But Having Said That...I Can - Totally - Understand Where They're Coming From; Can I What!

Time eluding me as usual, I can only add - by way of necessary explication - the much-treasured words of a timeless hymn, by James Russell Lowell: Once to Every Man and Nation

...and I won't apologize for quoting these memorable and ever relevant words at least once before...

Once to every [hu]man and nation Comes the moment to decide,

In the strife of truth with falsehood, For the good or evil side; 

Some great cause, God's new Messiah, Offering each the bloom or blight,

And the choice goes by forever, 'Twixt that darkness and that light.



Then to side with truth is noble When we share her wretched crust,

Ere her cause bring fame and profit, And 'tis prosperous to be just;

Then it is the brave [hu]man chooses, While the coward stands aside,

till the multitude make virtue Of the faith they had denied.



By the light of burning martyrs, Christ, Thy bleeding feet we track,

Toiling up new Calvaries ever With the cross that turns not back;

New occasions teach new duties, Time makes ancient good uncouth;

They must upward still and onward, Who would keep abreast of truth.



Though the cause of evil prosper, Yet 'tis truth alone is strong;

Though her portion be the scaffold, And upon the throne be wrong;

Yet that scaffold sways the future, And, behind the dim unknown,

Standeth God within the shadow, Keeping watch above His own.

Nuff said.

If another Newfangled 'Christian' Political Party is the Answer (to the woes of New Zealand Inc.), Excuse me, I Must've Missed Something Somewhere: Prithee Tell Me What the Question Was...

No, I mean really...

Get ready, folks, the *global Sunday laws, originating in the land of the dragonlike beast - 'with horns like a[n] (innocent Christian/Christlike) lamb, but [eventually] speak[ing] like a (Satanic) dragon' -

...are right upon our (nation's and world's) doorstep...

I kid you not...

*Long foretold not only by one regarded as having a prophetic gift by the modern-day remnant church, but moreover by the prophet of the Revelation, the beloved Apostle John himself...

...and rather easily established when sound biblical principles of interpretation are soberly, calmly and dispassionately employed...under the Holy Spirit's omniscient (and moreover Christ-exalting)  guidance...

All Out for a Decade + Shy of a Maiden (Century): Aussie's Battler Bob Hawke Dies...a legend in his time

Just three brief comments/observations I intend to record for now...

Firstly, in what was one of my most memorable if hardly first education in how the seemingly omnipresent and supposedly omniscient - and even omnipotent - news media operates...
both while living in Brisbane (1990-91) and after then returning to New Zealand, I saw how a restless as media, tired of the known quantity that was PM Hawke, kept on and on tugging at Hawke's coattails and continually agitating on behalf of a potential challenge by then Treasurer Paul Keating...which - in one of the dumbest political moves in modern Australian political history - and have they witnessed some dumb moves or what - eventually saw Hawke deposed by the cerebral Keating, who admittedly did win one subsequent election in his own right - before being soundly thrown out on his ear by Prime Minister-Elect John Howard in 1996...which thumping victory I even recall watching while nurse aiding (in the wee hours) at Wakari Hospital, Dunedin in early 1996...

Secondly, my own dear Mum once met (I believe, then trade union leader) Hawke at some social work conference here in Dunedin (I imagine back in the seventies sometime)...recalling my own 'serendipitous' bumping into Hawke's contemporaneous kiwi Labour Party politician/Prime Minister David Lange... while attempting to get a few dollars or so out of an NZ Post (ATM) money machine in the later nineteen-eighties (while the infamous '88 Dunedin conference was entering high (or deepest) dudgeon)...

To the idle but entirely harmless, even fairly friendly 'harangue' of a male passerby that "you won't get any money out of that machine" (alluding to the way the selfsame had been completely run down by the then economically very right-wing, deregulatory 'Labour' Government)...

PM Lange responded rather irascibly, in what to this punter anyhow seemed an entirely uncharacteristic outburst - let alone un-self-controlled spirit - irritably snapping: "Fun-ny, ha-ha!"

One hardly needs a spin doctor informing one that that petulant reaction was hardly the way to win friends and influence people, eh...

And thirdly, I've little doubt whatsoever - just like innumerable Aussie commentators, no doubt - that his death just upon the eve of Election 2019 can only be a plus for the chances of the (unjustifiably) renascent Australian Labour Party...much as that of NZ's own David Lange just prior to General Election 2005 helped seal NZ PM Helen Clark's own otherwise increasingly fraught re-election chances...

...and in Bill Shorten's case for a party utterly bereft (admittedly much like its opposite, presently governing 'number') of a political vision, good old-fashioned ideals and principles...

but what else would one expect in modern-day Western politics, especially those of the Aussie variety!

