On this day in 1925, Mae West was sentenced to ten days jail for her play she wrote and starred in, Sex. The play had run for ten months, and was seen by over 325,000 patrons before the censors sprang into action. The play had been inspired by a prostitute West had seen in 1924. The girl wore street clothes and had a sailor in each arm and West had remarked she could afford better clothes, but her taxi companion pointed out she couldn't and told her of the economics of the transaction. Fifty cents a trick might be the name of a modern rapper, but in 1924 it was a piece work salary. The play was not particularly inspired with original direction, but, Mae meant it as an instruction to liberate women.
Censors managed to obscure the brilliant and pathetic, but as with those who attempted to kill Hitler, they just missed their mark.
For twenty two years I have been responsibly addressing an issue, and I cannot carry on. I am petitioning the Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott to remedy my distress. I leave it up to him if he chooses to address the issue. Regardless of your opinion of conservative government, the issue is pressing. Please sign my petition at https://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/tony-abbott-remedy-the-persecution-of-dd-ball
===
Happy birthday and many happy returns Linda Nguyen. Born the same day Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI passed a law letting girls inherit Habsburg lands. Coincidence? I don't think so.
- 626 – Eanflæd, English daughter of Edwin of Northumbria (d. 685)
- 1613 – Christoph Bach, German pianist (d. 1661)
- 1660 – Sebastián Durón, Spanish composer (d. 1716)
- 1665 – Jacques Lelong, French author (d. 1721)
- 1785 – Alexandre Pierre François Boëly, French pianist and composer (d. 1858)
- 1787 – Deaf Smith, American soldier (d. 1837)
- 1877 – Ole Evinrude, Norwegian-American inventor, invented the outboard motor (d. 1934)
- 1897 – Jiroemon Kimura, Japanese supercentenarian and oldest man ever (d. 2013)
- 1903 – Eliot Ness, American lawman (d. 1957)
- 1922 – Erich Hartmann, German pilot, the highest-scoring fighter pilot in the history of aerial warfare (d. 1993)
- 1928 – John Horlock, British professor of mechanical engineering
- 1933 – Dickie Bird, English cricketer and umpire
- 1933 – Jayne Mansfield, American model, actress, and singer (d. 1967)
- 1935 – Dudley Moore, English-American actor, screenwriter, and composer (d. 2002)
- 1942 – Alan Price, English keyboard player and songwriter (The Animals)
- 1943 – Eve Graham, Scottish singer (The New Seekers)
- 1946 – Tim Curry, English actor and singer
- 1953 – Ruby Wax, American-English comedian and actress
- 1968 – Ashley Judd, American actress
- 1987 – Maria Sharapova, Russian tennis player
- 1995 – Akira Saitō, Japanese actress
Matches
- 65 – The freedman Milichus betrayed Piso's plot to kill the Emperor Nero and all the conspirators are arrested.
- 1012 – Martyrdom of Ælfheah in Greenwich, London.
- 1529 – Beginning of the Protestant Reformation: The Second Diet of Speyer bans Lutheranism; a group of rulers (German: Fürst) and independent cities (German: Reichsstadt) protests the reinstatement of the Edict of Worms.
- 1713 – With no living male heirs, Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, issues the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713 to ensure that Habsburg lands and the Austrian throne would be inherited by his daughter, Maria Theresa of Austria (not actually born until 1717).
- 1770 – Captain James Cook sights the eastern coast of what is now Australia.
- 1770 – Marie Antoinette marries Louis XVI in a proxy wedding.
- 1782 – John Adams secures the Dutch Republic's recognition of the United States as an independent government. The house which he had purchased in The Hague, Netherlands becomes the first American embassy.
- 1892 – Charles Duryea claims to have driven the first automobile in the United States, in Springfield, Massachusetts.
- 1919 – Leslie Irvin of the United States makes the first successful voluntary free-fall parachute jump using a new kind of self-contained parachute.
- 1927 – Mae West is sentenced to ten days in jail for obscenity for her play Sex.
- 1928 – The 125th and final fascicle of the Oxford English Dictionary is published.
- 1943 – World War II: In Poland, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising begins, after German troops enter the Warsaw ghetto to round up the remaining Jews.
- 1948 – Burma joins the United Nations.
- 1951 – General Douglas MacArthur retires from the military.
- 1956 – Actress Grace Kelly marries Prince Rainier of Monaco.
- 1960 – Students in South Korea hold a nationwide pro-democracy protest against president Syngman Rhee, eventually forcing him to resign.
- 1971 – Charles Manson is sentenced to death (later commuted life imprisonment) for conspiracy to commit the Tate/LaBianca murders.
- 1971 – Launch of Salyut 1, the first space station.
- 1987 – The Simpsons premieres as a short cartoon on The Tracey Ullman Show.
- 1993 – The 51-day siege of the Branch Davidian building outside Waco, Texas, USA, ends when a fire breaks out. Eighty-one people die.
- 1995 – Oklahoma City bombing: The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA, is bombed, killing 168.
- 2011 – Fidel Castro resigns from the Communist Party of Cuba's central committee after 45 years of holding the title.
- 2013 – Boston Marathon bombings suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev is killed in a shootout with police. His brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is captured while hiding in a boat inside a backyard in Watertown, Massachusetts.
Despatches
- 1012 – Ælfheah of Canterbury, English archbishop (b. 954)
- 1618 – Thomas Bastard, English clergyman (b. 1566)
- 1824 – Lord Byron, English-Scottish poet (b. 1788)
- 1881 – Benjamin Disraeli, English politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1804)
- 1882 – Charles Darwin, English biologist and theorist (b. 1809)
- 2009 – J. G. Ballard, Chinese-English author (b. 1930)
LIVE BY THE CODE
Tim Blair – Saturday, April 19, 2014 (4:38am)
Margo Kingston exposes a wicked conspiracy at the core of NSW politics:
Students of psychology may find traces of paranoid personality disorder in Margo’s terrified analysis, which seems to run like this: Imre is Tim’s friend, therefore the premier of NSW is not a moderate person. Or maybe she’s really on to something, and Imre is taking over the state in the stealthy manner of his fellow Zionists. Elsewhere, Margo is nowexecutive editor of something called No Fibs, in which capacity she recently covered coal mining protests in NSW:
Students of psychology may find traces of paranoid personality disorder in Margo’s terrified analysis, which seems to run like this: Imre is Tim’s friend, therefore the premier of NSW is not a moderate person. Or maybe she’s really on to something, and Imre is taking over the state in the stealthy manner of his fellow Zionists. Elsewhere, Margo is nowexecutive editor of something called No Fibs, in which capacity she recently covered coal mining protests in NSW:
I’ve never been an ‘embedded journalist’ before, and it’s testing. I was allowed inside the #leardblockade camp and was privy to its plans and problems, most of which I could not report as it would tip off the other side.
Whoa! Margo admits to suppressing information for the benefit of her ideological allies. There is also horrible, horrible music:
Interestingly, Kingston’s own site requires that all contributors “abide by the MEAA Journalists’ Code of Ethics”, swearing the site is “bound by the MEAA code of ethics” and ordering the site’s volunteers to “abide by the MEAA code of ethics at all times.” Let’s see what that code of ethics actually demands:
Interestingly, Kingston’s own site requires that all contributors “abide by the MEAA Journalists’ Code of Ethics”, swearing the site is “bound by the MEAA code of ethics” and ordering the site’s volunteers to “abide by the MEAA code of ethics at all times.” Let’s see what that code of ethics actually demands:
Report and interpret honestly, striving for accuracy, fairness and disclosure of all essential facts. Do not suppress relevant available facts, or give distorting emphasis …Do not allow personal interest, or any belief, commitment, payment, gift or benefit, to undermine your accuracy, fairness or independence …Disclose conflicts of interest that affect, or could be seen to affect, the accuracy, fairness or independence of your journalism …
One: Margo Kingston, by her own declaration, is an activist rather than a journalist. Two: if Kingston is still receiving government funding through Macquarie University, all such payments should be stopped. Three: due to clear violation of her union’s code, the MEAA should revoke Kingston’s membership.
EARTH’S REVENGE
Tim Blair – Saturday, April 19, 2014 (4:19am)
RACIAL PROFILING
Tim Blair – Saturday, April 19, 2014 (3:03am)
Guardian columnist Vanessa Badham has a question for the Attorney-General:
Dear George Brandis,Why is it, d’ya think, that the only people who want to destroy 18c are white?
Two questions for Vanessa: Are you judging these people by their mere appearance? How do you know that these alleged white people don’t identify as Aboriginal?
SCOTT BECLOWNED
Tim Blair – Saturday, April 19, 2014 (2:57am)
MORNING IN TEXAS
Tim Blair – Friday, April 18, 2014 (9:40pm)
From Gas Monkey Garage’s excellent collection of staff family photographs:
“That’s Christie as a baby. That’s her dad sleeping. And yes, that’s a gun hanging on the bed post.”
“That’s Christie as a baby. That’s her dad sleeping. And yes, that’s a gun hanging on the bed post.”
Bandt proves Brandis right: yes, the Greens want debate suppressed
Andrew Bolt April 19 2014 (12:49pm)
Amazing. Attorney-General George Brandis accuses global warming extremists of being medievally intolerant by trying to shut down debate and the what do the Greens do? Prove him right:
In fact, he seems to want to stop sceptics from saying the truth - that key predictions of warmist scientists have been alarmist and in critical cases already proven false.
