First the white view:

Andrew Henderson at Nomad Capitalist  writes that so-called “white worship” in Asia is greatly exaggerated and that when it does occur is mostly derived from Asian admiration for wealth and success.

As more Asians become prosperous, he claims,  “white is right” no longer works.

Henderson:

“Sure, many Asian women prefer white guys with blond hair. For some, it’s a fad; for others, it’s a type. However, I don’t hear anyone complaining that the Kardashians seem to share a “type” in the guys they date.

Nor do I hear the westerners hurling arrogant stereotypes at Asians accusing the $10-an-hour secretary in Chicago of being “just out for money”. $1.50 or $2 an hour in Vietnam can go a lot further for a young person than $10 an hour in the USSA. Yet few – including the 200 commenters on that Facebook post I mentioned – would accuse an underpaid secretary of being “only out for money”. (And, of course, not all white people living in Asia have money.)

As Asians gain more and more wealth, a lot of men and women are choosing to marry within their culture. Go to China and try to get with a model. You’d be hard pressed to do it. The wealthiest and most attractive women there, just like in any culture, have their pick of the litter, and it’s a lot easier to marry someone from the same background. They’re not lining up to date white people.

So if you think white people are living the perfect life in Asia with a parade of women begging them for dates daily, think again. Likewise, not everything is about money here. Yes, many Asian cultures place a high value on entrepreneurship, working hard, and building wealth. Those are reasons I respect the culture and feel comfortable here.

Just don’t confuse a desire for success with a parasitic eye toward white people.”

Henderson’s view strikes me as exceedingly limited and roseate.

My own views on the subject are closer to those of a reader of Nomad Capitalist, who responded thus:

R. Jerome Harris:

“Skin whitener products are big business in Thailand and in Japan. Thai women avoid exposure to the sun like a plague. Dark-skinned Thai do not get the “good jobs” that involve exposure with the public – especially – with visiting foreigners. You do not see dark-skinned Thai airline stewardesses, bank tellers, etc.

Driving from any one of the two Thai airports you will see billboards of White European or American models. The few advertisements you see along the roads that have Thai models in them, their skin is so bleached White, they look White.

Black people are not preferred. If no Black people lived in Thailand, it would be OK with most Thais. Unless, you have money.

Money is everything to Thais because they need it to take care of their families. If you happen to be Black and you have money, “What’s love got to do with it” as one Thai lady told me.

A White friend of mine (pale skinned guy from Australia) was walking down a village road when a elderly Thai woman sitting with her daughter or grand daughter yelled out to my white friend – who they did not know – to “give daughter baby.” In other words, they wanted him to have sex with the young woman to make her pregnant.

In Thailand, light-skinned children are a prize and hold much value in the Thai family. They are a goldmine for the family because that child – when it grows up – will have privileges a darker skinned Thai child will never have.

Thai parents are desperate for English speaking foreigners to teach their children English. They will give you all they have if you tutor them … if you are the right color.

I am a teacher by profession. But Thai parents will not allow Black persons – no matter what your credentials – teach their Children. They want a Farang – a White person to teach them.

I was at one of Thailand very popular 5-star hotels awaiting my turn to serviced. I was next in line. Yet, a White couple showed up with their bags in tow and instead of looking at me and saying, “May I help you” the hotel check-in clerk bypassed me as if I was not there and addressed the White couple. But here is the thing: The White couple did not have the decency or courtesy to say, “He was here before us.”

In Thailand and in Japan, White-skin is “preferred.” But when all of the layers are peeled back, it is really White people worship.

What readers have been given by Mr. Henderson is a White man’s perspective and that is all. I am not saying that what he is saying is all in error. I am saying a lot is missing.

The things in the world cannot always be told all the time through the eyes of a White person.”

A famous Malaysian-based Chinese astrologer and Buddhist  Feng-Shui Master, Thean Y Nang, who reportedly predicted 9/11, is out with predictions for 2015.