But Apparently Millennials Ain't All Bad...or, Can Anything Good come out of the 2000-on Generation? Evidently YES

To wit, according to Nicky Jackson of Health Watch, millennials - i.e. those born from the year 2000 on (of whom I've two nephews, so I'd better be careful in what I say, I suppose!)...to their immense credit, in my view...are, on the other hand (cf previous blogpost, though those referred to therein, i.e. the so-called 'snowflake generation', might more aptly be those of the 'y' - rather than 'z' generation), proving risk averse and safety conscious...

...in particular, shelving/shunning/eschewing the dubious pleasures of alcohol...

Newstalk ZB Early Morning Host (and interviewer) Mike Hosking logically responded (to NJ): "If millennials don't start [the habit of drinking], they won't continue [to do so]..." .

Indeed. A sentiment the wisest (hu)man who ever lived could well have echoed, declaring to one and all - willing to hear the unvarnished truth of the matter:

Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging...and whoever is led astray thereby is not wise.

At Long Last, A Breath of Fresh Air - and Stark, Refreshing Realism - in an Era Pockmarked and Riven with Faux Outrage...and Not Before Time

This is how I sum up the effective assessment of University of Auckland Vice-Chancellor Stewart/Stuart McCutcheon in his taped conversation on the 6 am edition of RNZ National's pre-Morning Report today...

...as he declared the results of his careful, thorough investigation - in the post-Christchurch paranoia and witchhunt under every conceivable nook and cranny of New Zealand's dark underbelly for white supremacists throughout NZ Inc.

To the very specific and well-publicized allegations that Auckland University itself was a potent breeding ground, or at least melting pot, of white supremacists, McCutcheon declared: it was not even white supremacy necessarily/as such, but racism...in the instances cited before him; and moreover [to express his sentiments in my own rather colourful paraphrased version] two such cases do not an epidemic - much less pandemic - make!

No indeed.

Yes, despite all the hoo-haa, the almost endless hullabaloo, navel-gazing, browbeating and smug, self-righteous indignation and virtue-signalling self-flagellation engaged in seemingly relentlessly by all and sundry throughout the length and breadth of God's Own ever since Aotearoa-New Zealand's very own '9/11'...nothing significant had been uncovered.

No, two instances out of a varsity population of 40,000-some hardly constituted a crisis...-or, as the likes of that prescient discerner of hidden reality, Aesop himself, might have put it: two swallows do not a summer make. No indeed. And until more substantial evidence was presented to him - not more merely anecdotal hearsay - the Vice-Chancellor would remain of that viewpoint...

Postscript:

To the unmistakable deep dissatisfaction of the journo covering the story, evidently...who helped RNZ shortly thereafter craft a self-serving 7am headline item seeking to effectively rubbish the VC's conclusions...and, in a self-serving attempt to save face, obscure the case with lots of heat but little extra light...

Hey, the truth hurts, folks, doesn't it - but please, oh please, don't use that as an excuse to shoot the messenger (of unpleasant facts and realities) that you wish were not the case.

It's known as objective, balanced, fair-minded journalism, folks...something you'd be wise to learn up on...if you fancy a legacy of being real, true-dinkum journalists...

...but no, I'm not losing any sleep imagining you're teachable enough to profit by the lesson...any time soon... As they say, dreams are free - and apparently in great supply of late...

Yes, I'll admit it certainly suits the obvious as partisan political purposes and underlying agenda of unbalanced 'snowflakers' to put abroad such spurious rubbish - and at every available opportunity - but that don't make it fair and reasonable journalism, folks... 

Yes Indeed - 'All [Religions] are Equal, but' - most definitely - 'Some are [a whole lot] more Equal than Others...

Two 'small but significant' news items contributed to - gave me the impetus for - what will follow forthwith...-to wit, a Newshub (6 pm Sunday May 5th, TV3) News item (and a follow-up by, I believe the morning host's name is, Tim Dower, on Newstalk ZB this morning); and an all too pertinent observation by Newstalk ZB British correspondent Rod Little just under two weeks ago...

But last things first...as they don't say...

The modern-day genocide of Christians throughout the Middle East...

is finally getting some media coverage, and in NZ Inc's mainstream media no less...

and moreover upon a TV channel not always known for its sympathies toward those of the Christian faith (at least in Western lands and/or the strictly orthodox, evangelical, 'fundamentalist' variety)...

So all credit to TV3, which has long been - far and away, in my un-esteemed opinion, anyway - the leader in the 6 pm slot (whether upon weekday or weekend nights) for its lengthy and thoroughgoing backgrounders upon overseas issues of interest (to me, myself and I, anyhow)...

Victoria - no, not Wellington - University's longtime and well-respected Professor of Religious Studies, Peter Lineham, thereafter was invited to give his own evaluation of just why it is that the horrific treatment of Christians in the Middle East has been so ignored...