Here are some of the warmist scientists who Bandt falsely claims were simply saying “two plus two equals four” - but in fact were arguing they made five or even six degrees:
But the central fact that Bandt and his new inquistors are trying to suppress is that the atmosphere has essentially not warmed for some 16 years. What they want to suppress is discussion like this:
UPDATE
Reader Jimbo:
===ADAM BANDT (acting Greens leader): I mean, if someone said ‘two plus two equals five’, would you insist on giving them as much airtime in the media as someone who said ‘two plus two equals four’? That’s in effect what the country’s highest law officer is arguing, and it’s very worrying.Bandt is recklessly, stupidly and in my opinion probably deceitfully wrong. He is not simply in favor of stopping sceptics from saying untruths - which would be illiberal and dangerous in any event.
WILL OCKENDEN: ...In your example of ‘two plus two equals five’, isn’t the free speech element an argument here saying ‘yes you’re wrong, but here’s why’, rather than just shouting them down?
ADAM BANDT: The science has been through one of the most rigorous peer-reviewed processes it can go through. And the answer that’s coming out from people right across the political spectrum, if you take your ideological goggles off for a moment, is that unless we act soon, the Australian way of life is under enormous threat from global warming.
WILL OCKENDEN: Should people be able to, though, nonetheless be able to say that climate change doesn’t exist?
ADAM BANDT: Well people are saying that, and they’re saying it at the moment and they’re wrong. The science community is now essentially speaking with one voice. To say someone without science training can somehow simply on a free speech basis say that they’re all wrong is a very feudal way of thinking.
In fact, he seems to want to stop sceptics from saying the truth - that key predictions of warmist scientists have been alarmist and in critical cases already proven false.
Here are some of the warmist scientists who Bandt falsely claims were simply saying “two plus two equals four” - but in fact were arguing they made five or even six degrees:
In 2007 Professor Tim Flannery, now Climate Council head, : “The soil is warmer because of global warming and the plants are under more stress and therefore using more moisture. So even the rain that falls isn’t actually going to fill our dams and our river systems...”(This is from a much longer list of spectacularly dud predictions I’ve put together for my chapter of a forthcoming IPA book, which you can support here.)
In fact: Queensland, NSW and Victoria have since suffered severe floods. Dams in Brisbane, Sydney and Canberra have all filled.In 2009 Bertrand Timbal, a Bureau of Meteorology climatologist, predicted: “The rainfall we had in the 1950s, 60s and 70s was a benchmark, but we are just not going to have that sort of good rain again as long as the system is warming up.”
In fact: The Bureau has since declared 2010 and 2011 “Australia’s wettest two-year period on record”.In 1999 Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, Queensland University reef expert and an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change lead author, predicted warming would so heat the oceans that mass bleaching of the Reef would occur every second year from 2010.
In fact: The Reef’s last mass bleaching occurred in 2006.In 2000 Hoegh-Guldberg claimed “we now have more evidence that corals cannot fully recover from bleaching episodes such as the major event in 1998” and “the overall damage is irreparable”.
In fact: Hoegh-Guldberg admitted in 2009 he was “overjoyed” to see how much the reef had recovered and the Australian Institute of Marine Science says “most reefs recovered fully”.In 2007 Professor Mike Archer, dean of science at the University of NSW, said: “Forget Venice; I mean we’re talking about sharks in the middle of Sydney” because the seas would rise “100 metres”. The ABC’s chief science presenter, Robyn Williams, agreed “it is possible, yes” this would occur before the end of this century.
In fact: Sea level rises for the past 20 years have averaged just 3.2mm a year, according to the University of Colorado monitoring – or 30cm a century.In 2003 Melbourne warmist scientist David Karoly claimed “drought severity in the Murray Darling is increasing with global warming”.
In fact: the rains returned, the Murray-Darling flooded and the Climate Commission in 2011 admitted “it is difficult from observations alone to unequivocally identify anything that is distinctly unusual about the post-1950 pattern [of rainfall]”.In 2008 Professor Tim Flannery asked people to imagine “a world five years from now, when there is no more ice over the Arctic”, and Al Gore predicted “the entire north polar ice cap will be gone in five years”. Ted Scambos, of the US Snow and Ice Data Centre, told the ABC there was “a very strong case that in 2012 or 2013 we’ll have an ice-free (summer) Arctic”.
In fact: At the height of the summer melt last year, the Arctic was still covered by 6 million square kilometres of ice, more than in the previous three years.In 2000 Dr David Viner, of the Climatic Research Unit of Britain’s University of East Anglia, claimed that within a few years winter snowfall would become “a very rare and exciting event” and “children just aren’t going to know what snow is”. In 2007 Sir John Houghton, former head of Britain’s Met Office, said “less snow is absolutely in line with what we expect from global warming.”
In fact: Five of the northern hemisphere’s six snowiest winters in the past 46 years have occurred since Viner’s prediction, according to Rutgers University Global Snow Lab numbers. Over two-thirds of the contiguous USA were covered with snow in the winter of 2013/14.In 2007 Britain’s Met Office said: “By 2014 we’re predicting it will be 0.3 degrees warmer than 2004”.
In fact: The Met Office data for 2013 confirmed there had been no statistically significant rise in global atmospheric temperatures for at least 16 years.In 2012 Professor Matthew England, a University of NSW climate scientist, claimed there was no hiatus in global warming and sceptics claiming that the warming was lower than predicted by the IPCC were “lying”.
In fact: In 2014 Professor England admitted there was a “plateau in global average temperatures”, after all. Climate scientist Professor Judith Curry told the US Congress this year: “For the past 16 years, there has been no significant increase in surface temperature… The IPCC does not have a convincing or confident explanation for this hiatus in warming.”
But the central fact that Bandt and his new inquistors are trying to suppress is that the atmosphere has essentially not warmed for some 16 years. What they want to suppress is discussion like this:
What Britain’s Met Office predicted in 2007:
By 2014 we’re predicting it will be 0.3 degrees warmer than 2004 [red dot on graphics below], and just to put that into context the warming over the past century and a half has only been 0.7 degrees, globally, there have been bigger changes locally but globally the warming is 0.7 degrees. So 0.3 degrees over the next ten years is pretty significant. And half the years after 2009 are predicted to be hotter than 1998 which was the previous record. So these are very strong statements about what will happen over the next ten years, so again I think this illustrates we can already see signs of climate change but over the next ten years we are expecting to see quite significant changes occurring.What actually happened:
With none of the fanfare that accompanied their prediction of the global temperature for the forthcoming year the Met Office has quietly released the global temperature for 2013. It will come as no surprise after the 2013 temperatures released by NASA and NOAA that it shows the global temperature standstill – now at 17 years – continues. Once again the Met Office predicted the following year would be considerably warmer than it turned out to be. There is something seriously wrong with the Met Office’s forecasts.I really think we’re owed an apology or at least an explanation:
Bandt and his kind are not trying to silence people who tell dangerous falsehoods about global warming. They are instead trying to protect them - and trying to suppress the truth. (Thanks to reader Andrew McIntyre.)
UPDATE
Reader Jimbo:
Andrew, It would be great if Adam Bandt was invited onto your programme to nut out these issues. To simply cut and paste information with a closing paragraph I consider lazy and increasingly tiresome. You have, at your disposal every Sunday morning to sit down and sincerely discuss important issues. Why not dedicate a whole programme to a solitary issue? Invite the guy on and at least have a conversation about it.Jimbo:
Just out of curiosity, how many “alarmist” have appeared on your show as opposed to “sceptics”?
1. Most of the words I’ve “cut and paste” are actually my own, as I made clear. You read them here for the first time.
2. I’ve invited Bandt on several times, and his leader even more often. We’ve been rejected every time. Why don’t you ask Bandt to accept my invitation?
3. I’ve had warmists on my show and quizzed them. They include Professor Will Steffen, Anthony Albanese and Greg Hunt. Yes, I wish more would turn up but everyone else I’ve asked has refused: Tim Flannery, Will Steffen (again), Penny Wong, Peter Garrett, Don Henry, Ian Low, Simon Sheik....
The Bolt Report tomorrow
Andrew Bolt April 19 2014 (10:20am)
On the show tomorrow – Network 10 at 10am and 4pm....
It’s the cover-up, every time… Two urgent lessons from Barry O’Farrell’s fall.
Assistant Minister for Infrastructure Jamie Briggs on how to stop the usual cranks from blocking Sydney’s second airport.
The panel: Michael Kroger and Kimberley Kitching on scandals, Mike Baird, airports, broken promises and more.
On NewsWatch - and to mark the weekend Marxism 2014 conference - my favourite Marxist, Brendan O’Neill, on the enemies of freedom.
Plus more, including Harrison Ford’s scary new God for Easter.
The videos of the shows appear here.
===It’s the cover-up, every time… Two urgent lessons from Barry O’Farrell’s fall.
Assistant Minister for Infrastructure Jamie Briggs on how to stop the usual cranks from blocking Sydney’s second airport.
The panel: Michael Kroger and Kimberley Kitching on scandals, Mike Baird, airports, broken promises and more.
On NewsWatch - and to mark the weekend Marxism 2014 conference - my favourite Marxist, Brendan O’Neill, on the enemies of freedom.
Plus more, including Harrison Ford’s scary new God for Easter.
The videos of the shows appear here.
The new racism - one protected by law
Andrew Bolt April 19 2014 (10:09am)
The kind of racism encouraged by the “reconciliation” industry. The kind
of racism I cannot safely discuss and denounce - thanks to a Federal
Court decision to ban two of my articles and declare my opinion (on the
choice certain people have to identify as Aboriginal) an error of fact.
===Hedley Thomas vs Waleed Aly on the AWU scandal. Not a fair fight
Andrew Bolt April 19 2014 (9:53am)
Hedley Thomas says the silly police should just listen to ABC host Waleed Aly, an instant expert on the ”complete non-scandal surrounding the Australian Workers Union and Julia Gillard’s time as a labour lawyer”:
===IT is time to call off the dogs. Stand down, Detective Sergeant Ross Mitchell. You and your misguided colleagues in the Victoria Police Fraud Squad have clearly squandered valuable time and a truckload of taxpayers’ money for 18 months in a forensic and major investigation of what you strangely suspected were crimes.(Thanks to reader Walms.)