More from International Business Times, via Lew Rockwell:

“The Year of the Wood Goat is associated with the wood element as well as the earth element, but unfortunately, the earth element is unfavourable this year. This means that there will be a multitude of disasters and mass casualties such as landslides, bridge collapses and problems relating to construction. Countries along the Pacific Ring of Fire where earthquakes commonly occur will also be affected. Added to this, the combination of elements means that there will continue to be a volatile political situation which will cause “irregular fluctuations” to the global economy, and that is why financial losses might occur.

Property and currency prices will fluctuate

“Property prices will decrease due to disaster, causing less demand in the market, so think twice before you invest,” writes Thean. “Drastic currency swings may happen that are hard to predict. Investments could be problematic but if you must invest, take extra precaution and make sure you consider thoroughly before making any money-related division. “Otherwise you may encounter predicaments and obstacles e.g. serious cash outflow or even bankruptcy.” In the Year of the Wood Goat, there is also a lack of the metal element, which is a good thing, as the prices of gold and silver will likely increase.”

LRC republished this piece without comment, but on this blog we are a tad more skeptical of any “Ancient Eastern Master” that gets into major media.

There are many ancient Eastern masters and most of their teaching is the object of ridicule, distortion, plagiarism, libel, or censorship in the mainstream.

When one of them escapes that destiny, I’m inclined to wonder why.

I note that Malaysia, despite well-known feisty remarks about Zionism from former PM Mohammed Mahathir, is itself a police-state of sorts.

It has its own share of financiers hooked into the global elites.

And it seems to be a target/player in some recent and spectacular international crises,  the downing of the Malaysian airline over Ukraine  being one.

Remember the mysterious Chinese blogger who also “predicted” that downing ?

He made a great Daily Mail headline. So does Master Thean Y Nang.

I wrote this in 2007:

http://dissidentvoice.org/2007/08/tom-tancredo-takes-out-mecca-us-forces-take-out-al-badri/

A Chinese astrologer who predicted 9/11 and now predicts the movement of gold and silver, bridge and building collapses, and currency fluctuations?

Could someone want to spook the real estate industry and prop up the bullion market?

Who has stock positions where?

And would they whisper into the ear of an ambitious professional seer?

If cartoons can be a weapon for the global hierarchy in their war on the mind, any reason why astrology might not be?

ADDED:

Please note that I do not endorse JONAH or its individual practices/therapies in any way.

My point is simply that free speech is routinely curbed in the West, so to claim it is an inviolable principle is misleading.

Note also that a JONAH  counselor has been charged with abuse of clients by noted pro-gay activist, Wayne Besen.

[Wayne Besen is a prominent critic of the “ex-gay” movement and was instrumental in attacking many conservative/Republican figures through ex-gay associates.]

See this blog for a fascinating exchange in which Besen slipped and admitted that in diagnostic classification by the APA (American Psychological Association) in 1973, homosexuality was dropped as a mental illness simply because of political pressure, not science.

Note that the exchange was scrubbed from Besen’s site and is only available now because the blogger preserved it on his site.

In connection to that, note that the  judge in the JONAH lawsuit (Hudson County (NJ) Superior Court Judge, Peter Bariso Jr) has also made it “fraudulent” for reparative therapists to offer statistics of success or use client testimony.

In other words, the court has banned evidence that contradicts the preferred political position of the ruling classes.

Final point. The plaintiff in the case against JONAH is none other than the notorious Southern Poverty Law Center, a self-styled anti-bigotry watch-dog that engages in one of the few bigotries that remains acceptable today – prejudice against conservative religious beliefs.

The SPLC has called the Christian organization, Focus on the Family, a “hate” group simply because it advocates traditional Christian positions.

Meanwhile, the head of the SPLC, Morris Dees, who has made a career of bankrupting outfits that he targets as “hate-filled,” is himself a multi-millionaire.