But 'sadly', this'll have to be continued...following sufficient shuteye, a rare quantity indeed of recent times...

As I was commentating...

Said news item cited British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt as bringing this matter to the world's attention (among hosts of others, of course - if anyone (in Western media) was even listening)...

...mentioning for example that upwards of ninety-(five-)some percent or so of Middle Eastern Christians were no longer such...whether through persecution, torture and/or killing, emigration (economic or as regular ole refugees) and/or otherwise (doubtless including 'forced' conversions)...

And so, for instance, whereas 10-15-20% of Middle Easterners had been (at least nominally) Christians (in the early-to-mid 1900s or so), that number had now plummeted to well-nigh 1/2 %.

Professor Lineham cited three essential reasons for this dramatic change...which he (as the newscasters themselves, along with Minister Hunt) had no qualms whatsoever in deeming a modern-day genocide: 'extremist' -esp. Islamist (read: Sissii Internationale, Hocus Bedlam, and Les Kebabs) 'elements'; 'complicit (M/E) governments' not wanting to be seen to be sympathetic with such a (dissonant) minority religion and its (national) adherents; and the "erroneous idea" that somehow or other Christianity was a religious "import" into the Middle East, whereas the (rather easily ascertained) truth of the matter was and is that the Christian religion traces its origins way back to those very lands themselves...

Necessary Postscript:
The very reluctance of media (especially the Western variety, it seems) to get involved in covering this was put down to (what can only be deemed a perverted sense of) political correctness, especially odd when the Christian religion is seen in its true context as an ancient faith being effectively wiped out and driven from its ancient homeland...

...and the (equally perverse) fear of being seen as somehow or other - by such 'sympathetic' coverage - condoning or sanctioning what (some in the West, equally erroneously) perceive as colonialism, i.e. the quite frankly rather bitter and twisted idea that Christianity in such an automatically assumed 'Islamic' region of the world was a species of just such outmoded, antiquated Western cultural domination of supposedly less enlightened parts of the globe...

Part Two (A Disturbing but Classic Example of the Aforesaid):

As an obviously quite unapologetic Brexit supporter, some in the media may not give him much time
- even if his views might well happen to represent those of up to half the British population, and at the very least a substantial proportion thereof...

....but I've found Newstalk ZB's UK correspondent Rod Little pretty discerning in his regular assessments of the state of play in the politics of those much troubled isles, at least since paying particular attention thereto in the aftermath of the June 23rd 2016 referendum...

And so, in light of - upon this occasion - recent world events, I paid more than the usual interest immediately post-Easter 2019 when he phoned in for his regular one-two minute chat with, not the usual morning host, Mike Hosking, but on this occasion, Christchurch-based talk host Mike Yardley...

And the gist of their very brief conversation pretty well 'said it all', and only added an exclamation mark to those aforementioned observations...

Assuming that neither would be at all upset or even concerned about my doing so, I'll defer here to simply 're-playing' for your 'enlightenment' and 'education' that very tete-a-tete...-having spent the best part, I imagine, of an hour listening and re-listening thereto a little prior to it being effectively relegated to station files (at the regular expiry of the week-long podcast etc availability of said radio transcript) a week or so ago...

But again for that you'll have to wait another day (or two/three)...yet suffice to say, coming as it did in the immediate backwash of the church bombings in Sri Lanka, the discussion carried some disturbing undertones indeed...I verily kid you not... 

Part Three (Succinct and Sobering Remarks Upon Western Media's Portrayal of all things Christian):

On the morn of April 23rd, as I tuned into Newstalk ZB, I heard the following conversation between Mike Yardley and UK correspondent Rod Little...which, I believe you'll agree, speaks for itself...

MY: "Let's move onto Sri Lanka, the awful news from Easter Sunday, the fatalities...What's been the British reaction to Sri Lanka?"

RL: "...Pretty muted...because nobody's come out and said there should be a commemoration for Christian people killed in the bombings [presumably referring to those that have been held for families of the Muslims massacred in Christchurch on March 15th]... 

No-one's tried [to identify] who could be the culprit, who may have been involved...it's as different from what happened in New Zealand as it's possible to imagine...

So no curiosity about who the perpetrators were and no great sympathy for the [families] of the people killed... ."

MY: "Wow - that's pretty stark...isn't it!"

RL: "It is pretty stark...and even this morning on the main BBC News programme they're saying someone else may be responsible...say [local] Buddhists...and we know they're not doing it...

So there's kind of this denial...

So all this good stuff New Zealand witnessed...and it was good...disappears when the shoe's on the other foot...when it's Christians being persecuted...

And there's a degree of anger about this in Britain...a great deal of anger growing about this at the moment... ."

(Italics used to highlight the vocal emphases.)

Indeed, nuff said!