All this time, you have been on the wrong tram. You have been investigating, as Victoria’s Chief Magistrate Peter Lauritsen put it, “the commission of four types of offence in relation to (former Australian Workers Union boss) Bruce Wilson and others — obtaining property by deception; receiving secret commissions; making and using false documents; and conspiracy to cheat and defraud”.
But for Pete’s sake, just stop now.... You must try very hard, Sergeant Mitchell, not to dwell on the finding by Lauritsen in December ... “that, in each instance, the communication was made or the document prepared in furtherance of the commission of a fraud or an offence”, thus waiving Wilson’s right to legal client privilege.
And your troubling disclosure, Sergeant Mitchell, in your sworn evidence to Lauritsen that you believe “Wilson, (Ralph) Blewitt and others were involved in committing these offences”, really should be removed from your consciousness. This belief of yours is clearly a falsehood.
For good measure, please banish from your mind the self-incriminating confession, absent any indemnity, by Ralph Blewitt, the AWU bagman and one-time friend and ally of Wilson. Who really gives a flying fox that Blewitt has admitted to fraud with the slush fund; and explained how the fraud was orchestrated by himself and Wilson; and provided you with the document trail; and pointed your team of 10 or so detectives to the actual cheques used to siphon hundreds of thousands of dollars; and even shown how a Fitzroy terrace house was bought in his name with some of the loot?…
As a senior detective ... you really should have run it all past one of the ABC’s renowned investigators, Waleed Aly.
After all, Aly, who speaks to several hundred thousand Australians every day as a Radio National presenter, ... knows that there is nothing in it.
He said so this week when he wrote in The Sydney Morning Herald of the “bizarre pursuit of the complete non-scandal surrounding the Australian Workers Union and Julia Gillard’s time as a labour lawyer”....
And while you’re at it, Sergeant Mitchell, can you please disregard the statutory declaration of AWU employee Wayne Hem, who has sworn that he deposited $5000 in cash in Gillard’s personal bank account at Wilson’s direction when the slush fund was thriving?
Yes, it is a difficult one: the former PM has said she can’t recall the payment, which in the mid-1990s was worth quite a bit more than a 1959 bottle of Grange.... But we hasten to add, Sergeant Mitchell, that Gillard ... has strenuously and repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. It was a long time ago. Move along, please.
More Labor waste
Andrew Bolt April 19 2014 (9:41am)
Yet another dud Labor spendathon - and how many of them did we get?:
Lesson: governments are usually best when they let you spend your own money, and worst when they decide to spend it for you.
(Thanks to several cross readers.)
===A $115 MILLION Labor-era scheme to increase the supply of affordable homes in regional cities has joined the rollcall of taxpayer-funded projects that have failed to achieve value for money and fallen woefully short of targets.Just disgraceful. Add this to the school halls, the “free” insulation, the grants to dud green schemes like geothermal and wave generators, the solar hot water grants, the GP superclinics, the NBN ... Absolutely shameful.
The Building Better Regional Cities program, launched by Julia Gillard on the first day of the 2010 election campaign, was designed to provide infrastructure grants to councils to help support the delivery of 8000 homes and reduce housing stress in capital cities.
Just 2969 “affordable homes’’ in 15 regional cities including Wollongong, Ballina, Port Macquarie and Hervey Bay are expected to be delivered when the program is completed in mid-2016.
Each subsidised lot or dwelling will end up costing taxpayers about $38,100 in grant funding — more than three times the $12,500 per home originally envisaged, a federal audit report has revealed.
Lesson: governments are usually best when they let you spend your own money, and worst when they decide to spend it for you.
(Thanks to several cross readers.)
In praise of George Brandis
Andrew Bolt April 19 2014 (9:23am)
British Marxist Brendan O’Neill, editor of Spiked and visiting scholar at the Centre for Independent Studies, is inspired by Attorney-General George Brandis, who gets a hearing few journalists here have allowed him:
Brendan O’Neill will be my guest tomorrow on The Bolt Report on Channel 10 at 10am and 4pm.
There are probably still a couple of tickets left to see him in Melbourne after his booked-out Sydney lecture:
Book at the link.
UPDATE
Pope Francis on the tyranny of the enlightened:
===Brandis has doggedly, and often controversially, devoted himself to reforming the section of the Oz Racial Discrimination Act that forbids people from ‘offending, insulting or humiliating’ a person or group on the basis of their racial or ethnic origins. Why has he done this? ... Why has he allowed himself to be branded by many on the Australian left as a ‘friend of bigots’ ...?A few of Brandis’s colleagues like to privately criticise him for the way he’s fought for free speech and intellectual liberty. They should instead ask themselves why they haven’t lifted a finger to help him. Brandis should above all be admired for his courage and his principles.
‘Because’, he says, ‘if you are going to defend freedom of speech, you have to defend the right of people to say things you would devote your political life to opposing. Your good faith is tested by whether or not you would defend the right to free speech of people with whom you profoundly disagree. That’s the test.’
In an era when European politicians are forever battling it out to see who can outlaw the most forms of ‘hate speech’, when Canada hauls so-called hate speakers before its Human Rights Commission to justify themselves, ... Brandis’s single-minded campaign to rein in Australia’s hate-speech laws is quite something. In fact it feels positively weird to hear a mainstream politician ... talk about the ‘limits of the state to interfere with the utterance of ideas, beliefs and opinions’…
He describes the climate-change debate – or non-debate, or anti-debate, to be really pedantic but also accurate – as one of the ‘great catalysing moments’ in his views about the importance of free speech. He isn’t a climate-change denier… But he has nonetheless found himself ‘really shocked by the sheer authoritarianism of those who would have excluded from the debate the point of view of people who were climate-change deniers’....
He describes how Penny Wong ... would ‘stand up in the Senate and say “The science is settled”. In other words, “I am not even going to engage in a debate with you”. It was ignorant, it was medieval, the approach of these true believers in climate change.’ .... And to Brandis, this speaks to a new and illiberal climate of anti-intellectualism, to the emergence of ‘a habit of mind and mode of discourse which would deny the legitimacy of an alternative point of view, where rather than winning the argument [they] exclude their antagonists from the argument’…
The moral straitjacketing of anyone who raises a critical peep about eco-orthodoxies is part of a growing ‘new secular public morality’, he says, ‘which seeks to impose its views on others, even at the cost of political censorship’.
The second thing that made him sharpen his pen and open his gob about the importance of freedom of speech was the case of Andrew Bolt… In 2010, he wrote some blog posts for the Herald Sun website criticising the fashion among ‘fair-skinned people’ to claim Aboriginal heritage, under the headlines: ‘It’s so hip to be black’, ‘White is the New Black’ and ‘White Fellas in the Black’… They were removed from the Herald Sun’s website. Anyone who republishes them risks being arrested and potentially jailed.
Brandis is stinging about this case. The judge ‘engaged in an act of political censorship’, he says, with a journalist ‘prohibited from expressing a point of view’. The reason Brandis is so keen to ditch the bit of the Racial Discrimination Act that allowed such a flagrant act of ideological censorship to take place in twenty-first-century Australia is because while it is justified as a guard against outbursts of dangerous racism, actually it allows the state to police and punish legitimate public speech and debate. ‘And the moment you establish the state as the arbiter of what might be said, you establish the state as the arbiter of what might be thought, and you are right in the territory that George Orwell foreshadowed’, he says…
[Brandis] didn’t help himself when he said in the Senate a couple of weeks ago that people do have the right to be bigots. That unleashed a tsunami of ridicule, even from some of his supporters. But he tells me he has no regrets. ‘I don’t regret saying that because in this debate, sooner or later – and better sooner than later – somebody had to make the Voltaire point; somebody had to make the point [about] defending the right to free speech of people with whom you profoundly disagree.’
Brandis says ... he’s bent on overhauling Section 18C ... because it expands the authority of state into the realm of thought, where it should never tread, he says. ‘...In my view, freedom of speech, by which I mean the freedom to express and articulate beliefs and opinions, is a necessary and essential precondition of political freedom.’
And the second reason he wants Section 18C massively trimmed is because he believes censorship is the worst possible tool for tackling backward thinking....
‘The left has embraced a new authoritarianism’, he says. ‘Having abandoned the attempt to control the commanding heights of the economy, they now want to control the commanding heights of opinion, and that is even more dangerous.’...
Brendan O’Neill will be my guest tomorrow on The Bolt Report on Channel 10 at 10am and 4pm.
There are probably still a couple of tickets left to see him in Melbourne after his booked-out Sydney lecture:
Nannies, Nudgers & Naggers: The New Enemies of Freedom
MELBOURNE TUESDAY 29 APRIL 6:00PM - 8:00PM
Where: Society Restaurant
23 Bourke Street, Melbourne
Is it a top-down Orwellian “boot on the human face” that is squashing our once cherished civil liberties, or is the greater problem today the public’s fear of being free? Is our freedom being taken from us by the authorities, or is it being undermined through our own failure to exercise it? An open debate on how we can boost human freedom.
Brendan O’Neill is the editor of spiked, the magazine that wants to make history as well as report it, and is a columnist for he Big Issue in London and The Australian. He also blogs for the Daily Telegraph and has written for a variety of publications in both Europe and America. He is the author of Can I Recycle My Granny And 39 Other Eco-Dilemmas, and he is currently researching a book on snobbery.
Book at the link.
UPDATE
Pope Francis on the tyranny of the enlightened:
“Even today there is a dictatorship of a narrow line of thought” which kills “people’s freedom, their freedom of conscience,” the Pope expressed in his April 10 daily Mass…(Thanks to reader Tom.)