And, at least according to papers filed by his former wife, moral crusader Dees is prone to violence and other abusive actions, to put it delicately.

Gory details, for those so inclined, can be found here. Caveat lector. It is a divorce proceeding, after all.

ORIGINAL POST

A US court has ruled that JONAH, a Jewish group that  offers reparative therapy to homosexuals, is committing a violation of the Consumer Fraud Act.

However, if Jonah were simply calling homosexuality “disordered” and prohibited by religion, the court conceded, the group might be afforded First Amendment protection.

So much for the endlessly hyped dogma that free speech is sacred in the West.

Bah, humbug.

Eric Hyde, an orthodox Christian and psychotherapist, has a list of the ten most popular arguments made by atheists against Christians and the reasons why they fail.

Here are the last three arguments on his list:

“8. History is full of mother-child messiah cults, trinity godheads, and the like. Thus the Christian story is a myth like the rest.

This argument seems insurmountable on the surface, but is really a slow-pitch across the plate (if you don’t mind a baseball analogy). There is no arguing the fact that history is full of similar stories found in the Bible, and I won’t take the time to recount them here. But this fact should not be surprising in the least, indeed if history had no similar stories it would be reason for concern. Anything beautiful always has replicas. A counterfeit coin does not prove the non-existence of the authentic coin, it proves the exact opposite. A thousand U2 cover bands is not evidence that U2 is a myth.

Ah, but that doesn’t address the fact that some of these stories were told before the Biblical accounts. True. But imagine if the only story of a messianic virgin birth, death, and resurrection were contained in the New Testament. That, to me, would be odd. It would be odd because if all people everywhere had God as their Creator, yet the central event of human history—the game changing event of all the ages—the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ had never occurred to them, in at least some hazy form, they would have been completely cut off from the prime mysteries of human existence. It seems only natural that if the advent of Christ was real it would permeate through the consciousness of mankind on some level regardless of their place in history. One should expect to find mankind replicating these stories, found in their own visions and dreams, again and again throughout history. And indeed, that is what we find.

9. The God of the Bible is evil. A God who allows so much suffering and death can be nothing but evil.

This criticism is voice in many different ways. For me, this is one of the most legitimate arguments against the existence of a good God. The fact that there is suffering and death is the strongest argument against the belief in an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving God. If suffering and death exist it seems to suggest one of two things: (1) either God is love, but He is not all-powerful and cannot stop suffering and death, or (2) God is all-powerful, but He does not care for us.

I devoted a separate article addressing this problem, but let me deal here with the problem inherent in the criticism itself. The argument takes as its presupposition that good and evil are real; that there is an ultimate standard of good and evil that supersedes mere fanciful ‘ideas’ about what is good and evil at a given time in our ethical evolution, as it were. If there is not a real existence—an ontological reality—of good and evil, then the charge that God is evil because of this or that is really to say nothing more than, “I personally don’t like what I see in the world and therefore a good God cannot exist.” I like what C.S. Lewis said on a similar matter: “There is no sense in talking of ‘becoming better’ if better means simply ‘what we are becoming’—it is like congratulating yourself on reaching your destination and defining destination as ‘the place you have reached.’”

What is tricky for the atheist in these sorts of debates is to steer clear of words loaded with religious overtones. It’s weird for someone who does not believe in ultimate good and evil to condemn God as evil because He did not achieve their personal vision of good. So, the initial criticism is sound, but it is subversive to the atheist’s staging ground. If one is going to accept good and evil as realities, he is not in a position to fully reject God. Instead, he is more in a position to wrestle with the idea that God is good. This struggle is applauded in the Orthodox Church. After all, the very word God used for his people in the Old Testament—“Israel”—means to struggle with God.

10. Evolution has answered the question of where we came from. There is no need for ignorant ancient myths anymore.

This might be the most popular attempted smack-downs of religion in general today. It is found in many variations but the concept is fairly consistent and goes something like this: Science has brought us to a point where we no longer need mythology to understand the world, and any questions which remain will eventually be answered through future scientific breakthroughs. The main battle-ground where this criticism is seen today is in evolution vs. creationism debates.

