Remembering Marni Pont O’Doherty

This needlepoint of The Blue Angel is dedicated to the memory of Marni Pont O’Doherty.

Marni Pont O’Doherty was 31 when she died on 9/11. She’s gone, but she’ll never be forgotten. Even though we never met, let me tell you a little about her. First, so you can see her and keep her in your memory, here’s a picture of Marni with her husband Joe.

She was a hard-working (senior vice president with Keefe, Bruyette & Woods) but fun person, the kind of person anybody would have loved to have as a friend: she had a curious mind and loved to know and do things. What’s the clue to that? Marni’s siblings, “Steven and Stefanie Pont [say t]heir younger sister threw herself into a series of hobbies, from needlepoint to painting to gardening, and delighted in researching amusing information and e-mailing her findings.” She liked needlepointing! How utterly fabulous that we have that in common. Plus, Marni liked to tell funny stories; she loved to talk. Just writing this about her brings a smile to my face cuz I’m thinking about some of the stories I’ve heard from other talkers. Providing substance for her gift for gab, Marni was also a voracious reader.

Marni had her life planned, her wedding and car saved for while still in college. Focused, bright, joyous, a source of delight to family and friends, a loving wife, a woman who loved life and gave it all she had. That was Marni Pont O’Doherty.

So, let us remember her on this eighth memorial of 9/11 and every day, taken so swiftly and cruelly from us. Let us rejoice in her life and the joy she brought to all those who knew her. Let us mourn her death and never ever forget how it came about. For Marni. For America.

Eternal and ever-wise God, for Marni’s loved ones, I pray that you may comfort them in their sorrow and give them peace, not as the world gives but as only You can give, in Christ Jesus, Amen.

Let us NEVER forget 9/11!

Let us remember, prayerfully, our slaughtered, their families, the military lives lost and the bodies broken in defense of our nation, President Bush who defended this country, President Obama who is destroying this country’s defenses. Lord have mercy.

Thanks to FoxNation for the photo.

Driving Obama

(This was originally written on 8/23 and I delayed its publication for a variety of reasons).

Sarah Palin is now driving the presidential agenda. She has done this through her judicious use of her Facebook page. Moreover, her control of the presidential agenda is made possible by a media and an administration that hates, fears, and sees her as a threat to the Obama administration’s attempt to replace the U.S. Constitution with socialism-communism.

Why if they hate and fear her are they letting her control the agenda? That control is an unforeseen consequence of their effort to destroy her.

The media and the Obama administration strongly desire to destroy Palin’s credibility as a viable presidential candidate. Thus, they have gone all out to decry her as stupid, as a lightweight, as being intellectually deficient. In spite of her return to Alaska after the election, Democrat party hacks continued their efforts to destroy Palin, this time financially through a series of groundless ethics charges which cost the state of Alaska and the governor herself both money and time to defend against. With Palin’s resignation from the governorship, the media and Democrat minions (I’m being really redundant here) have not let up on their assault on Palin. In the typical Obama manner of dealing with political opponents, Palin must be swept off the board entirely without any hope of restarting the game to unseat him.

This elimination of a powerful opponent cannot be accomplished unless the state-run media (SRM; the term also includes other administration lackeys) pay attention to Sarah Palin. That means not just reporting what she has said, but also distorting her words. Sarah Palin’s response has been contrary to what Obama hoped for. Instead of disappearing into the Alaskan wilderness to lick her wounds, she has created her own forum via Facebook through which she speaks to America. Given the media’s investment in her destruction, they are following her avidly and reporting on what she writes, with distortions, of course. This SRM attention has served to insert Palin into the news cycle as a major player even while telling us she’s too dumb to understand much of anything.

The change in control began with this statement of Palin’s on Section 1233 of H.R. 3200:

The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.

