•••

Just a transcript of the logs from the St. Matthew the Evangelist Show (SMtE)

SMtE: Thanks for coming on the St. Matthew the Evangelist Show, Jesus. I know you’re a busy man so let’s get right to it. You probably know of the great income disparity in the world today. What would you tell those who call themselves ‘Christians’ to do about it?

J :    Go and sell what you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. 19:21

SMtE:  Gee, I don’t hear any televangelist saying that. That’s a pretty hard thing to do, give all your money to the poor. No wonder
there aren’t that many true Christians.

J :    Many are called but few are chosen. 22: 14 The harvest is rich, but laborers are few. 9:37

SMtE:  But you’re saying the opposite of what our consumer culture is telling us, that we should be as rich as we possibly can.

J:     You can’t serve both God and money. 6:24 You must worship God and serve him alone. 4:10

SMtE:  So you’re saying we shouldn’t want to be rich, huh?

J:     I tell you truly, it will be hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. 19:23 It is a narrow gate and a hard road that leads
to life, and only a few find it. 7: 14 Many who are first will be last, and the last, first. 19:30

SMtE: Yikes, it sounds like there are a lot of rich and famous people we won’t be seeing in the hereafter. What would you tell the Occupy Wall St. folks, who are protesting the inequalities of our economic and political system?

J:     Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice. 5:6

SMtE:  But they’re getting beat up by the police!

J:     Blessed are those who are persecuted in the cause of righteousness. 5:10  Don’t be afraid of those who can kill the body, but not kill the spirit. 10: 28

SMtE:  But they’ll haul them off to court to face a judge. What then?

J:     Don’t worry about how to speak or what to say, because it is not you who will be speaking. The Holy Spirit will be speaking through you. 10:19, 20

SMtE: But you’re facing a court of law.

J:    The weightier matters of the Law are justice, mercy and faithfulness. 23: 23

SMtE:  Golly, I’m not sure they teach that even in Christian law schools! I gotta tell ya, the police state and all, sometimes I get
scared, not for myself but for my kids and grandkids.

J:     Don’t worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow will take care of itself. 6:34

SMtE:  Yeah, but it’s still a little scary.

J:    Why are you frightened, oh ye of little faith? 8: 26

SMtE: Well, okay, I admit I’m a little lacking there.

J:     Don’t be afraid. 17:7 If your faith was the size of a mustard seed, nothing would be impossible. 17:20

SMtE: Do you think we should be going to church more?

J:     When you pray, go to your private room and pray to your Father,  who is in that secret place. 6:6

SMtE: The churches are telling people to be critical of abortion, contraception, gays, and all things pubic. What would you tell them?

J:     Do not judge and you will not be judged, because the judgments you give are the judgments you will get, and the amount you measure out is the amount you will be given. 7: 1, 2 That is how my heavenly Father will deal with you, unless you forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart. 18:35

SMtE:  There are a lot of people making huge sacrifices for those causes. What do you want from them?

J:     What I want is mercy, not sacrifice. 9: 13

SMtE:  But what our priests and preachers and televangelists are saying is so opposite to that!

J:     Beware of false prophets! 7: 15 The tree can be told by its fruit. 12: 34 It is not those who say ‘Lord, Lord’ who will enter the
kingdom, but the person who does the will of my Father in heaven. 7:21

SMtE:  Have you been reading about pedophiles in the clergy recently?

J:     Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of God. 18: 3 Never despise any of these
little ones. Their angels in heaven are continually in the presence of my Father. 18:10

SMtE:  What do you think of free speech? Does anything go?

J:     By your words you will be acquitted, and by your words condemned. 12: 37 The things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and it is these that make a person unclean. 15:18

SMtE:  You probably know what’s happening between the US and Iran today. What words of wisdom would you give Americans to meet this crisis?

J:     Always treat others as you would like them to treat you. 7: 12  Do not be afraid. 14:28

SMtE:  Fair enough, but what will we tell the Zionists who are goading us into a war?

J:     Hypocrites! It was you Isaiah meant when he so rightly prophesied: This people honors me only with lip-service, while their
hearts are far from me. 15: 7,8

SMtE:  Is there anything you’d like to say to us to wrap things up?

J:     O, faithless and perverse generation! 17:17 What does it gain for a person to win the world and lose his soul? And what will a
person offer in exchange for her soul? 16:26 You are all brothers and sisters. 23: 8

SMtE:  Gosh, why is it that humans just can’t seem to get things straight?

J:     The worries of this world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word. 13: 22

SMtE:  Hey, I gotta tell ya that this has been great, and probably wonderful for the show’s ratings. Thanks a lot.

J:     Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. 6: 21
___________

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Charles Rayner Kelly is a retired educator, a philosopher and a novelist. Among his novels is LITTLE POOR MAN The Story of St. Francis of Assisi

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//

Patrice Greanville

It’s no secret for those who haven’t been asleep the last few centuries that the American media are excellent at “softening opposition” at home by preparing the American public for military or CIA adventures, wherever and whenever the Washington camarillas decide the time has come to strike. The American media have a long history as an imperial enabler.