Let me say upfront that there is perhaps no other subject that bores me more than evolution vs. creationism debates. I would rather watch paint dry. And when I’m not falling asleep through such debates I’m frustrated because usually both sides of the debate use large amounts of dishonesty in order to gain points rather than to gain the truth. The evolutionist has no commentary whatsoever on the existence of God, and the creationist usually suffers from profound confusion in their understanding of the first few chapters of Genesis.

So, without entering into the most pathetic debate of the ages, bereft of all intellectual profundity, I’ll only comment on the underlining idea that science has put Christianity out of the answer business. Science is fantastic if you want to know what gauge wire is compatible with a 20 amp electric charge, how agriculture works, what causes disease and how to cure it, and a million other things. But where the physical sciences are completely lacking is in those issues most important to human beings—the truly existential issues: what does it mean to be human, why are we here, what is valuable, what does it mean to love, to hate, what am I to do with guilt, grief, sorrow, what does it mean to succeed, is there any meaning and what does ‘meaning’ mean, and, of course, is there a God? etc, ad infinitum.

As far as where we come from, evolution has barely scratched the purely scientific surface of the matter. Even if the whole project of evolution as an account of our history was without serious objection, it would still not answer the problem of the origin of life, since the option of natural selection as an explanation is not available when considering how dead or inorganic matter becomes organic. Even more complicated is the matter of where matter came from. The ‘Big Bang’ is not an answer to origins but rather a description of the event by which everything came into being; i.e., it’s the description of a smoking gun, not the shooter.”

At A Voice for Men, Amit Deshpande reports on misandry in India:

“In modern day India, all things developmental are considered due to encouraged participation of women in public life and all things bad and lethargic are due to patriarchy and the attitude of men.

For feminists in India, “Patriarchy” is considered to be a virtue worth jettisoning, without giving up the women’s privileges that come with it.

Indian feminism is caught up largely in the 1980s with help of increased funding from the West.

There were a slew of laws created which haunt the Indian men to this date.

The first weapon feminists used, was a woman’s share in her paternal property, termed as “dowry”.

India saw an increased reportage of bride-burning and dowry harassment cases in media. The cry was made shrill enough to drown any sane voice, if ever there was any.

An anti-dowry harassment law, Section 498a of the IPC was created in 1983 which is draconian and most misused. It gives a woman complete power to get anyone from her husband’s family arrested.

Then came the Dowry death law –Section 304B of the Indian Penal Code. It considers any unnatural death of a woman within 7 years of marriage as dowry death – meaning it assumes the husband and his relatives as guilty for her death and they are put behind bars immediately.

There have been many other anti-men laws that have come up regularly. Misandry in India, overall, can be gauged with the high number of suicides of men and crime against men: According to the National Crime Records Bureau, Ministry of Home Affairs – 62,433 married men and a total of 87,839 men committed suicide in 2011 — and this figure is increasing every year. The same bureau report shows that 92% of all crime happens against men and the society is still not even considering issues of men as a topic worth attention.”

A blogger describes how the media effeminizes Asian men and masculinizes black women:

Three major stereotypes – that have come into being in history and have since been reinforced by popular culture – inform the perceptions of beauty in Western culture today, says Nitasha Sharma, an anthropology professor at Northwestern University who researches difference, inequality and racism in Asian-black relations. 

The first stereotype is that black men are aggressive and hyper-masculine – “walking penises” – and Asian women are the perfect wives – docile, submissive, obedient, shy and waiting to be saved, Sharma says. Second, Asian men have been de-sexualized as small and weak brainiacs excelling at math but unable to get the girl, while black women have been seen as too aggressive, independent and outspoken to be proper wives. The third stereotype portrays whites in a position of power and “globally desired,” a key to gaining a higher social status.