Note the quotes around “death panel.” That signifies not an actual but a figurative usage for impact. Had the SRM been less hell-bent on destroying Sarah Palin, they would have ignored her statement. Instead, they seized upon her figurative and distorted it into a literal as though Palin didn’t know what she was talking about. Moreover, commentators and politicians, Democrats and Republican, piled on thereby proving Palin’s ignorance to the SRM. True, the actual words “death panel” do not appear in Section 1233 of H. R. 3200. Who would expect it to?! However, that is the logical inference that is the be drawn from the passage, and Sarah Palin drew it thus proving she is more astute than the SRM and the politicians who, having not read the bill at all, hastened to the mike to proclaim her idiocy, ignoring Obama’s own support for such commissions.

Obama, following the precedent he laid down during the campaign of paying attention to the opposition VP candidate when he should not have at all, did not ignore Palin but responded to her remarks and made them even more graphic. He spoke of “death panels that will pull the plug on Grandma.” If Sarah Palin’s properly drawn conclusion did not insufficiently attract the attention of Americans, Obama’s flippant response certainly did. Where “death panels” was a vivid figure of speech, Obama personalized it further and gave it a face, “Grandma,” and made Americans recoil in horror. Obama’s response gave Palin the opportunity to amplify and strike back at him with support from his own side of the aisle. As usual, Obama’s tendency to heckle his opponents as idiots led him deeper into hot water. For, the point at which he not only used Palin’s figurative as a literal, and amplified it, became the point at which he lost control of the agenda and Palin began to drive it. Had he and the SRM been less arrogant and less intent on destroying Sarah Palin, events might have unfolded differently. Instead of Obama framing the debate, Sarah Palin did and brought Obamacare down around his big ears.

She’s no longer the former failed VP-candidate, as the SRM loved to say; instead, she’s the David who brought down the goliath called Obamacare with one graphic figurative, “death panels,” and, in so doing, with his help, dealt a devastating blow to Obama and the Democrats. Palin ground Obama’s face in the mess. She said, “I join millions of Americans in expressing appreciation for the Senate Finance Committee’s decision to remove the provision in the pending health care bill that authorizes end-of-life consultations (Section 1233 of HR 3200). It’s gratifying that the voice of the people is getting through to Congress; however, that provision was not the only disturbing detail in this legislation; it was just one of the more obvious ones.” In other words, Palin was the game changer and she was letting Obama and his SRM know it.

Not content to rest on her laurels, Palin is now asking questions that will continue to drive the health care agenda, wresting power and control away from Obama. This will happen no matter who in the SRM and the political chattering class is unwise enough to claim she doesn’t know anything. Palin writes, “So I have new questions for the president: Why no legal reform? Why continue to encourage defensive medicine that wastes billions of dollars and does nothing for the patients? Do you want health care reform to benefit trial attorneys or patients?” With these questions, Palin strikes at the crux of Obamacare: it’s not about health care reform and improvement but about power and control. It is about benefitting Democrats and their constituents. It is not about saving money but about controlling lives. “Why no legal reform?” is a question that Obama must address if he is to have any credibility on the health care issue, especially since Palin has already laid out the case demonstrating that tort reform is a cost saver to the tune of about $200 billion and increases the availability of medical services where tort reform has been enacted.

Having responded to Palin on the first issue, Obama dare not be silent on this second. To be silent is to sit back and watch tort reform come to front and center stage without his input. Palin did not just destroy Obamacare; she provided a viable and better alternative to the one proposed by Obama when she introduced tort reform as a way of fixing what is broken with the U.S. health care system without the drastic measure of converting it into a single payer (government run) system. If Obama ignores Palin, he will be steamrolled as talks about tort reform takes front and center stage; he will be made irrelevant to the reform as it will be Palin’s agenda, rather than his, that is being implemented.

Palin’s full court press against Obama’s pernicious agenda continues with another question on the American economy: “So why is it that during these tough times, when we have great needs at home, the Obama White House is prepared to send more than two billion of your hard-earned tax dollars to Brazil so that the nation’s state-owned oil company, Petrobras, can drill off shore and create jobs developing its own resources? That’s all Americans want; but such rational energy development has been continually thwarted by rabid environmentalists, faceless bureaucrats and a seemingly endless parade of lawsuits aimed at shutting down new energy projects.” Again, she is hitting Obama and the Democrats where they are weak and at a time when fuel prices are once more rising. Is Brazil better than America? Is Brazil more just and less racist than America? Why does Obama deem that it is well to invest two billion of American taxpayer dollars into the Brazilian oil industry while shutting down the U.S. oil industry? Is that not what he and the Democrats are doing with their refusal allow drilling anywhere at all, in the U.S., that is? The hypocrisy of this investment is astonishing. If alternative fuels are good enough for the U.S., though yet unrealized, should they not be good enough for other countries? Are Brazilians more worthy of employment than Americans that taxpayers should invest in Brazilian oil exploration, which will provide jobs there but not here? It is to be hoped that Palin will raise the issue again and again so that the SRM, convinced of her idiocy, will report on her “ignorance” on energy matters.

