Joe Bob Briggs tells you where evangelists go wrong

I hate cutting to the serious bit, but that’s how the quoting game works: Joe Bob’s Guide to World Evangelism | Wittenburg Door

we’ve got that pesky little scripture known to jungle-dwelling missionaries throughout the world as “The Great Commission.” I speak, of course, of Mark 16, verse 15. If you will please read it, Don Pardo, por favor . . .

“And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.”

This is the verse that accounts for your Billy Grahams. Of course, it wasn’t that big a stretch for Billy, because he started out as a Fuller Brush salesman. He was ready to sell something.

But this is also the scripture that accounts for your doorbell-ringing Jehovah’s Witnesses, your screaming televangelists in rural North Carolina, your white-shoed tent revival specialists, your Times Square rave-masters, and every girl who ever fluttered her eyes and said, “Joe Bob, I really like you, but I think I need to witness to you about Jesus Christ.”

Now you should go read the whole thing if you love Joe Bob as much as I do, but if you’re lazy, here’s the point:

Consulting the original Greek, please note that the sentence in Mark 16:15 is in the “aorist” tense. We don’t really have this tense in English, so that’s why the King James translators wrote it down the way they did, in the imperative tense. But a better translation, for this more passive tense, would be “As ye go into all the world, preach the gospel into every creature.”

Kinda changes the whole deal, doesn’t it? As you move through your world, whatever that is, wherever that is, whoever comes into your path, reveal the gospel that lives inside you. Reveal Christ, not through words, but in your life.

I never thought one of the finest exegetes I would read would be the best friend the drive-in has ever known.

happy things: anteaters

Dark Roasted Blend: Anteater Coolness. One of many cuteness pics:

Molly, a horse with a prosthetic leg

Snopes.com has pictures and a write-up here.

Not too late to thank Mom! (marrow donor update)

I was going to call my mom yesterday, but people showed up unexpectedly, and I forgot, so I called her today. If you’ve been thinking about the Thanks Mom free marrow donor program, it’s still on. From here:

The National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) is offering free registration during its Thanks Mom campaign, until May 19, 2008.

During the event, costs to join the Registry online or at a bone marrow drive are paid for by generous partners and contributors so that it is FREE:

- For the first 46,000 who join the registry via the NMDP.

-This includes the first 10,000 who join online via the NMDP’s website.

In the US, you get the inside of your cheek swabbed. You get a kit at home or you go to a bone marrow drive or donor center. Here is a list by state of upcoming drives.

If you are not a US resident, this is still important information about the bone marrow registry. Many countries have free registry, every day. Even if you do not live in the US, people who register in the US could save the life of a person anywhere in the world, maybe even where you live. In fact, 49% of US matches involve an international recipient or donor.

Julia Ward Howe’s Mother’s Day Proclamation of 1870

Arise then…women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
“We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”

From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: “Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.”
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace…
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

Reporters Without Borders, Reporters Without Scruples

Doctors Without Borders had a wonderful name; they came up with it in 1971. Flashforward to 1985. An unrelated group, Reporters Without Borders was formed to— Well, the official story is to fight censorship, but if you follow the rule of “follow the money,” the answer is different. Their paymasters were the National Endowment for Democracy, the newly created front to continue the work of the CIA in supporting neoconservative goals around the world, as well as the Center for a Free Cuba (who, in an aesthetically pleasing bit of bookkeeping chicanery, are in turn funded by NED).

Just as the CIA opposed democracy in the 1950s, NED opposes it today. For example:

ZNet - Reporters Without Borders Fraud

the NED financed and continues financing the Venezuelan opposition, responsible for the coup d’état against President Chávez, April 2002. Since then, the Venezuelan oligarchy has organized, with the help of Washington, several unsuccessful destabilization attempts, since the failure of the recall referendum, the popular legitimacy of Mr. Chávez has been only reinforced.

For an organization that claims to be concerned with the safety of reporters, its priorities are curious:

Diana Barahona: Reporters Without Borders Unmasked

From the beginning, RSF has made Cuba its No. 1 target. Allegedly founded to advocate freedom of the press around the world and to help journalists under attack, the organization has called Cuba “the world’s biggest prison for journalists.” It even gives the country a lower ranking on its press freedom index than countries where journalists routinely have been killed, such as Colombia, Peru and Mexico.

Spinwatch - Reporters Without Borders Financed by CIA

Reporters without Borders mounted a campaign in 2002 characterizing the
trial and imprisonment in Cuba of more than two dozen journalists, among 75 “dissidents,” as a violation of human rights. The Cuban government insisted that the accused were mercenary agitators paid by the US to
pose as “independent journalists.” As Granma reported, “none of them even passed through a journalism faculty or school of journalism and never wrote a single line of journalism.”

The deceit of Reporters Without Borders

RSF establishes their annual index that includes 169 countries. According to the organization’s figures, 105 journalists were murdered over the year. Iraq were at least 62 were killed was the most dangerous place, followed by Mexico (8), Somalia (7), Pakistan (4), Afghanistan (4), Sri Lanka (2) y Eritrea (2). It would be no surprise if these countries ended up with the lowest scores. However, with the exception of Eritrea ranking 169th, this is not the case. In the end, Robert Ménard’s political and ideological criterion overshadowed the rest. (5)

How is it that Eritrea, where only two journalists were murdered, ended up ranked below Iraq (157), Mexico (136), Somalia (159), Pakistan (152), Afghanistan (142) and Sri Lanka (156)? Perhaps because that nation is on Washington’s black list and RSF receives funding from the CIA front National Endowment for Democracy, NED? (7)