Love is not colorblind, Sharma admits. However, to claim that height and shape or symmetries of the face make some races more desirable than others is a “complete baloney,” she says.

If you think of Asian men or black women as less attractive than other races, it is because of you, not because of them, Sharma says. Since the day you were born, different influences on your mind – the bedtime stories your Mom read, the cartoons you saw as kid, the school you went to and the wallpaper on your computer – have come together to create a cohesive image of the world.

Popular culture – movies, TV, cartoons, books – aim to reflect reality and end up reinforcing it as well. “This is not a matter of brainwashing,” Sharma says. “It’s how people make sense of their position in society.” Stereotyping puts people in categories and helps us explain a complex world with oversimplification.

Look at those figures:

On screen, black characters use profanity 89 percent of the time, versus white characters who use profanity 17 percent of the time. Blacks are depicted in physical violence 56 percent of the time, while whites play violent roles just 11 percent of the time, according to Robert Entman and Andrew Rojecki’s 2000 book “The Black Image in the White Mind.”

Blacks are further shown as either lazy or hypersexual, while Asian men, to the extent that they are portrayed at all, are either momma’s boys or effeminate computer dorks with no social skills, Entman says.

“If you can come up with an example [in movies] where an Asian man is shown in a sexual role with a white woman, I’d be shocked. Shocked!” Sharma says.

Asian men normally do not take the romantic lead. During its 15-year run, the NBC show “ER” did not star a single Asian in a leading male role. “Grey’s Anatomy” showed the romances of six white characters – exclusively with other white people – and between a black male, Dr. Preston Burke, and an Asian female, Dr. Cristina Yang. An iPhone 4 FaceTime commercial features three couples – all of them white men video calling either white or Asian female mates. There are countless more examples.”

Updated:

Just to clarify, I do not support the intervention of the central government in the treatment of deaf people, except at the level of raising awareness and smoothing the path of private enterprise. The reason is that once the government starts creating programs, the programs inevitably turn into schemes and boondoggles for preferred contractors. Kickbacks enter the picture and costs rise. Private efforts are diverted elsewhere, because of the appearance that “something is being done.”

Activists, instead of focusing on reducing the problem, become comfortable with it, because it becomes a source of income and prestige. Bureaucratic creep and empire-building take over.

From Project Deaf India:

As reported by WHO, there are about 250-300 million deaf people in this world, 2/3 of them live in the underdeveloped nations, of these India has the largest share.

From a recent report in the India’s leading daily newspaper, The Times of India, Jan 23, 2007;

“That one out of twelve (1/12) persons in India has hearing loss. The problem is receiving political attention. The health ministry has launched its project to focus on The Prevention and Early diagnosis of deafness and not the least, treatment of ear infections and other diseases causing hearing loss ………”

And more below about one doctor’s fight against India’s epidemic of hearing loss:

On a 1998 visit to India, from which Rotarian Desai emigrated nearly a half century ago, he read a newspaper article about the discovery of the so-called “deaf village.” He learned that India has one of the highest rates of deafness in the world. Most of the deaf are illiterate and uneducated. Discrimination is rampant.

He began to wonder if he could give India’s deaf children the same opportunities for education and employment that his daughter had received. “Why can’t I bring more Anjalis into the world?” he asked himself.

Almost immediately upon returning home, he launched Project Deaf India. The first phase, a $40,000 project funded partly by a Matching Grant, provided a mobile detection unit and audiometer for early diagnosis of deafness, hearing aids for deaf children, training for local teachers in the Total Communication System of deaf education, and an electronic microscope that enables a rural hospital to conduct corrective surgery on deaf patients.

The project quickly drew interest. O.P. Vaish, RI director; and T. Ramesh U. Pai, past RI director, have been instrumental in supporting Project Deaf India, and six other California clubs have joined as sponsors.