As candidate, Obama framed the race as one between himself and Sarah Palin. As president, Obama finds that he’s overmatched by the woman the SRM misunderestimates. For, she’s busy proving that she doesn’t need to be in political office to be in charge of the national agenda; all she’s got to do is ask the right questions. Obama is phoning in his presidency; he’s got no idea of what’s in the health care bill because, just like his fellow Democrats, he hasn’t read it. All he knows is the one big thing: he wants to bring America to her knees. Sarah Palin is not phoning in her opposition to him. That is why she will unseat him from the White House in 2012, in spite of ACORNs best efforts to steal the election for Obama.

For a stupid woman who has no idea what she’s about, Sarah Palin has positioned herself to be more powerful and influential than the sitting president. It takes great stupidity to accomplish a feat like that.

Dead-eye Sarah

Watch the best ever political speech since Ronald Reagan’s 1976 Convention speech. H’tip Conservatives4Palin.

Palin’s delivery, timing, tone, scalpel were sharp and dead on. When she finished, the entire world knew that Barack Obama was an egotistical, self-obsessed do-nothing who had “written” two “autobiographies” but never a piece of legislation to benefit the constituents who had elected him to office. Obama’s always saying “it’s not about me”; Palin’s speech showed that statement for the lie it is.

Listen to Palin’s speech and reflect on the eight months of the Obama administration. She didn’t lie about him. She revealed him to the bone. Everything she said he’d do, he’s doing.

Palin began to kill Obama softly that night at the GOP Convention, death by a thousand cuts. She’s still slicing and dicing him. Her last victory? “Death panels” stuck a fork in his communist agenda for the U.S. She’s driving Obama now. That’s why the media and the Obama administration hate her and will do anything to destroy her.

The American People’s House

The White House is the AMERICAN people’s house. It is not for foreigners of any stripe to ask for and be granted the right to have THEIR FLAG flown in front of OUR HOUSE. Yet, that is the right that Obama’s WH has given to the Chinese who wish “to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of PRC.” The Chinese have their embassy in D.C. Let them hoist their celebratory flag there, not in front of the White House. Is this the price that the U.S. must pay for being indebted to the Chinese? The WH which stands as a symbol of life, democracy, republicanism, individual liberty, religious freedom, pursuit of happiness, and constitutional rights for all citizens is to be the backdrop for a flag which represents the exact opposite. Ah, but I forget. We have a president for whom none of these values mean anything.

On July 14, 1920, Bastille Day, the French flag was flown above the WH, and for good reason. France stood with the U.S. at a critical juncture meriting such an honor. Furthermore, the POW/MIA flag of the National League of Families has most deservedly “been displayed in this place of honor on National POW/MIA Recognition Day since 1982.”

If the Chinese flag is flown at the White House, whose flag will be next? How soon after the Chinese flag can we expect to see the flag of Islam flying from the pinnacle of the WH? You think the Muslims won’t demand? They’ve already stated their intention. Allowing the Chinese to fly their flag at the White House on September 20th, 2009, will set a precedent for when Obama consents to the Muslims’ request to have the flag of Islam to be flown atop it. See, he will say, we flew the Chinese flag on September 20th, why should we discriminate against Muslims who want the same thing—thus making the Chinese a fig-leaf to mask a darker Islamic supremacist agenda.

Obama has already declared that the U.S., with 70% of the population as self-professed Christians, is not a Christian nation but rather is “one of the largest Muslim countries in the world.” The flag of Islam at the WH would set the seal on that, in the minds of the world’s Muslims at least.