“When this phenomenon of narrow thinking enters human history, how many misfortunes,” he lamented, adding that “we all saw in the last century, the dictatorships of narrow thought, which ended up killing a lot of people...when they believed they were the overlords, no other form of thought was allowed. This is the way they think.”
Explaining how even now people foster this idolatry of “a narrow line of thought,” Pope Francis emphasized that “today we have to think in this way and if you do not think in this way, you are not modern, you’re not open or worse.”
“Often rulers say: ‘I have asked for aid, financial support for this,’ ‘But if you want this help, you have to think in this way and you have to pass this law, and this other law and this other law,” he expressed, noting that type of dictatorship “is the same as these people.”
“It takes up stones to stone the freedom of the people, the freedom of the people, their freedom of conscience, the relationship of the people with God. Today Jesus is Crucified once again.”
Pension age to 70
Andrew Bolt April 19 2014 (9:01am)
The explosion in pension costs will kill us if something is not done:
The only way this will be accepted, of course, is if everyone else takes a hit in the Budget, too. Be certain, then, that pain is coming.
UPDATE
Dennis Shanahan:
===THE pension age will be pushed out to 70 in next month’s budget and may come into effect as early as 2029 under a razor-gang proposal to accelerate Labor’s plan to raise the pension age from 65 to 67.If the change to the indexation rate does not apply in this term of government, Tony Abbott will technically not have broken his promise of ”no changes to the pension”. Even so, it will be hard to sell an indexation change, which will in time affect the same pensioners who were given last year’s promise.
There are no plans to cut the existing pension but consideration is being given to changing the rate of indexation for age-pension payments…
No decision has been taken on the rate of the rise in the retirement age and neither scheme will have any impact on the four-year budget period from Joe Hockey’s first budget on May 13.
The only way this will be accepted, of course, is if everyone else takes a hit in the Budget, too. Be certain, then, that pain is coming.
UPDATE
Dennis Shanahan:
(T)here is political as well as economic reasoning behind what would seem to be a suicidal approach to a budget where the retirement age for age pension will be lifted to 70, perhaps as soon as 2029, pension indexation is being looked at, a $6 co-payment for visits to the general practitioner is being considered, the “age of entitlement’’ is said to be ending, and expenditure will be cut across the board.(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.)
The political basis of the budget is that having talked of a budget emergency, having convinced the public of the need for long-term structural change to deal with debt and deficit, ... the government has no choice but to deliver a tough budget…
This attitude is based on a belief that there is an appetite among voters for tough corrective economic measures to be taken — as evidenced by public polling showing support for decisions not to put more taxpayer funds into the automotive industry or Qantas and surprisingly strong support for a $6 GP visit co-payment — and an expectation the Coalition has to deliver…
This political challenge is made all the tougher because of Abbott’s pledges in opposition not to make changes to the pension, not to cut education or health, and even to spare the ABC and SBS cuts while sticking to the bipartisan acceptance of the NDIS.
A royal tour doesn’t have to be so 1950s
Andrew Bolt April 19 2014 (8:53am)
Annette Sharp says New Zealand beat us in showing off the royals:
===A royal tour is dreadfully proper and wearily formal ... Or so it was until the Kiwis revolutionised the Windsors’ itinerary with a prince v princess cricket game, a prince v princess yacht race, a gorgeous visit to a childcare centre that almost created an international incident when eight-month-old Prince George met 10 Kiwi babies of a similar age and swiped a doll from another, which he promptly threw on the floor…
There was also some predictable yet wonderful and spiritual nose rubbing, or hongi as the locals call it, a gesture which represents both greeting and exchange of breath to symbolise unity.
All of it was photographic gold for the Kiwis and a masterstroke of planning that has managed to make New Zealand look like the youthful, confident, adventurous, progressive nation it is.
And what did the Australian government have in place to return fire when the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge landed here?
Since arriving on Wednesday the young royals have attended, without their photogenic son, a reception at the Opera House, a tree planting with Girl Guides, an afternoon cup of tea with the PM at Admiralty House, a meet and greet with bushfire victims in the Blue Mountains and, wait for it, a RAAF tour today. If you hadn’t noticed, apparently it is 1954.
Granted, yesterday’s schedule showed promise on paper — there was a Royal Easter Show outing, a visit with Surf Lifesavers at Manly Beach and a meet-and-greet with some children at Bear Cottage — but, sadly, the execution of the appearances have been as traditional and pedestrian as we might have feared.
Did O’Farrell drink his Grange to forget a favor?
Andrew Bolt April 19 2014 (7:46am)
I’m having even more trouble believing Barry O’Farrell simply had a big “memory fail” about the $3000 gift he didn’t declare:
By the way, what is it about the State Water Corporation that Williamson and Di Girolamo were deemed the right people to sit on its board?
===Two weeks after receiving the bottle of Grange Hermitage that would lead to his resignation as premier, Barry O’Farrell was preparing to appoint the man who bought the extravagant gift, businessman Nick Di Girolamo, to a well-paid position on a government board.If I were Di Girolamo, I’d consider a $100,000 board position a fair return on a $3000 gift - especially a gift I didn’t personally pay for.
A May 3, 2011, email from the director general of Mr O’Farrell’s department, Chris Eccles, introduces Mr Di Girolamo to senior departmental officers as ‘’our replacement board member’’. Attached is a biography and photograph of Mr Di Girolamo forwarded by Mr O’Farrell’s then chief-of-staff, Peter McConnell.
When Mr Di Girolamo’s name was raised for a board appointment in the May email, Mr O’Farrell had failed to declare that only two weeks earlier he had been the recipient of a $3000 gift from Mr Di Girolamo…
The name of the board to which Mr Di Girolamo was to be appointed in May 2011 is not known and he was not installed on a board that year. But documents show that by March 2012, Mr Di Girolamo was considered for a directorship of Sydney Ports Corporation… Three months later an opening arose when corruption allegations forced the resignation of the now jailed union boss Michael Williamson, who had been appointed to the State Water Corporation in the last days of the Labor government by treasurer Eric Roozendaal.
[Treasurer and now Premier Mike] Baird and then finance minister Greg Pearce signed off on the appointment of Mr Di Girolamo to a three-year $100,000 directorship of State Water Corporation.
By the way, what is it about the State Water Corporation that Williamson and Di Girolamo were deemed the right people to sit on its board?
Who is running the ABC?
Andrew Bolt April 19 2014 (12:21am)
Gerard Henderson:
===(T)he ABC is not run the way a newspaper or a commercial broadcaster is managed. Rather, its television, radio and online outlets are controlled by cliques and seem to operate independently of the editor-in-chief.(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.)
Take [managing director and editor-in-chief Mark] Scott’s role in the Chaser Boys’ (average age 38½) use of pornography against The Australian’s Chris Kenny. In The Hamster Decides program on ABC 1, which aired last September 11, the Chaser Boys depicted Kenny having sex with a dog under the heading “dog f. ker”.
This was clearly an attempt to close down debate, by the use of porno-politics, since Kenny was ridiculed for proposing that the incoming Coalition government led by Tony Abbott should cut ABC funding. As Scott acknowledged this week, the attack on Kenny “was triggered by his criticism of the ABC"…
Scott lacked the resolve to take on the Chaser Boys… (I)t took (Scott) seven months to recognise the mistake and issue an apology. Scott said nothing about the current standing of ABC Audience and Consumer Affairs’ ruling that the skit was consistent with ABC editorial standards. Does this finding still apply, or has it been overridden by the ABC’s managing director? Who knows?…
Scott’s formal apology had only just been released when Morrow responded. He sent out a tweet depicting, you’ve guessed it, Scott having sex with a hamster. Funny, eh? Morrow’s caption read: “We respectfully disagree with the ABC managing director’s decision and statement today"…
In a commercial business, such unprofessional defiance would not be tolerated — especially if it was capable of damaging the defence of a defamation writ.
Which raises the question, does anyone run the ABC?
Edward Snowden - Putin’s poodle
Andrew Bolt April 19 2014 (12:08am)
Snowden does Putin a favor:
===Experts say Edward Snowden’s public questioning of Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested the former National Security Agency contractor is firmly in the Kremlin’s grasp.
They said it is hard to imagine that Snowden was not prompted and coached to pose his question about domestic surveillance in Russia to the country’s leader.
And the answer he got in return, they said — that none of Russia’s programs reached the size and scope of anything at the National Security Agency (NSA) — was most likely a lie…
Putin’s annual question-and-answer session on television on Thursday came ... just days after the stories on Snowden’s leaks won U.S. journalism’s highest honor, the Pulitzer Prize for public service.
The former NSA contractor appeared via a short prerecorded video clip to ask whether Russia had programs similar to the NSA....
Snowden pushed back Friday on the notion that he was whitewashing Putin’s record… Snowden said that he was “surprised that people who witnessed me risk my life to expose the surveillance practices of my own country could not believe that I might also criticize the surveillance policies of Russia, a country to which I have sworn no allegiance, without ulterior motive."…
Putin, a former KGB operative, told Snowden that Russia has “some efforts” to track terrorists and criminals, but those are “strictly regulated by our law” and aren’t on par with anything in the U.S....
Actually, elements of the Russian SORM program, which has its roots in the former Soviet Union, can reportedly collect records about all phone calls and Internet traffic in the country.
Unlike the NSA, which only collects metadata such as the numbers people dial and the length of their calls, the Russian programs capture the full range of people’s conversations, experts said.
“It’s a system designed for complete political control. There’s nothing that rivals it in the U.S.” said [James Lewis, director of the strategic technologies program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies].
