Jerry Falwell goes to meet the Lord

The passing of a man

It is with some sadness that one learns of the death of Reverend Jerry Falwell, bastion of the religious right, co-founder/chancellor of Liberty University and consummate detractor of liberal America.

The Reverend was found unconscious in his office this morning and could not be revived till declared death in hospital later on.

Whilst the Reverend did much to gather together those of a like mind ranging from Christian fundamentalism to the evangelical strands, he was no doubt a strong polarising influence in America, making pronouncements that really got noticed and in some cases caused great embarrassment to committed Christians in general.

In all, it showed that great "Men of God" were fallible, able to make a ridiculous clot of themselves, hopefully learning a lesson of humility in the process and doing better after.

We be fallible men

Many would write about the great man, but at death there is also a reckoning, a review of the deeds of a man, no evil would be spoken of him, but the truth should find airing for this one occasion.

One issue that faces the world we live in today is Global Warming, there is sufficient scientific study leading to the impression that this phenomenon is fuelled by the activities of man on earth. Now, I am concerned for the way this concept is being hijacked by all sorts of inimical interests, their work is creating a situation where reasonable people are becoming sceptical of the realities we face.

Global Warming debunked

Reverend Falwell was no signatory to the document written by 86 leaders of the religious right who became to avow that man's stewardship of the earth is in need of responsible use of the earth's means and resources. The Reverend simply parlayed this as a liberal conspiracy to subject the world to a globalised kind of government.

It was worrisome to see that no student in a class at Liberty University when asked yesterday on a BBC TV review on the evangelical schism around the issue showed any concern for Global Warming, however remote or as the Reverend said, there was no conclusive scientific evidence about Global Warming.

I wish it were conclusive, but when did any knowledge of our world become conclusive? We have always been in a continual learning process, gaining new insight and knowledge to understand things better, the man could have been a better leader in this regard.

The lost love message

There is no telling the pulpit-bashing and vituperation meted out against the homosexual community, the extent of that absurdity was evident when he said the purple handbag of Tinky Winky in the much calming toddler's television programme TeleTubbies was a depiction of homosexuality.

No stranger to controversy, he later apologised for calling Mohammed a terrorist and his view of September the 11^th was that gays, atheists, civil-rights activists and legal abortions in the US had angered God and "helped this happen".

For an evangelist and preacher, one can simply say it was an admission of failure because this same man who made provision for women in crises pregnancies could have extended his brotherly kindness to welcoming the gays, atheists, activists and abortionists into the church to find the embrace of God's love that I would suppose he preached and counselled on.

Shirking the grand responsibility

The irony should not be lost on anyone when II Chronicles 7:14 lays the responsibility of peace in our lands at the behest of those who follow Him rather than those who do not.

II Chronicles 7:14 - if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

However, he did apologise, but let it not be said that the great man failed to get the import of this message, there are many great good works he did for the Christian community and they will be lauded as his life is celebrated.

So, we mourn the passing of a great man of God, imperfect as he was and we all are, he has done his bit, it is now our turn to leave nothing to chance of the things that might be written of us when we are gone.

Rest in peace - Reverend Dr. Jerry Falwell.

To Madeleine McCann's abductor, a millstone awaits

Madeleine McCann - See the distinctive right eye; left eye in the picture. Courtesy BBC News.

Not through my children

There is a saying in Yoruba that goes as follows: "If my enemy decides to engage me, let it not be through attacking my children". The meaning of this is very deep, having never been a parent; I cannot begin to understand the utter distress and state of discomfiture that overcomes a parent when they sense or know that a child is in danger or peril.

From observation, I have seen many literally go mad, lose objectivity and lose control; there are no words to explain the palpable emotion of that situation.

In my late teens, when I voluntarily went missing because of problems I had in my life, my mother was beside herself, that another saying was invoked, "Knowing that a child is dead is a lot better than not knowing about the child when missing".

Supposed to be family-friendly

It is in this light that I also have in mind the McCanns who went on holiday to Portugal in the "family friendly" Praia da Luz resorts only to have their daughter Madeleine McMann abducted just a few days before her 4^th birthday.

Not enough analysis can be made of the fact that the police are completely unused to child abduction crimes by reason of the lack of expertise, the indifference to previously locally reported abduction crimes and a poor understanding of prevailing human trafficking issues.