It is debatable whether this Chinese flag issue is really aimed at the PRC celebration. It is more likely intended to look past the Chinese to the Muslims, to his groveling before, lauding, and elevation of Islam. The Chinese here are likely tools to be used to further another piece of Obama’s anti-America, anti-Constitution agenda, and the flag of Islam is the embodiment of that to the nth degree. Tools or not, let the Chinese use their own embassy, a bit of China on American soil, to hoist their flag and have their celebration.

Just words!

Words don’t mean a thing to Dems. Some words like ‘ethics‘? Too big to spell/have.

H’tip InstaPundit.

Ball check

We know his predecessor had ‘em. Big brass ones. The question though is, does Obama have any? Does he have what it takes?

Warped loom

The warp did it!

Emerging stars.

Dead is still dead

Mohammed Jawad said he was 12 when he was sent to Guantanamo. His crime? Nothing much: “suspicion of throwing a grenade into a Jeep carrying US special forces soldiers through Kabul, wounding two of them and an interpreter,” by the standards of the human rights watch crowd, at least. I guess US military personnel have no human rights.

The subtext of the story linked is that soldiers saw and identified Jawad as the thrower, but doubted it because of his age and size, and they arrested him. US soldiers aren’t in the habit of grabbing kids and imprisoning them for kicks.

Was it right for them to send a 12 year old boy to Guantanamo? Here’s the answer to that question: Is a person killed by a juvenile any less dead than a person killed by an adult?

Passing

So, Ted Kennedy is dead. Condolences to his family. May God grant him rest.

Pearls

Yesterday, I went pearl-shopping for family and friends. I left the apartment at 8 AM and returned at 11:30 PM. In between, there was three hours spent at the pearl seller having various pieces made up.

The pearls are sold in long strands.

That’s why the black pearls were quickly strung together; the clerk only needed to remove enough pearls to make the bracelet and add the extras to the necklace.

On the other hand, a choker and matching bracelet took most of the three hours because they were made from nine strands which had to be broken apart so each pearl could be added, one-by-one, to create them. It was a lengthy and tiring process requiring excellent vision and steady hands.

Lillstina

In reviewing the original post on Lilly, I realize I’d never posted a pix of her. Here it is, and Lilly’s got the first rug I’ve ever made—a gift for my nephew.

Backstrap weaver

Yangshuo, China.

Weaving the stars

I’m just beginning to weave this on a basic frame loom with a continuous warp. I should say “just beginning to TRY to weave this because I’m not sure how to recreate the starry effect.

There are three possible solutions, from what I can see: spots; crossed wefts in contrary/parallel motion; and soumak. I’m leaning towards parallel motion. Ideas would be helpful.

UPDATE: Well, I have been weaving Eye of the Universe, my name for the image, using crossed wefts in parallel motion, and I like how it looks. I use needles that are about six inches long cuz they give me more control than a shuttle or bobbin system.

They’re easier to handle and hold, and they’re can be navigated through the warps in a way that a shuttle or loaded bobbin can’t.

Here’s also a tapestry needle made from a wooden knitting needle using a knife and a screwdriver set to create a hole in one end. No, no drill, so I just used what’s handy.

UPDATE: Scrap that. The regularity of the dots with crossed wefts in parallel motion is not quite what I’m looking for. Best thing to do, ask advice from the tapestry list.

UPDATE: I got good advice from the tapestry list, so now the ’stars’ are being woven with soumak knots. My only other problem is to insert enough white in the stars to create an impression of glow. Above my pay grade? I don’t know. I don’t think that problem-solving creativity is above anybody’s pay grade.

UPDATE: The loom broke. I took it to get it repaired. The moron who repaired it hammered in a screw at the wrong angle and ruined one of the joints. Then, he compounded his idiocy by screwing the two pieces together not snugly fitting but with a gap. That’s the ethic here: who cares how the thing is done as long as it’s done? Anyway, I rewarped the loom; it has a nasty twist to it that suggests I’ll be looking for a loom in short order. Sigh.