The case of Iraq is naturally the most egregious and tragic example in recent memory, but the same cynical script has been applied over and over again in many other places—from Korea (1950), to Iran (1953) to Guatemala (1954),  to Vietnam (1959), to Chile (1973) to Libya—and this is just a sampler of US meddling in the postwar period.  Our imperial depredations go back to the 19th century and much of the first part of the 20th. Remember the Philippines and Cuba?  Does Augusto Cesar Sandino ring any bells? (Bill Blum, a frequent contributor, has written a helpful guide to this obnoxious record, Rogue State.)

Right now, as we write these lines, the American media and their criminal counterparts in Europe and elsewhere are busily demonizing the Syrian and Iranian governments, with the usual sinister consequences for such peoples and the world at large. This follows a literal script for “regime change and destabilization.”  Yes, there’s a manual for it. We ran an excellent piece on exactly this topic,

As a result of this unrelenting barrage of misinformation, event manipulation (think false flags)  and blatant omissions of truth, a formula that frequently requires a fair amount of jingoism to make it work, and which, mind you, never lets up, most Americans remain blissfully ignorant or indifferent in terms of what American power is up to in the world, preferring to believe the usual flattering falsehoods served up by the establishment. It is in this perfidious matrix of lies that mass communications creatures like Ann Curry and Angeline Jolie (they’re basically interchangeable when it comes to these purposes) wittingly or unwittingly prove their usefulness to the system.  Curry of course is a media celeb attached to NBC news, which makes her, by definition, a media scoundrel. Jolie, a clueless but famous liberal and would-be do-gooder currently anointed by the UN, is an interloper who, along with fellow celebs George Clooney, Sean Penn, Mia Farrow and others, have lent their names and faces to campaigns for “humane intervention” —the latest fad for self-realization in this politically besotted and useless lot.  Anyone of these lightweights may be found at any given time offering the Pentagon a convenient public relations cover for precisely what it plans to do in various targeted regions.

Regarding the “news item” below, if you still don’t quite get what’s happening in Syria, just do a little search in our files and a multitude of articles will pop up explaining it all.  But whatever you do, don’t fall for these elaborate tricks. Stay sharp.  And pass your wisdom to others.

Media critic Patrice Greanville is founding editor of The Greanville Post.

____________
Angelina Jolie visits Syrian border, pleads for end to ‘horrific situation’
By Randee Dawn, TODAY contributor
The Syrian civil war has been raging for more than a year and a half, and Tuesday morning a fresh face stepped into the mix, as Angelina Jolie visited the Al Zaatri refugee camp near the country’s border with Jordan. TODAY’s Ann Curry was on hand to find out what the actress saw, and what it all meant.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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Kristine Mattis, TGP/CJT contributing editor

In 1900, the first year from which we have health statistics about the leading causes of death in the United States, cancer was eighth on the list. Today, cancer is the second leading cause of death in this country and, any moment now, is poised to usurp heart disease as the nation’s number one killer.

I am four years past my own cancer diagnosis, which occurred when I was 36 (and, ironically, in the midst of finishing a Master’s degree about environmental risk prevention, an interest of mine for almost twenty years). The many doctors I have visited since then all repeat the mantra that I was far too young for such an occurrence of cancer. Like most people, physicians think that cancer is an old person’s disease, and that cancer incidence is increasing due to an aging populace with an increasing lifespan. This, despite the fact that cancer is actually the second leading cause of death in U.S. adults aged 25-44, after accidents. Within four years, I and three friends, all in our 30s, had cancer. Two of us are alive. Two of us are not.

My doctors all seem to regard my cancer as simply a fluke, never inquiring about, investigating, or even considering potential causes save for “genetic predispositions.” Because I had no previous history of illness of any kind, and no risk factors (I maintain a healthy weight, exercise regularly, eat a vegetarian diet full of whole, natural foods), and because I now seem to be back to being disease free, most of the half-dozen doctors I have visited since my diagnosis do not concern themselves with the reasons why I acquired cancer. They either assume a “genetic susceptibility” and urge me to undergo genetic testing, regardless of the fact that my family history does not support that hypothesis, or they ignore the question of etiology entirely.

The population-level statistics about cancer deaths in relation to other causes of death belie the notion that cancer runs in families and that genetic predisposition is an important factor in cancer etiology. If cancer were mainly due to heritable genetics, it would almost definitely be decreasing due to natural selection. Evolution normally does not maintain deleterious genes that do not confer any known benefit. Certainly, genetic susceptibility may account for differential diagnoses among individuals and populations, but just as some people are more susceptible to cold, flu, allergies, or poison ivy outbreaks, neither these ailments nor cancer are caused by heritable factors. They could not and would not occur without exposures to certain agents.

