Christ in Christmas

I hate writing this so close to Christmas.  I am not a religious man, but Christmas is a time that gives me warm and fuzzy feelings, nonetheless.  It is a time when I come home to Richmond to be with my family and to celebrate an event I know best as told in the Gospel according to Luke, King James Version.

10 And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
12 And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
14 Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.


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News from the Early am

The Capitol

The Capitol


It’s 3:00 am and I was about to go to bed. Two pieces of news have come across my computer screen. One involves a piece of legislation that has been in the works for many months, the other a tragedy involving a young Hollywood talent. In the first item:

Democrats won a major victory in their push for health care reform early Monday morning as the Senate voted to end debate on a package of controversial proposals to a sweeping $871 billion bill.

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The Health Care Debate: Our Facts and Our Opinions

No wonder the public is confused.
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I read about this on The Raw Story.

Consumers Union Seeks Support for Last Chance Effort on Health Care Reform

HospitalI got this today from Consumers Union Action Fund. It’s worth passing along.
Dear Michael,
In just days, the future of your health care could come down to only one vote.
We’re at a turning point with the Senate bill. The voice of real people must be heard to make sure the bill emerges with the protections that give you freedom and security rather than endless financial uncertainty.
The Senate bill will expand coverage and save lives–but it can and must be improved. The fact remains, if the Senate bill dies in the next week, we can’t fight on to make the final bill better as the process continues. A defeat in the Senate only serves the giant insurance companies, who will continue denying you coverage, denying you care when you need it, and making big profits doing so. Continue reading

Three Interesting Links from Morocco

This post is simply to pass on a few links, all relating to Morocco.
The first is to the site for the Maroc Blog Awards. The title is slightly misleading because you don’t just vote on blogs. There is an award for the photo, Facebook group, and Twitterer of the year, among others. Morocco and Moroccans don’t have a huge online presence. It’s a small country. But they took to the internet relatively early in the global scheme of things. I attended a conference about the internet in Morocco in the mid 1990s and it was packed. It is also a pretty well wired country and lots of Moroccans who are active in online media outside of Morocco still prominently identify their online selves as Moroccan, so there is some good stuff for voters to choose from. It will be interesting to see, however, if any of the recently arrested bloggers. The latest was on December 8.
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"The Boy from Lebanon" or "The Killer Kid"?

A good percentage of the entries I write for this blog end up being here totally by accident, and that is the case with this one. I watched a film last night called The Boy from Lebanon. It’s a pretty powerful and intense film, though problematic. One way that it is so is that it is presented as a true story, but doesn’t appear to be so. So I went online to check that out. While doing so I found comments on YouTube preview clips that I wanted to respond to, so I went back after finishing my quick research and wrote them up. I did so, finished what I had to say, clicked on enter and wanted to go on. But by then my entry was too long and it wasn’t accepted.

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"The Listening Post": Analysis of World Media


The listening post from Al Jazeera’s English service is an excellent and urgently needed program that give contest to international media coverage. The show is important because people now have access to media from all over the world, but seldom understand the context in which that media is produced. We often have trouble assessing the reliability of our own media, but what if you are reading something published in France, China, Dubai, or Mexico?
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Paranoia about Islam in the West

In the opinion of Arlington (Tennessee) Mayor Russell Wiseman, President Barack Obama’s speech on Tuesday night on the war in Afghanistan was deliberately timed to block the Christian message of the “Peanuts” television Christmas special.
Wiseman made the statements on his Facebook page, where he declared Obama to be a Muslim. Only people on Wiseman’s “friend’s list” had access to the post. He has more than 1,600 friends on Facebook.
–via The Commercial Appeal

Before I get to the main reason why I am writing today, let me address the good Mayor’s comment that President Obama is a Muslim. He has said time and time again that he is not, but even if he is lying, take a look at his behavior. He eats pork, drinks alcohol, consorts with folks of all faiths, goes to a Christian church and never prays. He’s a very bad Muslim, if he is. More than that, he preempted the Peanuts Christmas Special to order 30,000 troops into a Muslim country! With friends like that….
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Pass this on! "Single-Payer Healthcare History in a Number: S. 2837"

This is a wonderful and urgent article. Pass it on. There isn’t much time left.
Single-Payer Healthcare History in a Number: S. 2837

The time draws short to weigh in clearly with your Senators. We know they will not get to the point of passing a single-payer system this time around. But we also know they can begin setting the benchmarks for what we should do going forward. And with a yes vote on this amendment, Senators send us the message that they heard us, that they will keep fighting with us until the day when this nation no longer leaves the weak, the sick and the poor behind in the delivery of its most basic human rights.
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What’s in a number? Everything. Senate Amendment No. 2837. Everyone in, nobody out.

Scholars at Risk Academic Freedom Media Review

November 20 – December 3, 2009
Compiled by Scholars at Risk

Writers at Risk
Corydon Ireland, Harvard Gazette, 12/3

Iranian Given 9-Year Sentence for Protesting
Nazila Fathi, The New York Times, 12/2

Iranian American Faces New Spying Charge
Nazila Fathi, The New York Times, 11/25

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