Likewise what is the explanation for Cuba ranking 165 when not one journalist has been killed there since 1959? Why is this nation ranked below Iraq, Mexico, Somalia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Brazil (84), China (163), United States (48), Haiti (75), Nepal (137), Paraguay (90), Peru (117), Democratic Republic of the Congo (133), Turkey (101) and Zimbabwe (149), where at least one journalist has been killed? RSF explains that Cuba’s poor ranking is due to journalists being imprisoned. Just supposing the organization is correct on this point –which is actually far from being the case-, wouldn’t killing journalists still be more serious than imprisoning them? (

Also worthwhile:

Diana Barahona and Jeb Sprague: Reporters Without Borders and Washington’s Coups

a Fredric Wertham moment

From Buccaneers #20 (May, 1950):

the 1911 view of Tibet’s relationship to China

From the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica entry on Tibet:

Government.—Though the whole of Tibet is under the suzerainty of China, the government of the country is divided into two distinct administrations, the one under the rule of the Dalai lama of Lhasa, the other under local kings or chiefs, and comprising a number of ecclesiastical fiefs. Both are directed and controlled by the high Chinese officials residing at Lhasa, Sining Fu; and the capital of the Chinese province of Szechuen. Northeastern Tibet or Amdo, and also a portion of Khamdo, are under the supervision of a high official (Manchu) residing at Sining Fu in Kansuh, whose title is Imperial Controller-General of Koko Nor…

The region under the supervision of the imperial controller includes all the countries north of the upper course of the Dre chu (Yangtsze-kiang). The people pay a small poll-tax to China, and are exempted from any other impost; they also pay a small tax in kind, sheep, butter, & c., to their chiefs. The province of Khamdo, including all eastern Tibet, is governed by local chiefs… The only tax paid to China is a so-called ” horse-tax ” of about 5d. for each family. Once in every five years the chiefs send a tribute mission to the capital of Szechuen, and once every ten years to Peking, but the tribute sent is purely nominal. The Chinese maintain a few small military posts with from six or eight to twenty men stationed in them; they are under the orders of a colonel residing at Tachienlu….

The part of Tibet under the rule of Lhasa, by far the largest and wealthiest, includes the central province of U, Tsang, Nari, and a number of large outlying districts in southern and even in eastern Tibet. The central government of this part of the country is at Lhasa; the nominal head is the Dalai lama or grand lama. The Tashi lama or head of the monastery of Tashilhunpo near Shigatse is inferior to the Dalai lama in secular authority, of which, indeed, he has little—much less than formerly— but he is considered by some of his worshippers actually superior to him in religious rank. The person next in consideration to the two great lamas is the regent, who is an ecclesiastic appointed during the minority of each Dalai lama. Under him are four ministers of state … who divide among themselves, under the immediate supervision of the two imperial Chinese residents (or amban), the management of all secular affairs of the country. …

The army is under the command of the senior Chinese amban. …

All high Tibetan officials, whether ecclesiastics or laymen, are appointed subject to confirmation by the Chinese government.

From the entry on “Lamaism”:

Jenghiz Khan had founded the Mongol empire, and his grandson Kublai Khan became a convert to the Buddhism of the Tibetan Lamas. He granted to the abbot of the Sakya monastery in southern Tibet the title of tributary sovereign of the country, head of the Buddhist church, and overlord over the numerous barons and abbots, and in return was officially crowned by the abbot as ruler over the extensive domain of the Mongol empire. Thus was the foundation laid at one and the same time of the temporal sovereignty of the Lamas of Tibet, and of the suzerainty over Tibet of the emperors of China.

Donors needed—especially African, Caribbean, and Asian

Edited from two posts at kino-kid.livejournal.com/. The donor registries are international; no matter where you live, no matter what your ethnicity is, if you register, you may save a life.

Emru Townsend has Acute Myelogenous Leukemia, and he and his family are hoping a compatible donor registers in the unrelated database.

Carolyn Tam has Acute Myelogenous Leukemia, just like Emru, and she and her family are hoping a compatible donor registers in the unrelated database.

The person who is most likely to match Emru or Carolyn is someone with the same or similar ethnic background.

If you are one of the white patients and in need of a bone marrow transplant, 75 percent find a suitable donor. For everyone else, that number tumbles to 10-30% percent (I have not been able to find a breakdown by ethnicity for the latter group). This includes people who receive transplants involving an international donor.

There are 500,000 registrants who identified as African-American in the US and if you think that this is large number of people, you are WRONG. They consider it a shortage. Because of the complexity of matching, hundreds of thousands of people are needed worldwide to find someone who is Emru’s genetic twin in terms of their bone marrow. None of the 11 million people already in the worldwide database match Emru. He just needs to find one match who is registered.

If 30,000 people of African Caribbean descent registered in Canada, it would be a SHORTAGE. In Canada as of March 31, 2008, there are only 1633 black people registered as unrelated potential donors.

There were only 50 registered by that time in Quebec.

There are 350 000 registrants in China and if you think that this is  large number of people, you are WRONG. Because of the complexity of matching, hundreds of thousands of people are needed of this background to find someone who is Carolyn’s genetic twin in terms of their bone marrow (someone with the same combination of ten genetic markers that form the human leukocyte antigen - HLA -  complex).

In Canada as of March 31, 2008, there are only 233 Chinese people registered as unrelated potential donors. If there were 10,000 Chinese people registered in Canada it would be a SHORTAGE.

Save Carolyn.

( Chinese/English information for about registration in Canada (outside of Quebec) and donation. If you can write Chinese instructions for how to register in Quebec PLEASE LET ME KNOW. )

Heal Emru.

( Break these four myths about bone marrow donation and registration. It is the first step to saving lives. )

“Yes, We Shall” Music Video - Vote Cobra ‘08

via GWW here