Jesus on homosexuality

I’ve been thinking long and hard about Jesus on marriage and homosexuality. I think that critics have all been wrong that Jesus is silent on homosexuality and marriage. We Christians have all been wrong when we have argued—if we have—that Jesus is silent on it because the issue was settled law and He only raised points that had become twisted by Pharisaical logic. I have made this argument in the past. He is not. He is quite vocal. Let me explain. The Sermon on the Mount, Matt. 5:27-5:32. The discussion here embraces adultery and divorce. In getting into the thickets to restore God’s true teaching on marriage, adultery, and divorce, Jesus simultaneously condemns homosexuality and rules out marriage between people of the same sex.

Matthew says, you’ve heard it said adultery’s forbidden. I myself tell you that all who look on a woman to lust after her has already had illicit sex with her in his heart. (5.29 and 5.30 are expressions of the strictness of Jesus’ position on adultery. You’d have to go back to Leviticus to delve, dive, and wallow into the the holiness of God who hates all forms of sin and uncleanliness. That’s how serious this is. Lose a body part rather than lose yourself.) It’s been said that whoever divorces his wife will give her a divorce notice. I myself tell you that the man who divorces his wife, except for utterance (act) of sexuality infidelity, makes her to be adulterous, and if she having been divorced ever marries she is committing adultery.

That’s pretty straightforward, isn’t it. The same one who said He came to fulfill the Law and the Prophets is setting us straight on the marriage issue, and He delineates that with “I myself tell you.”

I’m looking at the Greek text, quite purposefully, because the articles, participles and pronouns there are totally unambiguous. No hedging or whingeing. No room for twisting like some would try. Jesus addresses marriage as between HIM/MAN and HER/WOMAN. Greek is not Chinese in which the spoken word for her/him is the same, ta. (In speaking English, the Chinese have a hard time with he/she, him/her and often confuse the two.) Greek is pretty unambiguous.

Ho blepwn, the man seeing the woman to desire authn, her, has already had screwed** authn, her, in his heart. (**I’m using this word to retain the accusative usage of ‘her’.) Next, whoever divorces the wife/woman of autou, his, will give auth, to her, divorce notice. Then, Ho apoluwn, the man divorcing the woman autou, of his, except for utterance (act) of sexual infidelity makes authn, her, to be adulterous, and if apolelumenhn, she having been divorced ever marries moixatai, she is committing adultery.

It’s pretty hard to dodge those pronouns, articles, and such. When it comes to people, there is no ambiguity with the Greek pronouns. So, what does this prove about homosexuality and marriage? How does Jesus condemn homosexuality? How does He reject marriage between the people of the same sex? How can I say Jesus is very vocal about it?

In the first case, Jesus answers what is marriage and what is its nature. Jesus asserts God’s definition of marriage from Genesis 2:24: marriage is the union in God of a man and a woman. The ‘Ho Blepwn’ and the ‘autou’ limit one of the parties to a male; ‘gynaika’ and ‘authn’ limit the other to a female. Furthermore, marriage is a spiritual and not a civil matter: it is ordained by God; the one flesh from two is not a physical but a spiritual. Jesus says the violation of the marriage union is not merely one of deed but also of intent of the heart even if there is no physical deed. That places marriage firmly in the spiritual realm where only God sees the heart; no other judge can. As a civil matter, the state is concerned merely about the acts done and not the thoughts or intended acts of the parties involves. In fact, the state can do nothing unless action has occurred; this is the norm with regard to law. God, on the other hand, will condemn you to hell for the thoughts of the heart. So the marriage is, in a sense, protected by God in that He watches over and punishes thoughts which would violate it. Why? The marriage of a man and a woman is a type of the marriage between Christ and the Church. He loves her and has no other lover but her. He died for her. Infidelity says not only can we no longer trust the marriage partner, but we also cannot trust that God will keep His word to us. So, marriage is a sacred and spiritual thing that should not be entered into lightly, and the partners in it are not of the same sex but of different sexes, one man, one woman. Note from the pronouns that polygamy is not an arrangement ordained by God.