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4 her, so she sees how I see her
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HISTORY IN THE HEADLINES: Four years after Paul Revere’s midnight ride, a military disaster left the famous patriot under arrest and facing charges of insubordination and cowardice.http://histv.co/ZAqPbn
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HULK SMASH
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As a guitarist, I play many gigs. Recently I was asked by a funeral director to play at a graveside service for a homeless man. He had no family or friends, so the service was to be at a pauper’s cemetery in the back country. As I was not familiar with the backwoods, I got lost.
I finally arrived an hour late and saw the funeral guy had evidently gone and the hearse was nowhere in sight. There were only the diggers and crew left and they were eating lunch.
I felt badly and apologized to the men for being late. I went to the side of the grave and looked down and the vault lid was already in place. I didn’t know what else to do, so I started to play.
The workers put down their lunches and began to gather around. I played out my heart and soul for this man with no family and friends. I played like I’ve never played before for this homeless man.
And as I played ‘Amazing Grace,’ the workers began to weep. They wept, I wept, we all wept together. When I finished I packed up my guitar and started for my car. Though my head hung low, my heart was full.
As I opened the door to my car, I heard one of the workers say, “I never seen nothin’ like that before and I’ve been putting in septic tanks for twenty years.”
Apparently, I’m still lost…
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The best photo yet of the bombing suspect ==>http://twitchy.com/2013/
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- 65 – The freedman Milichus betrayed Gaius Calpurnius Piso's plot to kill the Emperor Neroand all the conspirators were arrested.
- 1809 – War of the Fifth Coalition: The French won a hard-fought victory over Austria in Lower Bavaria when their opponents withdrew from the field of battle that evening.
- 1960 – Students in South Korea held a nationwide pro-democracy protest (pictured) against President Syngman Rhee, eventually forcing him to resign.
- 1984 – Scottish-born composer Peter Dodds McCormick's "Advance Australia Fair", a patriotic song that was first performed in 1878, officially replaced "God Save the Queen" as Australia's national anthem.
- 1993 – The 51-day siege of the Mount Carmel Center, the home of the Branch Davidian religious sect outside Waco, Texas, ended when a fire broke out, killing over 70 people.
Events[edit]
- 65 – The freedman Milichus betrayed Piso's plot to kill the Emperor Nero and all the conspirators are arrested.
- 531 – Battle of Callinicum: A Byzantine army under Belisarius is defeated by the Persian at Ar-Raqqah (northern Syria).
- 1012 – Martyrdom of Ælfheah in Greenwich, London.
- 1529 – Beginning of the Protestant Reformation: The Second Diet of Speyer bans Lutheranism; a group of rulers (German: Fürst) and independent cities (German: Reichsstadt) protests the reinstatement of the Edict of Worms.
- 1539 – Charles V and Protestants signs Treaty of Frankfurt.
- 1677 – The French army captures the town of Cambrai held by Spanish troops.
- 1713 – With no living male heirs, Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, issues the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713 to ensure that Habsburg lands and the Austrian throne would be inherited by his daughter, Maria Theresa of Austria (not actually born until 1717).
- 1770 – Captain James Cook sights the eastern coast of what is now Australia.
- 1770 – Marie Antoinette marries Louis XVI in a proxy wedding.
- 1775 – American Revolutionary War: The war begins with an American victory in Concord during the battles of Lexington and Concord.
- 1782 – John Adams secures the Dutch Republic's recognition of the United States as an independent government. The house which he had purchased in The Hague, Netherlands becomes the first American embassy.
- 1809 – An Austrian corps is defeated by the forces of the Duchy of Warsaw in the Battle of Raszyn, part of the struggles of the Fifth Coalition. On the same day the Austrian main army is defeated by a First French Empire Corps led by Louis-Nicolas Davout at the Battle of Teugen-Hausen in Bavaria, part of a four-day campaign that ended in a French victory.
- 1810 – Venezuela achieves home rule: Vicente Emparan, Governor of the Captaincy General is removed by the people of Caracas and a junta is installed.
- 1839 – The Treaty of London establishes Belgium as a kingdom and guaranteeing its neutrality.
- 1855 – Visit of Napoleon III to Guildhall, London
- 1861 – American Civil War: Baltimore riot of 1861: A pro-Secession mob in Baltimore, Maryland, attacks United States Army troops marching through the city.
- 1892 – Charles Duryea claims to have driven the first automobile in the United States, in Springfield, Massachusetts.
- 1897 – Léo Taxil exposes his own fabrications concerning Freemasonry
- 1903 – The Kishinev pogrom in Kishinev (Bessarabia) begins, forcing tens of thousands of Jews to later seek refuge in Palestine and the Western world.
- 1919 – Leslie Irvin of the United States makes the first successful voluntary free-fall parachute jump using a new kind of self-contained parachute.
- 1927 – Mae West is sentenced to ten days in jail for obscenity for her play Sex.
- 1928 – The 125th and final fascicle of the Oxford English Dictionary is published.
- 1942 – World War II: In Poland, the Majdan-Tatarski ghetto is established, situated between the Lublin Ghetto and a Majdanek subcamp.
- 1943 – World War II: In Poland, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising begins, after German troops enter the Warsaw ghetto to round up the remaining Jews.
- 1945 – Diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Guatemala are established.[citation needed]
- 1948 – Burma joins the United Nations.
- 1950 – Argentina becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.
- 1951 – General Douglas MacArthur retires from the military.
- 1954 – The Constituent Assembly of Pakistan recognises Urdu and Bengali as the national languages of Pakistan.
- 1956 – Actress Grace Kelly marries Prince Rainier of Monaco.
- 1960 – Students in South Korea hold a nationwide pro-democracy protest against president Syngman Rhee, eventually forcing him to resign.
- 1971 – Sierra Leone becomes a republic, and Siaka Stevens the president.
- 1971 – Vietnam War: Vietnam Veterans Against the War begin a five-day demonstration in Washington, D.C..
- 1971 – Launch of Salyut 1, the first space station.
- 1971 – Charles Manson is sentenced to death (later commuted life imprisonment) for conspiracy to commit the Tate/LaBianca murders.
- 1973 – The Portuguese Socialist Party is founded in the German town of Bad Münstereifel.
- 1975 – India's first satellite, Aryabhata, is launched.
- 1984 – Advance Australia Fair is proclaimed as Australia's national anthem, and green and gold as the national colours.
- 1985 – FBI siege on the compound of The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord (CSAL) in Arkansas.
- 1985 – U.S.S.R performs nuclear tests at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalatinsk.
- 1987 – The Simpsons premieres as a short cartoon on The Tracey Ullman Show.
- 1989 – A gun turret explodes on the USS Iowa, killing 47 sailors.
- 1993 – The 51-day siege of the Branch Davidian building outside Waco, Texas, USA, ends when a fire breaks out. Eighty-one people die.
- 1993 – South Dakota governor George Mickelson and seven others are killed when a state-owned aircraft crashes in Iowa.
- 1995 – Oklahoma City bombing: The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA, is bombed, killing 168.
- 1997 – The Red River Flood of 1997 overwhelms the city of Grand Forks, North Dakota. Fire breaks out and spreads in downtown Grand Forks, but high water levels hamper efforts to reach the fire, leading to the destruction of 11 buildings.
- 1999 – The German Bundestag returns to Berlin, the first German parliamentary body to meet there since the Reichstag was dissolved in 1933.
- 2011 – Fidel Castro resigns from the Communist Party of Cuba's central committee after 45 years of holding the title.
- 2013 – Boston Marathon bombings suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev is killed in a shootout with police. His brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is captured while hiding in a boat inside a backyard in Watertown, Massachusetts.