Portuguese law that prevents cases from being exposed to public access through crucial information dissemination and appeals does need reflecting upon; people move fast when it comes to kidnappings and abductions, there should be an information overload not a blackout on these matters so that the culprits can be apprehended quickly.

Usually, information leading to solving these crimes mostly involves members of the public informing the police, this is a lesson to take away from this situation, if any.

Safe but still missing

The profile of the abductors vary from someone who recently suffered the bereavement of a child to malevolent low-lives given to pederasty and peadophilia; the latter I would not countenance and I pray God that Madeleine is with the former, keeping faith with her parents that she is alive, safe and well with someone lavishing care upon her, but this person coming to the realisation that Madeleine is no orphan and she needs to be with her own and returned to the comfort of her family forthwith.

I cannot in any way blame the parents for having left their kids to go for a meal without availing themselves of childcare facilities - childcare facilities do not offer absolute safety, they only help to confer blame when something goes wrong - the whole context of "family-friendly" is lost if one cannot leave kids in a place - private hotel apartment - for an hour or two whilst the parents spend some quality time together.

And parents do need to devote time to each other without the interference of the kids which is why they did not dump the kids with minders during the day, but in the night when as it were, things were supposed to be quiet and safe.

Faith and persuasion

It is nice to know that people can still find succour and strength in their faith, the church being the rallying point of all those who have come together to pray for the safe return of Madeleine.

The additional voices and incentive for information leading to the safe return of Madeleine has hit £2.5 million about $5 million, even the culprits, if many should find a way of turning against each other and aim at this generous largesse, and I hope it does move more to act on any suspicious activity related to the little girl.

Hopefully, the time to really review policing in the tourist areas of the Southern European coasts of Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece would come, however, for now, all that can be done to help the police return Madeleine to her family should be done without restraint, the police themselves know that with the eyes of world on them, not only is their reputation at stake, the whole "family-friendly" fantasy is about to go up in smoke.

My personal appeal

I personally appeal to the humanity of anyone who might have Madeleine McCann, give her up to be returned to her parents; even you will know that you cannot find rest with the harm of separation you have exacted on the girl, there can be no greater cruelty than to separate a child from its parents and there is no sterner punishment for those that commit evil against children.

Like Jesus said in Mark 9:42 - if you give one of these simple, childlike believers a hard time, bullying or taking advantage of their simple trust, you'll soon wish you hadn't. You'd be better off dropped in the middle of the lake with a millstone around your neck. (Message Bible)

There is no ambiguity in this statement, Jesus would care less if you drowned and it was made sure that you really did drown at the bottom of a lake; releasing the child might as well give you the redemption of swimming to safety - spare yourself the millstone.

Medinat Yisrael - 59

Israel is born - 14^th May 1948

Just a few hours before the British Mandate of Palestine expired David Ben-Gurion read the declaration of independence for Medinat Yisrael (The State of Israel).

The Shehecheyanu blessing was recited, the declaration signed and the Hatikvah (The Israeli National Anthem) was sung to conclude ceremonies.

59 years on, when shall all the people of the holy lands be able to say in one voice of thanks and ululation -

Baruch atah adonai eloheinu melech ha'olam shecheyanu v'kiy'manu v'higyanu lazman hazeh.

The Shehecheyanu

Blessed are You,
Our God, Creator of time and space,
Who has supported us, protected us,
And brought us to this moment.

Pause for a moment for peace in Yisrael and peace with her neighbours, chief amongst them being the Palestinians who seek a land of their own and a declaration of their own independence.

We need this before someone goes excavating the foundations of the Temple Mount looking for some long lost ark of the covenant.

Israeli Blog Trail

Eurovision: My hats are safe

Royaume Uni nul points

The review goes; Scooch was characteristically undeterred by the result. As one of them said, "To be honest, this experience has been one in a million".

It was a unique opportunity to ascribe dumbness and ignominy to the name of their country and they did so well, we were 19^th on the appearance list and scored 19 points in total, result; a joint 22^nd out of 24 participants.

Flying the flag for utter embarrassment, they did with aplomb.

The seriousness with which we handle the Eurovision Song Contest has definitely taken on the characteristic inane commentary and banter of Sir Terry Wogan, insensitive, flippant, unserious, ignorant and sometimes just stupid.

Playing to lose

When the selection contest took place a few months ago, we had seasoned artistes that already had commercial success but they were not good enough for the goal - cynical as it may seem, the whole charade is a desperate pessimistic run to the bottom, we deliberate chose songs that we know would never do well and acts that seek the Raspberry Award of performance - the goal, to ensure that we come last and we almost did.

