the fall of the Soviet Union and the declaration of an independent Ukraine.

His church, a rival of the Moscow Patriarchate which is closely linked to Putin, strongly supports Ukrainian nationhood and the Kiev government’s struggle to defeat pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Why independent book stores are on the rise again

Independent bookstores rising: They can’t compete with Amazon, and don’t have to.:

The recent news of the opening of an independent bookstore on Manhattan’s Upper West Side was greeted with surprise and delight, since a neighborhood once flush with such stores had become a retail book desert. The opening coincides with the relocation of the Bank Street Bookstore near Columbia University, leading the New York Times to declare, “Print is not dead yet — at least not on the Upper West Side.” Two stores don’t constitute a trend, but they do point to a quiet revival of independent bookselling in the United States.

4 Things You Should Know About Russian Demography That Vanity Fair Won't Tell You - Forbes

4 Things You Should Know About Russian Demography That Vanity Fair Won't Tell You - Forbes: As is so frequently the case when mainstream magazines try to deal with demography, Vanity Fair presents figures selectively and without much context. We’re told that Russian life expectancy is currently 64 for men and 76 for women, and that this is quite poor by international standards, but we’re told very little about how this relates to Russia’s own recent history (hint: it’ a lot better!). I kept waiting for the article to tell its readers that Russia’s population has stopped shrinking, that the total fertility rate is at a more than two decade high, that alcohol poisonings have decreased sharply, and that Russia’s actual demographic performance over the past 10 years has consistently exceeded even the most optimistic official forecasts. It never did.

How the War on Terror Created the World's Most Powerful Terror Group | The Nation

How the War on Terror Created the World's Most Powerful Terror Group | The Nation: There are extraordinary elements in the present US policy in Iraq and Syria that are attracting surprisingly little attention. In Iraq, the United States is carrying out air strikes and sending in advisers and trainers to help beat back the advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (better known as ISIS) on the Kurdish capital, Erbil. The US would presumably do the same if ISIS surrounds or attacks Baghdad. But in Syria, Washington’s policy is the exact opposite: there the main opponent of ISIS is the Syrian government and the Syrian Kurds in their northern enclaves. Both are under attack from ISIS, which has taken about a third of the country, including most of its oil and gas production facilities.

But US , Western European, Saudi and Arab Gulf policy is to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, which happens to be the policy of ISIS and other jihadis in Syria. If Assad goes, then ISIS will be the beneficiary, since it is either defeating or absorbing the rest of the Syrian armed opposition. There is a pretense in Washington and elsewhere that there exists a “moderate” Syrian opposition being helped by the United States, Qatar, Turkey, and the Saudis. It is, however, weak and getting more so by the day. Soon the new caliphate may stretch from the Iranian border to the Mediterranean and the only force that can possibly stop this from happening is the Syrian army.

Not All Pedophiles Have Mental Disorder, American Psychiatric Association Says In New DSM

Not All Pedophiles Have Mental Disorder, American Psychiatric Association Says In New DSM:

The new manual specifies that in order for an atypical sexual behavior to be classified as a mental condition, a person must:

1. Feel personal distress about their interest, not merely distress resulting from society's disapproval; or

2. have a sexual desire or behavior that involves another person's psychological distress, injury, or death, or a desire for sexual behaviors involving unwilling persons or persons unable to give legal consent.

Does (1) imply that repentance for sexual lust is a mental disorder?

That would have disturbing implications.

Keith Gessen: Why not kill them all?: In Donetsk

Keith Gessen: Why not kill them all?: In Donetsk -- LRB 11 September 2014:

When the Maidan protests started in Kiev late last year, Mishin followed them with increasing anxiety. He watched as young men in masks and the insignia of old Ukrainian fascist movements attacked riot police – some of them from the Donetsk area – with Molotov cocktails. He saw governors in the western provinces pulled out of their offices and roughed up by furious crowds. It seemed that the country was descending into chaos. When he heard a rumour that some of the young men from Maidan were headed for Donetsk, he believed it. After work he started taking the bus to the centre of Donetsk to stand with the protesters who called themselves ‘anti-Maidan’. Some of them waved Russian flags; others held up posters of Stalin. But they all wanted to express their disagreement with what was happening in Kiev.

What a Shaman Sees in A Mental Hospital | The Mind Unleashed

What a Shaman Sees in A Mental Hospital | The Mind Unleashed: What those in the West view as mental illness, the Dagara people regard as “good news from the other world.” The person going through the crisis has been chosen as a medium for a message to the community that needs to be communicated from the spirit realm. “Mental disorder, behavioral disorder of all kinds, signal the fact that two obviously incompatible energies have merged into the same field,” says Dr. Som. These disturbances result when the person does not get assistance in dealing with the presence of the energy from the spirit realm.

Why Russians will have it all! | Koshka's Blog

Why Russians will have it all! | Koshka's Blog:

1. Because they don’t give a damn about public opinion of the West about them.

2. Because they have their hand on the energy tap of the world – especially Europe.

3. Because Putin is a better strategist and a poker player than any of his Western counterparts.

Are you Church or Chapel? | The Vaishnava Voice

Are you Church or Chapel? | The Vaishnava Voice:

Vaishnavism has not always been immune from these schisms. The followers of the teachings of the great Ramanujacarya (1017-1137) were united for seven centuries, but then succumbed to conflict over cardinal philosophical points, eventually becoming the Tengalai (Southern School) and the Vadagalai (Northern School) sometime in the 17th or 18th century.