Births[edit]
- 626 – Eanflæd, English daughter of Edwin of Northumbria (d. 685)
- 1603 – Michel Le Tellier, French politician (d. 1685)
- 1613 – Christoph Bach, German pianist (d. 1661)
- 1658 – Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine, German husband of Archduchess Maria Anna Josepha of Austria (d. 1716)
- 1660 – Sebastián Durón, Spanish composer (d. 1716)
- 1665 – Jacques Lelong, French author (d. 1721)
- 1686 – Vasily Tatishchev, Russian ethnographer and politician (d. 1750)
- 1715 – James Nares, English organist and composer (d. 1783)
- 1721 – Roger Sherman, American lawyer and politician (d. 1793)
- 1734 – Karl von Ordóñez, Austrian composer (d. 1786)
- 1757 – Edward Pellew, 1st Viscount Exmouth, English admiral (d. 1833)
- 1758 – William Carnegie, 7th Earl of Northesk, Scottish admiral (d. 1831)
- 1785 – Alexandre Pierre François Boëly, French pianist and composer (d. 1858)
- 1787 – Deaf Smith, American soldier (d. 1837)
- 1793 – Ferdinand I of Austria (d. 1875)
- 1814 – Louis Amédée Achard, French author (d. 1875)
- 1832 – José Echegaray, Spanish poet and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1916)
- 1835 – Julius Krohn, Finnish poet, journalist and poetry researcher (d. 1888)
- 1874 – Ernst Rüdin, Swiss psychiatrist, geneticist, and eugenicist (d. 1952)
- 1877 – Ole Evinrude, Norwegian-American inventor, invented the outboard motor (d. 1934)
- 1882 – Getúlio Vargas, Brazilian lawyer and politician, 14th President of Brazil (d. 1954)
- 1883 – Henry Jameson, American soccer player (d. 1938)
- 1883 – Richard von Mises, Austrian-American mathematician (d. 1953)
- 1885 – Karl Tarvas, Estonian architect (d. 1975)
- 1889 – Otto Georg Thierack, German jurist and politician (d. 1946)
- 1891 – Françoise Rosay, French actress and singer (d. 1974)
- 1892 – Germaine Tailleferre, French composer (d. 1983)
- 1894 – Elizabeth Dilling, American author and activist (d. 1966)
- 1897 – Peter de Noronha, Indian businessman and philanthropist (d. 1970)
- 1897 – Jiroemon Kimura, Japanese supercentenarian and oldest man ever (d. 2013)
- 1897 – Constance Talmadge, American actress (d. 1973)
- 1899 – George O'Brien, American actor (d. 1985)
- 1900 – Richard Hughes, English author, poet, and playwright (d. 1976)
- 1900 – Roland Michener, Canadian lawyer and politician, 20th Governor General of Canada (d. 1991)
- 1902 – Veniamin Kaverin, Russian author (d. 1989)
- 1903 – Eliot Ness, American lawman (d. 1957)
- 1907 – Alan Wheatley, English actor (d. 1991)
- 1912 – Glenn Seaborg, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1999)
- 1917 – Sven Hassel, Danish-German soldier and author (d. 2012)
- 1919 – Sol Kaplan, American film and television composer (d. 1990)
- 1920 – Gene Leis, American guitarist, composer, and producer (d. 1993)
- 1920 – John O'Neil, American baseball player and manager (d. 2012)
- 1920 – Julien Ries, Belgian cardinal (d. 2013)
- 1921 – Anna Lee Aldred, American jockey (d. 2006)
- 1922 – Erich Hartmann, German pilot, the highest-scoring fighter pilot in the history of aerial warfare (d. 1993)
- 1925 – John Kraaijkamp, Sr., Dutch actor (d. 2011)
- 1925 – Hugh O'Brian, American actor
- 1926 – Rawya Ateya, Egyptian politician (d. 1997)
- 1927 – Kenneth, American hairdresser (d. 2013)
- 1928 – John Horlock, British professor of mechanical engineering
- 1928 – Alexis Korner, French-English singer-songwriter and guitarist (Blues Incorporated and Collective Consciousness Society) (d. 1984)
- 1930 – Ewan Jamieson, New Zealand commander (d. 2013)
- 1930 – Dick Sargent, American actor (d. 1994)
- 1931 – Garfield Morgan, English actor (d. 2009)
- 1931 – Walter Stewart, Canadian journalist and author (d. 2004)
- 1932 – Fernando Botero, Colombian painter and sculptor
- 1933 – Dickie Bird, English cricketer and umpire
- 1933 – Jayne Mansfield, American model, actress, and singer (d. 1967)
- 1933 – Philip Lavallin Wroughton, Lord Lieutenant of Berkshire
- 1934 – Dickie Goodman, American record producer (d. 1989)
- 1935 – Dudley Moore, English-American actor, screenwriter, and composer (d. 2002)
- 1935 – Justin Francis Rigali, American cardinal
- 1936 – Wilfried Martens, Belgian politician, 60th Prime Minister of Belgium (d. 2013)
- 1936 – Jack Pardee, American football player and coach (d. 2013)
- 1937 – Antonio Carluccio, Italian chef, restaurateur, broadcaster and author
- 1937 – Elinor Donahue, American actress
- 1937 – Joseph Estrada, Filipino actor, producer, and politician, 13th President of the Philippines
- 1938 – Stanley Fish, American academic and scholar
- 1939 – E. Clay Shaw, Jr., American accountant and politician (d. 2013)
- 1940 – Dougal Haston, Scottish mountaineer (d. 1977)
- 1940 – Genya Ravan, American singer-songwriter and producer (Goldie & the Gingerbreads and Ten Wheel Drive)
- 1941 – Priit Aimla, Estonian author, poet, and playwright
- 1941 – Roberto Carlos, Brazilian singer-songwriter and actor
- 1941 – Bobby Russell, American singer-songwriter (d. 1992)
- 1941 – Michel Roux, French chef and restaurateur, broadcaster
- 1942 – Bas Jan Ader, Dutch-American photographer and director (d. 1975)
- 1942 – Alan Price, English keyboard player and songwriter (The Animals)
- 1942 – Jack Roush, American businessman, founded Roush Fenway Racing
- 1942 – Maarten van den Bergh, Dutch businessman
- 1943 – Eve Graham, Scottish singer (The New Seekers)
- 1943 – Margo MacDonald Scottish politician (d. 2014)
- 1943 – Lorenzo Sanz, Spanish businessman
- 1944 – Keith Erickson, American basketball player and sportscaster
- 1944 – James Heckman, American economist, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1944 – Bernie Worrell, American keyboardist and songwriter (Parliament-Funkadelic, Praxis, and Colonel Claypool's Bucket of Bernie Brains)
- 1946 – Tim Curry, English actor and singer
- 1946 – Mary Jo Slater, American casting director and producer
- 1947 – Murray Perahia, American pianist and conductor
- 1947 – Wilfrid Stevenson, Baron Stevenson of Balmacara
- 1947 – Mark Volman, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (The Turtles, Flo & Eddie, and The Mothers of Invention)
- 1948 – Stuart McLean, Canadian radio host and author
- 1948 – Rick Miller, American baseball player and manager
- 1949 – Paloma Picasso, French-Spanish fashion designer
- 1949 – Larry Walters, American truck driver and pilot (d. 1993)
- 1950 – Julia Cleverdon, British chief executive of the charity Business in the Community
- 1951 – Barry Brown, American actor and playwright (d. 1978)
- 1951 – Jóannes Eidesgaard, Faroese educator and politician, Prime Minister of the Faroe Islands
- 1952 – Alexis Argüello, Nicaraguan boxer and politician (d. 2009)
- 1952 – Tony Plana, Cuban-American actor and director
- 1952 – Michael Trend, British politician
- 1953 – Rod Morgenstein, American drummer (Winger, Dixie Dregs, Platypus, and The Jelly Jam)
- 1953 – Ruby Wax, American-English comedian and actress
- 1954 – Trevor Francis, English footballer and manager
- 1954 – Bob Rock, Canadian guitarist, songwriter, and producer (Payolas)
- 1956 – Sue Barker, English tennis player and journalist
- 1956 – Randy Carlyle, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
- 1957 – Mukesh Ambani, Indian businessman
- 1957 – Tony Martin, English singer-songwriter (Black Sabbath, Giuntini Project, and Empire)
- 1958 – Steve Antin, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
- 1958 – Denis O'Brien, Irish businessman, founded BT Ireland
- 1959 – Jane Campbell, Baroness Campbell of Surbiton, British Commissioner of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC)
- 1959 – Donald Markwell, Australian sociologist and educator
- 1960 – Nicoletta Braschi, Italian actress and producer
- 1960 – Ara Gevorgyan, Armenian pianist, composer, and producer
- 1960 – Roger Merrett, Australian footballer and coach
- 1960 – John Schweitz, American basketball player and coach
- 1960 – Frank Viola, American baseball player and coach
- 1961 – Richard Foltz, American-Canadian scholar
- 1961 – Spike Owen, American baseball player and coach
- 1962 – Al Unser, Jr., American race car driver
- 1964 – Gordon Marshall, Scottish footballer and coach
- 1965 – Natalie Dessay, French soprano
- 1965 – Suge Knight, American record producer, co-founded Death Row Records
- 1966 – Véronique Gens, French soprano
- 1966 – Brett J. Gladman, Canadian astronomer
- 1966 – David La Haye, Canadian actor
- 1966 – Julia Neigel, Russian-German singer-songwriter and producer
- 1966 – El Samurai, Japanese wrestler
- 1967 – Philippe Saint-André, French rugby player and coach
- 1967 – Steven H Silver, American journalist and author
- 1967 – Dar Williams, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Cry Cry Cry)
- 1968 – Mswati III of Swaziland
- 1968 – Ashley Judd, American actress
- 1968 – Pascal Kleiman, Spanish DJ, songwriter, and producer
- 1968 – Arshad Warsi, Indian actor, singer, and producer
- 1969 – Andrew Carnie, Canadian-American educator and author
- 1969 – Jesse James, American motorcycle builder, founded West Coast Choppers
- 1969 – Susan Polgar, Hungarian-American chess player
- 1970 – Kelly Holmes, English runner
- 1970 – Luis Miguel, Mexican singer-songwriter and producer
- 1971 – Gad Elmaleh, Moroccan-French comedian and actor
- 1972 – Rivaldo, Brazilian footballer
- 1972 – Jeff Wilkins, American football player
- 1973 – George Gregan, Zambian-Australian rugby player and coach
- 1973 – Alessio Scarpi, Italian footballer
- 1974 – Akara Amarttayakul, Thai actor
- 1975 – Jason Gillespie, Australian cricketer and coach
- 1975 – Jussi Jääskeläinen, Finnish footballer
- 1976 – Ruud Jolie, Dutch guitarist (Within Temptation)
- 1976 – Scott Padgett, American basketball player, coach, and radio host
- 1976 – Kim Young-oh, South Korean illustrator
- 1977 – Joe Beimel, American baseball player
- 1977 – Lucien Mettomo, Cameroonian footballer
- 1977 – Dennys Reyes, Mexican baseball player
- 1977 – Jonny Storm, English wrestler
- 1978 – James Franco, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
- 1978 – Gabriel Heinze, Argentinian footballer
- 1978 – Amanda Sage, American-Austrian painter
- 1979 – Rocky Bernard, American football player
- 1979 – Kate Hudson, American actress and singer
- 1979 – Zhao Junzhe, Chinese footballer