How can 42 countries vote for a performance and we end up with 19 points (5 from Ireland and 12 from Malta) where the maximum points are 12 from any one country? Ireland only got 5 points in all, but somehow, their music was a bit uninspiring, which was a shame.

Yes, there is a bit of politicking with the way countries vote for kindred nations, but who is really a kindred nation with Serbia - a good few - that swept the gold with 268 points?

How on earth?

If effort is put into the music and performance where talent rather than mediocrity is allowed to shine, we can do a lot better, we have won the contest a good number of times, and it can be done, if done well.

It beggars belief that many other countries could not make the final in the light of what we had to offer, again, cynicism makes one feel there was a need for the utterly ridiculous and the UK entry made that grade.

Scooch would not have made a real cabin crew, they were horrible, the stereotypes were crude and the costumes would definitely have made Aeroflot crew look so smart.

The world a rotten oyster

Before Scooch now, their world is an oyster gone seriously off, there was no political or prevailing situation concerning the UK as in 2003 when our involvement in Iraq lead to the infamous nul points - complete zero result - this time we were a rotten performance and I would only have found greater consolation if we had come last and we could not even achieve that with dignity.

Eurovision is kitsch and glitz at its more garish, but we all watch it, which means secretly, we all have a stake in the contest, the format for selection should and must change, Sir Terry could do with a healthy pension and we can really look for creative talent to do the United Kingdom proud - enough of the one in a million experiences, we need that one real opportunity to win.

Meanwhile, my hats are safe as we did not win anything and the cabin crew did open the doors at 35,000 feet.

The Eurovision Blogs

Eurovision: At 35,000ft - Cabin crew open doors

Helpless against inanity

Sadly, La Pays-Bas (The Netherlands in French) would not be represented at the Eurovision Song Contest 2007 this weekend in Helsinki, Finland, thereby; they would be spared the ignominy of zero points at the time of reckoning.

The entry from the United Kingdom sung by Scooch with the title Flying the Flag came a “respectable” 19^th out of 24 possible places, amazing.

The scoring for the contest represented by the scorecard (PDF) would offer marks out of 12 for the song, the performance, the choreography (three-legged dance steps) and the outfit.

What we can expect from Scooch would be a song so silly, a performance not befitting of a trolley dolly, the choreography of air crew doing the safety talking and outfits that would make Aeroflot girls look smart.

We should just prepare ourselves for the embarrassment that would stem from singing these words, if we do win anything, I would eat my hat, I said this before. Read and cringe, the theme is cabin crew banter.

The lyrics

This is your captain speaking; I’d like to welcome you aboard this Eurovision flight

The duration will be 3 minutes exactly – now sit back, relax and enjoy the flight

Ba-ba-da, Ba-ba-da, Ba-da-da-ba, ba-da
Duty free madam?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Ba-ba-da, Ba-ba-da, Ba-da-da-ba, ba-da
We’re flying the flag all over the world - Flying the flag for you

London to Berlin
All the way from Paris to Tallinn
Helsinki on to Prague
Don’t matter where we are –yeah yeah ye-ah

Flying high in Amsterdam
Why don’t you catch us if you can
Now we’re cruising in the sky
And we’re singing it for you

Ba-ba-da, Ba-ba-da, Ba-da-da-ba, ba-da
Some salted nuts sir?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Ba-ba-da, Ba-ba-da, Ba-da-da-ba, ba-da

We’re flying the flag all over the world
Flying the flag for you
Would you like a complimentary drink with your meal sir?
We’re flying the flag all over the world
Flying the flag for you…

Ladies & Gentlemen, your exits are located here, here and here
To fasten your seatbelt insert the fitting
To use the life vest, slip it over your head
Pull firmly on the red cord and blow into the mouthpiece

Ba-ba-da, Ba-ba-da, Ba-da-da-ba, ba-da
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Ba-ba-da, Ba-ba-da, Ba-da-da-ba, ba-da

We’re flying the flag all over the world
Flying the flag for you

We’re flying the flag all over the world - yes we’re flying - take you all around the world
Flying the flag for you
Would you like something to suck on for landing sir?
We’re flying the flag all over the world - yes we’re flying - take you all around the world
Flying the flag for you…

We’d like to thank you for flying with us today

Anyone in the jet set would automatically know that is some no-frills budget airline with passengers flying cattle class, with an aisle just wide enough for a single file of the slimmest people on earth.