In the second case, Jesus excludes from His definition of marriage any bond except that between a man and a woman. How do I figure that? Again, the language of the text. The verb ‘gamhsh’, marries, lacks an accusative/object in 5.32. Yet, the context is clear that Jesus is speaking of men and women marrying each other and not of two women or of two men. However, the sex of the second marriage partner, some might argue if they ever chose to try to defend their position from Scripture, is up for grabs. The door to same-sex marriage is open right here in the grammar of the absent accusative of ‘gamhsh’, they might argue, because Jesus does not specify the sex of the marriage partner as being male or female. The Gospels are called Synoptic for a reason: the same incident is seen through different eyes. In Mark 10.11, Jesus in the Sermon speaking of adultery from the man’s perspective uses ‘allhn’, female other, as the accusative of ‘gamhsh’; in Mark 10.12, from the woman’s perspective, it’s ‘allon’, male other, as the accusative. Why is this acceptable? Mark 10.11 and 10.12 explain Matthew 5.32. The hermeneutical standard is that Scripture interprets Scripture, and the intended sense is one. So, the idea that marriage is/should be an open field that would include two women/men united in God does not stand up to Scripture’s scrutiny. There is no marriage but that between a man and a woman. Moreover, since marriage is a spiritual and not a civil matter, the state lacks the power to alter its definition and nature. That does not mean that the state will not over-extend its reach and try to change the definition of marriage.

In the third case, Jesus excludes any other kind of sexual relationship except that which occurs in a marriage between a man and a woman. The key words are ‘thn gynaika autou’, his wife, and ‘authi’, to her. Again, grammar limits sense to one man and one woman. A right sexual relationship, He states, is a marital one between a man and a woman. Outside of marriage, sexual desiring will lead you to damnation, and you’d be better off losing the eye than being damned for following where it leads. From the heart flows an astonishing number of bad deeds, all of which will condemn you and set you at enmity with God. If marriage is limited to man and woman, and the intent and expression of sexual desire is limited to within the marriage, then homosexual desire and sexual relations are also condemned for that is definitely outside of God’s order for human sexual relationships. (Contrary to the popular cotton candy view of God, He’s not a Santa Claus, and He’s terrifyingly strict.)

In the fourth case, having defined marriage and its nature, Jesus has also spoken on what it is not. That is the nature of definitions. They are both positive and negative. When we assert what a thing is, by extension we utterly and vocally claim that everything else is not it. Jesus’ positive definition of marriage and human sexual relations asserts its obverse: marriage is not for two men/women. Absent His definition, we would have been free to mount the argument that Jesus’ silence betokens consent, but consent of what? Unambiguously, consent to the Old Testament dictum on marriage: one man, one woman***, and on the homosexual sex act: it is sin meriting death, like all sin. (Romans 6:23)

So that leaves us where we began with some angry at the Church and demanding but unable to obtain support from orthodox Christians. The anger with the Church and Christians is misplaced; not us, but Christ. Look past us to Christ. Cry out to Him and ask Him why. We cannot change what He has said or written because the vessel cannot tell the potter what to do.

(It is noteworthy that that is the position of the NT in the book in which the Lamb speaks as frowning Judge, and in which the sexually immoral of every stripe are excluded from God’s presence (Rev 22.10). Homosexuality is included in that ’sexually immoral’ descriptor because in action it is neither celibate (the requirement for singles) nor is it a faithful man-woman relationship. That doesn’t mean that we are to be in the business of killing homosexuals; judgment is of God, and until a man dies, God gives him every chance to repent of his sin.***For those who wish to assert, contrary to fact, that the OT condones polygamy, that is not the case. In Genesis, God clearly established marriage as between A man and A woman. In fact, the divine view of polygamy is that it is the source of much trouble. Polygamy is a human invention, one that God worked on our hearts to eradicate.)

Marriage is what it is; God’s Word is what it is. He is not Santa Claus and His Word is not cotton candy. Many of us say “I can’t live with that standard” and try to invent a God we can live with. Repentance is better than idolatry, obedience than sacrifice. God offers forgiveness; He extends His hands to us all day long and the conversation we have with Him is between us and Him. For His lovingkindness and tender mercies towards us and our failings, let us give thanks.