- 1979 – Nicole Raczynski, American wrestler
- 1979 – Antoaneta Stefanova, Bulgarian chess player
- 1980 – Jason Blaine, Canadian singer-songwriter
- 1980 – Robyn Regehr, Brazilian-Canadian ice hockey player
- 1980 – Alexis Thorpe, American actress
- 1981 – Hayden Christensen, Canadian actor
- 1981 – Ryuta Hara, Japanese footballer
- 1981 – Martin Havlát, Czech ice hockey player
- 1981 – Kasie Head, American model, Miss Oklahoma USA 2002
- 1981 – James Hibberd, English cricketer
- 1981 – Napakpapha Nakprasitte, Thai actress
- 1981 – Troy Polamalu, American football player
- 1981 – Catalina Sandino Moreno, Colombian actress
- 1982 – Joseph Hagerty, American gymnast
- 1982 – Rocco Sabato, Italian footballer
- 1982 – Ignacio Serricchio, Argentinian-American actor
- 1982 – Sitiveni Sivivatu, New Zealand rugby player
- 1983 – Alberto Callaspo, Venezuelan-American baseball player
- 1983 – Zach Duke, American baseball player
- 1983 – Joe Mauer, American baseball player
- 1983 – Patrick Platins, German footballer
- 1983 – Curtis Thigpen, American baseball player
- 1984 – Lee Da-hae, South Korean actress
- 1984 – Christopher Pearce, English cricketer
- 1985 – Valon Behrami, Swiss footballer
- 1985 – Jan Zimmermann, German footballer
- 1986 – Maxine, American wrestler and model
- 1986 – Pascal Angan, Beninese footballer
- 1986 – Heather Kuzmich, American model
- 1986 – Zhou Mi, Chinese singer-songwriter and actor (Super Junior-M)
- 1986 – Candace Parker, American basketball player
- 1986 – Gabe Pruitt, American basketball player
- 1986 – Will Thursfield, English-Australian footballer
- 1987 – Oksana Akinshina, Russian actress
- 1987 – David Cavazos, Mexican singer-songwriter
- 1987 – Luigi Giorgi, Italian footballer
- 1987 – Joe Hart, English footballer
- 1987 – Courtland Mead, American actor
- 1987 – Daniel Schuhmacher, German singer-songwriter
- 1987 – Maria Sharapova, Russian tennis player
- 1987 – Lauren Wilson, Canadian figure skater
- 1988 – Enrique Esqueda Mexican footballer
- 1988 – Haruna Kojima, Japanese actress and singer (AKB48 and no3b)
- 1988 – Saya Yūki, Japanese actress
- 1989 – Dominik Mader, German footballer
- 1989 – Belinda Owusu, English actress
- 1989 – Daisuke Watabe, Japanese footballer
- 1990 – Himchan, South Korean singer and dancer (B.A.P)
- 1990 – Jackie Bradley, Jr., American baseball player
- 1990 – Kim Chiu, Filipino actress
- 1990 – Héctor Miguel Herrera, Mexican footballer
- 1990 – Damien Le Tallec, French footballer
- 1990 – Teo Olivares, American actor
- 1990 – Patrick Wiegers, German footballer
- 1991 – Steve Cook, English footballer
- 1991 – Kelly Olynyk, Canadian basketball player
- 1992 – Paul-Jose M'Poku, Belgian footballer
- 1993 – Sebastian de Souza, English actor
- 1994 – Lee Areum, South Korean singer (T-ara)
- 1995 – Akira Saitō, Japanese actress
Deaths[edit]
- 1012 – Ælfheah of Canterbury, English archbishop (b. 954)
- 1054 – Pope Leo IX (b. 1002)
- 1321 – Patriarch Gerasimus I of Constantinople
- 1390 – Robert II of Scotland (b. 1316)
- 1560 – Philipp Melanchthon, German theologian and reformer (b. 1497)
- 1567 – Michael Stifel, German monk and mathematician (b. 1487)
- 1578 – Uesugi Kenshin, Japanese daimyo (b. 1530)
- 1588 – Paolo Veronese, Italian painter (b. 1528)
- 1608 – Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset, English politician (b. 1536)
- 1618 – Thomas Bastard, English clergyman (b. 1566)
- 1627 – Sir John Beaumont, 1st Baronet, English poet (b. 1583)
- 1629 – Sigismondo d'India, Italian composer (b. 1582)
- 1686 – Antonio de Solís y Ribadeneyra, Spanish historian and playwright (b. 1610)
- 1689 – Christina, Queen of Sweden (b. 1626)
- 1733 – Elizabeth Hamilton, Countess of Orkney (b. 1655)
- 1739 – Nicholas Saunderson, English mathematician (b. 1682)
- 1768 – Canaletto, Italian painter (b. 1697)
- 1776 – Jacob Emden, German rabbi and talmudist (b. 1697)
- 1791 – Richard Price, Welsh philosopher (b. 1723)
- 1813 – Benjamin Rush, American physician and educator (b. 1745)
- 1824 – Lord Byron, English-Scottish poet (b. 1788)
- 1831 – Johann Gottlieb Friedrich von Bohnenberger, German astronomer and mathematician (b. 1765)
- 1833 – James Gambier, 1st Baron Gambier, Bahamian-English admiral (b. 1756)
- 1840 – Jean-Jacques Lartigue, Canadian bishop (b. 1777)
- 1854 – Robert Jameson, Scottish mineralogist (b. 1774)
- 1881 – Benjamin Disraeli, English politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1804)
- 1882 – Charles Darwin, English biologist and theorist (b. 1809)
- 1892 – Thomas Pelham Dale, English clergyman (b. 1821)
- 1893 – Martin Körber, Baltic German pastor, writer, composer and choral conductor (b. 1817)
- 1901 – Alfred Horatio Belo, American publisher, founded The Dallas Morning News (b. 1839)
- 1906 – Pierre Curie, French physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1859)
- 1906 – Spencer Gore, English tennis player and cricketer (b. 1850)
- 1914 – Charles Sanders Peirce, American philosopher and mathematician (b. 1839)
- 1916 – Ephraim Shay, American engineer, designed the Shay locomotive (b. 1839)
- 1926 – Alexander Alexandrovich Chuprov, Russian statistician (b. 1874)
- 1930 – Georges-Casimir Dessaulles, Canadian businessman and politician (b. 1827)
- 1937 – Martin Conway, 1st Baron Conway of Allington, English cartographer and politician (b. 1856)
- 1937 – William Morton Wheeler, American entomologist (b. 1865)
- 1941 – Johanna Müller-Hermann, Austrian composer (b. 1878)
- 1949 – Ulrich Salchow, Swedish figure skater (b. 1877)
- 1950 – Ernst Robert Curtius, French-German philologist and scholar (b. 1886)
- 1955 – Jim Corbett, Indian conservationist, colonel, and author (b. 1875)
- 1958 – Artur Kukk, Estonian wrestler (b. 1899)
- 1960 – Beardsley Ruml, American economist (b. 1894)
- 1961 – Max Hainle, German swimmer (b. 1882)
- 1966 – Eduards Smiļģis, Latvian actor and director (b. 1886)
- 1966 – Javier Solís, Mexican singer and actor (b. 1931)
- 1967 – Konrad Adenauer, German politician, 1st Chancellor of Germany (b. 1876)
- 1975 – Percy Lavon Julian, American chemist (b. 1899)
- 1988 – Kwon Ki-ok, North Korean pilot (b. 1901)
- 1989 – Daphne du Maurier, English author and playwright (b. 1907)
- 1991 – Stanley Hawes, English-Australian director and producer (b. 1905)
- 1992 – Frankie Howerd, English actor (b. 1917)
- 1993 – David Koresh, American religious leader (b. 1959)
- 1993 – George S. Mickelson, American politician, 28th Governor of South Dakota (b. 1941)
- 1993 – Timos Perlegas, Greek actor (b. 1938)
- 1993 – Joseph Wallace, American murder victim (b. 1990)
- 1996 – John Martin Scripps, English murderer (b. 1959)
- 1997 – Eldon Hoke, American singer and drummer (The Mentors and The Screamers) (b. 1958)
- 1998 – Octavio Paz, Mexican poet, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1914)
- 1999 – Hermine Braunsteiner, Austrian-German SS officer (b. 1919)
- 1999 – David Sanes, American security guard (b. 1954)
- 2000 – Louis Applebaum, Canadian composer and conductor (b. 1918)
- 2001 – Meldrim Thomson, Jr.. American politician, 73rd Governor of New Hampshire (b. 1912)
- 2003 – Mirza Tahir Ahmad, Indian-English caliph (b. 1928)
- 2004 – Norris McWhirter, English author and activist co-founded the Guinness World Records (b. 1925)
- 2004 – John Maynard Smith, English biologist (b. 1920)
- 2005 – George P. Cosmatos, Italian-Greek director and screenwriter (b. 1941)
- 2005 – Ruth Hussey, American actress (b. 1911)
- 2005 – Clement Meadmore, Australian-American sculptor (b. 1929)
- 2005 – Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, Danish bassist and composer (b. 1946)
- 2006 – Albert Scott Crossfield, American engineer, pilot, and astronaut (b. 1921)
- 2007 – Jean-Pierre Cassel, French actor (b. 1932)
- 2007 – Helen Walton, American businesswomen (b. 1919)
- 2008 – John Marzano, American baseball player (b. 1963)
- 2008 – Alfonso López Trujillo, Colombian cardinal (b. 1935)
- 2009 – J. G. Ballard, Chinese-English author (b. 1930)
- 2010 – Guru, American rapper, producer, and actor (Gang Starr) (b. 1961)
- 2010 – Edwin Valero, Venezuelan boxer (b. 1981)
- 2010 – Carl Williams, Australian murderer and drug trafficker (b. 1970)
- 2011 – Elisabeth Sladen, English actress (b. 1946)
- 2012 – Leopold David de Rothschild, English financier and philanthropist (b. 1927)
- 2012 – Greg Ham, Australian saxophonist, songwriter, and actor (Men at Work) (b. 1953)
- 2012 – Levon Helm, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor (The Band) (b. 1940)
- 2012 – Murtaza Razvi, Pakistani journalist (b. 1964)
- 2012 – Valeri Vasiliev, Russian ice hockey player (b. 1949)
- 2013 – Sivanthi Adithan, Indian businessman (b. 1936)
- 2013 – Kenneth Appel, American mathematician (b. 1932)
- 2013 – Allan Arbus, American actor (b. 1918)
- 2013 – Mike Denness, Scottish-English cricketer and referee (b. 1940)
- 2013 – Patrick Garland, English actor and director (b. 1935)
- 2013 – Aishah Ghani, Malaysian politician (b. 1923)
- 2013 – Robert Holding, American businessman (b. 1926)
- 2013 – François Jacob, French biologist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1920)
- 2013 – Thomas Joseph Kelly, American horse trainer (b. 1919)
- 2013 – E. L. Konigsburg, American author and illustrator (b. 1930)
- 2013 – Al Neuharth, American journalist, author, and publisher, founded USA Today (b. 1924)
Holidays and observances[edit]
- Beginning of the Independence Movement (Venezuela)
- Bicycle Day
- Christian Feast Day:
- Ælfheah of Canterbury a/k/a Alphege, Archbishop, Martyr, 1012 CE (Anglican, Catholic)
- Emma of Lesum
- Expeditus
- George of Antioch
- Pope Leo IX
- Olaus and Laurentius Petri (Lutheran)
- April 19 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
- Dutch-American Friendship Day (United States)
- Earliest day on which First Day of Summer or Sumardagurinn fyrsti can fall, while April 25 is the latest; celebrated on the first Thursday after April 18. (Iceland)
- King Mswati III's birthday (Swaziland)
- Patriot's Day (Massachusetts, Maine, Wisconsin)
- Landing of the 33 (Uruguay)
- National Health Day (Kiribati)
- Primrose Day (United Kingdom)
“If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.” - Romans 10:9-10
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon
Morning
"She bound the scarlet line in the window."