Ba-ba-da, yeah, Ba-ba-da? You cannot get more bubblegum than that.

Oh! How really deeply embarrassing this would be and the shame of coming last would be such a consolation.

Captain: This is your captain speaking, we are cruising at 35,000 feet, Cabin Crew, doors to manual please. You can open the doors.

Additives for Wembley seats

Going to Wem-bur-ley

I plan to visit the new Wembley Stadium when I am next in London at the end of this month.

Unfortunately, it appears the Wembley Stadium is already losing its lustre; the quite radiant mid-spring sunshine seems to have shone the colour off many of the 17,000 extra padded premium seats.

The originally red seats are now a paler shade called pink due to photo-chromic degradation.

This is where I would think the hitherto pigments in food colouring would come in useful and where they should be applied, Allura Red AC for instance withstands temperatures higher than 300° Celsius and probably would resist degradation in direct sunlight. Being soluble in water might require a bit of inspired chemistry, not an impossible task.

Just imagine all those super-rich premium ticket holders getting up cheering with bright red backsides, a sight to make eyes sore. Meanwhile, one might say the people who installed the seats would have some red faces, anyone's guess if that also came off the seats.

Farfour free to burn - II - Poor translation?

An anonymous lengthy visit

An anonymous and hence invisible person albeit from Colorado, USA left a comment on my blog pertaining to Farfour free to burn where presumably a child had offered herself as a martyr to annihilate the Jews.

I am no Arabic scholar and I have no knowledge of the language apart from the numbers which I learnt in a thick Yoruba accent from Keu (Madrassa) students in Nigeria.

Apparently, it appears most of the conversation reported might have been lost in translation and thereby we have ended up with a story a lot worse than what was portrayed.

It however then begs the question why the Minister of Information in the Palestinian government asked for the show to be discontinued, extracted a promise to present a different format and roundly condemned the content of the parts that were broadcast.

Other respectable Palestinian broadcasters also expressed displeasure at the content.

In fact, the commentator portends that Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) an organisation based in Washington D.C. which is supposed to bridge the language gap between the West and the Middle-East had committed egregious atrocities in translation which could be deliberate with the view to excite negative review.

Being one who would always bring to the fore any comment that requires airing to bring balance to the topics I introduce, I publish here the full text of the comment left by Anonymous of Colorado – (I know where all comments come from).

If I have erred, I apologise, not meaning to cause offence to anyone, only to highlight issues of concern.

The comments

I would like to point out what can only be called an egregious mistranslation on the part of MEMRI with respect to the words of one of the children who were featured as a caller on the show this story reports on.

I call it that and not simply a mistake, because a MEMRI spokesperson appeared on CNN to confirm his organization standing by its translation "word for word" and "according to the syntax" even though it is easy for an organization that employs Arabic translators to actually see how wrong the translations that were produced at first are.

The transcript claims that "Sanabel", the little girl caller of the show, responds with "I will shoot" to the host's question "Sanabel, what will you do for the sake of the Al-Aqsa Mosque?"

As a matter of fact, and as can be seen in the video, it is the clown in the ridiculous Mickey Mouse like suit that says that and even makes the gesture of carrying a weapon.

The little girl Sanabel does however respond, but MEMRI omits her response. The little girl actually said in Arabic "bedi arsem soora", which means "I will draw a picture."

So this girl says she wants to draw a picture, and MEMRI transforms that to "I will shoot."

The second example is the most outrageous one, where MEMRI translates the little girl Sanabel's response to the question "we got that, what else?" as saying "We will annihilate the Jews." This is outrageously wrong and completely invented.

The girl can be clearly heard saying in Arabic "betokhoona el yahood", which means "the Jews shoot us."

The word "betokh-oo-na" can be broken down part by part and explained easily as follows:

betokh: the verb "shoots"

oo: the 3rd person plural subject pronoun meaning "they". It becomes "they shoot".

na: the 1st person plural object pronoun meaning "we". It becomes "they shoot us"

Having pointed that out, what the producers of this show are doing is morally outrageous. Instead of giving their children viewers the joy of watching child TV characters and enjoying that aspect of childhood, they are depriving them of that just as the Israeli occupation is depriving them from other aspects of normal childhood development. Both are equally wrong here.