The recent Stand Up 2 Cancer telethon aimed to raise money for cancer research, most of which goes toward studies about genetic factors related to the disease and toward treatment. As I previously mentioned, genetic factors merely increase one’s odds, but without exposure to a causal agent, they would, for the most part, be nullified. Those who study risks know the general formula of: Risk = Hazard + Exposure. In the case of cancer, genetic susceptibility is simply a hazard, without the exposure to the other underlying hazard, the carcinogen, risk is eliminated. Of course, people require treatment. But how much money does cancer treatment cost us all? What about those who cannot afford treatment? How much harm do the treatments – themselves carcinogenic – wreak?

I heard a scientist speak on the radio about how, with the advancement of cancer therapies, we will soon be more likely to live with the disease, much like people live with diabetes. But what happens when we use up our natural resources needed to provide such therapies? While our society seems concerned about what might occur when our energy resources are exhausted, we seem to forget about the many other resources we so mindlessly consume, as if there exists an endless supply. They are not never-ending. What happens when we run out of the chemicals needed for chemotherapy or radiation therapy? Although this scenario is still quite distant, it is far from implausible. When this occurs, will we be left with a world rife with often long-lasting carcinogenic pollutants and no means to deal with their effects on our health?

When not implicating heritable genes, we like to attribute cancer to lifestyle factors, particularly obesity, but obesity is merely related to cancer in that it increases the body’s ability to store carcinogens, in adipose tissue (i.e., fat cells). Likewise, poor diet increases exposure to potentially carcinogenic agents in food, and along with lack of exercise, decreases immune and endocrine function, which help the body prevent and rid itself of cancer. None of these lifestyle factors are a direct cause of the disease.

While some carcinogenic agents are naturally occurring, the vast majority are now man-made. Though we know what causes cancer – ionizing radiation (e.g., nuclear radiation), non-ionizing radiation (e.g., ultraviolet light from the sun), chemical agents (e.g., polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), biological agents (e.g., human papillomavirus), and materials (e.g., asbestos) – we rarely talk about avoiding and abolishing the causes, save for sun exposure and viral agents. Why do we work on remediation rather than precaution? Clearly, it is because every other known cause is explicitly linked to capitalism and industry. No one is allowed to disrupt the corporate industrial machine. It is verboten to speak ill of the main drivers of the economy, which coincidentally, are also the main drivers of human (and other biological) death.

So, while the celebrity contingent of the 1% are on TV asking us 99% to donate our hard-earned and paltry wages toward cancer research, we might want to think about why we are not being asked to contribute to cancer prevention. And to be clear, prevention is not equivalent to detection. Mammograms (also carcinogenic) and colonoscopies, for example, merely detect breast or colon cancer. They do not prevent oncogenesis. Prevention means, at the very least, the elimination of the carcinogenic exposures, and at best, the eradication of cancer-causing agents themselves.

We might want to consider how much agony is felt from a diagnosis of cancer by patients and friends and family of those patients. We might want to ponder how much excruciating pain cancer therapy inflicts upon its subjects. We might want to reflect upon how much heartbreak cancer deaths bring to those who are left behind. And we might want to remember that cancer is, to an extremely large extent, preventable. We merely need the will and effort to value biological and ecological health above economic growth.

Kristine Mattis is a teacher, writer, scientist, activist, and agitator. She is currently a PhD student in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at UW-Madison. Before returning to graduate school, Kristine worked as a medical researcher, as a reporter for the congressional record in the U.S. House of Representatives, and as a schoolteacher. She and her partner blog when they can at www.rebelpleb.blogspot.com

 

__________

ADDENDUM
The Stand Up To Cancer media barrage, the official story (WIKI)
As anyone can see, given the excessive media coverage, this effort is dear to the priggish establishment players behind it. Whats more, from their capitalistoid perspectives, it is the thing to do, and woe to those who find fault with it.

Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C) is a charitable program of the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF) established by media, entertainment and philanthropic leaders who have been affected by cancer. SU2C aims to raise significant funds for translational cancer research through online and televised efforts. Central to the program is a telethon that was televised by three major broadcast networks (ABC, NBC, CBS) in over 170 countries on September 5, 2008. SU2C made over $100 million after that evenings broadcast.

The telethon returned on Friday, September 10, 2010 at 8/7c to ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, Bio., Current, Discovery Health, E!, G4, HBO, HBO Latino, MLB Network, Mun2, Showtime, Smithsonian Channel, Style Network, TV One and VH1.

The Telethon returned on Friday, September 7, 2012 at 8/7c to ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, E!, VH1, Style Network, Smithsonian Channel, Ion Television, TBS, Encore, Starz, HBO, Showtime, HBO Latino, Bio., MLB Network, LMN, Mun2, Palladia and Logo.

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THANK YOU.

 

Editor’s Note

Stars Earn Stripes is a reality television program which premiered on NBC on August 13, 2012.

Wolf