Joshua 2:21
Joshua 2:21
Rahab depended for her preservation upon the promise of the spies, whom she looked upon as the representatives of the God of Israel. Her faith was simple and firm, but it was very obedient. To tie the scarlet line in the window was a very trivial act in itself, but she dared not run the risk of omitting it. Come, my soul, is there not here a lesson for thee? Hast thou been attentive to all thy Lord's will, even though some of his commands should seem non-essential? Hast thou observed in his own way the two ordinances of believers' baptism and the Lord's Supper? These neglected, argue much unloving disobedience in thy heart. Be henceforth in all things blameless, even to the tying of a thread, if that be matter of command.
This act of Rahab sets forth a yet more solemn lesson. Have I implicitly trusted in the precious blood of Jesus? Have I tied the scarlet cord, as with a Gordian knot in my window, so that my trust can never be removed? Or can I look out towards the Dead Sea of my sins, or the Jerusalem of my hopes, without seeing the blood, and seeing all things in connection with its blessed power? The passer-by can see a cord of so conspicuous a colour, if it hangs from the window: it will be well for me if my life makes the efficacy of the atonement conspicuous to all onlookers. What is there to be ashamed of? Let men or devils gaze if they will, the blood is my boast and my song. My soul, there is One who will see that scarlet line, even when from weakness of faith thou canst not see it thyself; Jehovah, the Avenger, will see it and pass over thee. Jericho's walls fell flat: Rahab's house was on the wall, and yet it stood unmoved; my nature is built into the wall of humanity, and yet when destruction smites the race, I shall be secure. My soul, tie the scarlet thread in the window afresh, and rest in peace.
Evening
"And thou saidst, I will surely do thee good."
Genesis 32:12
Genesis 32:12
When Jacob was on the other side of the brook Jabbok, and Esau was coming with armed men, he earnestly sought God's protection, and as a master reason he pleaded, "And thou saidst, I will surely do thee good." Oh, the force of that plea! He was holding God to his word--"Thou saidst." The attribute of God's faithfulness is a splendid horn of the altar to lay hold upon; but the promise, which has in it the attribute and something more, is a yet mightier holdfast--"Thou saidst, I will surely do thee good." And has he said, and shall he not do it? "Let God be true, and every man a liar." Shall not he be true? Shall he not keep his word? Shall not every word that cometh out of his lips stand fast and be fulfilled? Solomon, at the opening of the temple, used this same mighty plea. He pleaded with God to remember the word which he had spoken to his father David, and to bless that place. When a man gives a promissory note, his honour is engaged; he signs his hand, and he must discharge it when the due time comes, or else he loses credit. It shall never be said that God dishonours his bills. The credit of the Most High never was impeached, and never shall be. He is punctual to the moment: he never is before his time, but he never is behind it. Search God's word through, and compare it with the experience of God's people, and you shall find the two tally from the first to the last. Many a hoary patriarch has said with Joshua, "Not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spake concerning you; all are come to pass." If you have a divine promise, you need not plead it with an "if," you may urge it with certainty. The Lord meant to fulfil the promise, or he would not have given it. God does not give his words merely to quiet us, and to keep us hopeful for awhile with the intention of putting us off at last; but when he speaks, it is because he means to do as he has said.
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Chloe
Scripture Reference: 1 Corinthians 1:10, 11
Name Meaning: Green herb
We are not told anything about the background of this Corinthian matron and head of a Christian household. Evidently she was well-known to the Corinthians by her personal name which means "green herb," and in the Greek represents the first green shoot of plants. Chloe is therefore emblematic of fruitful grace and beauty. It was while he was benefiting from the hospitality of her home that Paul received information of strife among leaders in the Early Church and which he sought to deal with in this first chapter of First Corinthians. The Church at Corinth gave Paul a good deal of concern and heartache because of its low spirituality.
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Shechem, Sichem, Sychem, Sychar
[Shē'chem] - shoulder.
1. A son of Hamor, a Hivite prince - "a prince of the country" - that is, of Shechem. It is not certain whether the Levitical city was named after the son of Hamor, or whether he was named after the city (Gen. 33:18, 19; Josh. 24:32; Judg. 9:28).
The Man Who Disgraced His Princely Dignity
Shechem, a neighbor of Jacob, took advantage of his daughter's visit to the daughters of the Hivites. Doubtless Dinah was young and unaccustomed to the ways of the world, and taking advantage of her, Shechem proved himself unworthy of his high office. He was led into sin by what he saw, and while it is said that Shechem came to love the girl he had wronged and wanted to make her his wife, yet such a proposal was not possible, owing to God's command about His people marrying those of Gentile nations. The scheme of Jacob's sons need not be told. Suffice it to say that Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brothers, treacherously slew Shechem for his betrayal of their sister. To the credit of Shechem it is said that "he was more honourable than all the house of his father." As for Simeon and Levi, they earned a sad epitaph (Gen. 49:5-7).
2. A son of Gilead, son of Manasseh and founder of a tribal family (Num. 26:31; Josh. 17:2).
3. A son of Shemidah, a Manassite (1 Chron. 7:19).
Shechem is also a name renowned in history. Jacob rested there (Gen. 33:18). Jesus met the woman of Samaria at the one-time city of refuge and the first residence of the kings of Israel (John 4:12). It is said that Justin Martyr was born here, about a.d. 100.
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Today's reading: 2 Samuel 3-5, Luke 14:25-35 (NIV)
View today's reading on Bible GatewayToday's Old Testament reading: 2 Samuel 3-5
1 The war between the house of Saul and the house of David lasted a long time. David grew stronger and stronger, while the house of Saul grew weaker and weaker.
2 Sons were born to David in Hebron:
His firstborn was Amnon the son of Ahinoam of Jezreel;
3 his second, Kileab the son of Abigail the widow of Nabal of Carmel;
the third, Absalom the son of Maakah daughter of Talmai king of Geshur;
4 the fourth, Adonijah the son of Haggith;
the fifth, Shephatiah the son of Abital;
5 and the sixth, Ithream the son of David's wife Eglah.
These were born to David in Hebron....
His firstborn was Amnon the son of Ahinoam of Jezreel;
3 his second, Kileab the son of Abigail the widow of Nabal of Carmel;
the third, Absalom the son of Maakah daughter of Talmai king of Geshur;
4 the fourth, Adonijah the son of Haggith;
the fifth, Shephatiah the son of Abital;
5 and the sixth, Ithream the son of David's wife Eglah.
These were born to David in Hebron....
Today's New Testament reading: Luke 14:25-35
The Cost of Being a Disciple
25 Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26 "If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters--yes, even their own life--such a person cannot be my disciple. 27And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
28 "Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won't you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? 29 For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, 30saying, 'This person began to build and wasn't able to finish....'
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THE BEGINNING BEFORE THE BEGINNING
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.... The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:1-2, 14)
Oftentimes we understand the beginning of a story when we approach its end. Like Genesis the opening words of the Gospel of John are “in the beginning,” except this beginning stretches beyond the creation, back to a time when there was God–and only God. There must have been such a time, of course, because if God is the Creator, then there was a time when it was only God.
The great truth of Christianity here described by John in his gospel, and repeated throughout the New Testament, is that Jesus Christ was there before the beginning. He is the Word of God, he was with God, and he was God. He took part in the act of creation; he is the source of life and light.
Then one day he took human form (“the Word became flesh”). He came and lived a life that looked just like ours, with hunger, tiredness, temptation, but without sin. He is the great enigma of the history of the world. People have worshipped him and have hated him. They have tried to ignore him, but that is the lease sensible thing to do.
He is the Lord of glory. “We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (vs. 14).
Ponder This: In what ways do you need the truth and grace of God through Christ at this point in your life?
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Today's Lent reading: John 13-14 (NIV)
View today's Lent reading on Bible GatewayJesus Washes His Disciples' Feet
1 It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
2 The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. 3 Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; 4 so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. 5 After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.
6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?"
7 Jesus replied, "You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand...."
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