In 1999, a Grant for Rotary Volunteers paid for two teachers from Gallaudet University to provide instruction in sign language to children and their families in Mysore for three months. Few deaf people in India know sign language, both because of a lack of funds and because of logistical problems-India has 38 different languages. Dr. Desai is promoting the use of English as a universal sign language in India. To that end, he also arranged for a third Rotary Volunteers grant from January to March 2001. The grant paid for the head of a prominent school for the deaf in New Mexico, USA, to explore the possibility of teaching American Sign Language and computer skills in India.

Last August, the group received a Matching Grant to assist the “deaf village.” The $20,000 project, funded in partnership with Dr. Desai’s club and the Rotary Club of Hubli Mid-Town, supplied three subterranean wells and a water distribution system. The Rotarians also helped set up monthly health clinics, and supply multivitamins and hearing aids. In addition, they have reduced the incidence of ear infections in the village by curbing a tribal practice of inserting tainted coconut oil in the infants’ ears to prevent “leaking ear,” which generally precedes deafness in the village.

The NIH is still investigating the exact cause of the extraordinarily high rate of deafness in the village. It is likely that malnutrition, heredity, cultural habits and a contaminated water supply all play a role. The local people, however, call it “God’s curse.”

“It is believed there are many more deaf villages hidden in the forests of India,” Dr. Desai says. And just as these villages are overlooked by the rest of society, so, too, are most of the deaf in India.

The unemployment rate is about 50 percent for the hearing impaired. “Deafness is still considered a stigma in India,” he says. “Deaf children are discarded and sent to poorly supported government schools. The schools are old, and the children are taught alongside the mentally handicapped. A large number of deaf adults are beggars, and most of the rest are doing some sort of menial job.”\

 

 

From ActivistPost:

The TSA recently announced they will require a special driver’s license to board domestic flights by 2016.

These ‘Real IDs’ will have already performed extensive background checks on everyone who receives them and will feature stars and other markings to indicate good behavior. No word on markings for troublemakers.

It seems similar to how a scarlet letter was used to indicate adulterers in Puritan societies, or how the Jews in Nazi Germany were forced to wear yellow badges in public so they could be immediately recognized by authorities.

Real IDs are referred to as enhanced IDs and they also reportedly contain biometric security features and RFID chips. Since its inception, civil liberties advocates have had concerns that those without these intrusive new IDs will be excluded from basic human rights like working or traveling.

Rand Paul’s media director cautions antiwar critics not to blame the Chris Kyles of the world for the cynicism and self-interest of the governing class:

” Watching “American Sniper,” I imagined what I would have done if I found myself in the same situation. I really don’t know. My current political beliefs aside—senator and Vietnam veteran Jim Webb once called the battlefield the most apolitical environment he’s ever experienced—I am not confident my behavior or attitude would have been different from Kyle’s.

Kyle, like many Americans, wants to believe his government is right but becomes more confused as the war wears on. He joined the military to do his duty and serve his country. His certainty dampens and then deteriorates, as does his mental state while his family life lies in tatters.

Chris Kyle wasn’t alone. The following is a private discussion with a woman who generally holds antiwar views that helps shed light on what many military members and their families have gone through post 9/11. She wished to remain anonymous and this is used with her permission:

My brother did five tours between Iraq and Afghanistan. He says he did a lot of things we know he didn’t do, and suffers from insane PTSD to the point that he and I hardly speak and when we do he’s irrational to the point of distraction. But he’ll tell you some crazy stories, has some serious violence issues, and probably could be classified as the same type of “jerk, liar, and murderer” that Chris Kyle is accused of being. These guys come back messed the hell up. Some figure shit out, others don’t. Sometimes the bragging is their way of dealing or staying numb or hiding. I’ll pass on making judgment because I sure as hell wouldn’t be able to handle what they went through and I hope one day my brother returns to a piece of who he was before.

How many U.S. military members and their families see their own struggles reflected in the saga of Chris Kyle?

War critics who now attack Kyle and arguably, by extension, the U.S. military, don’t sound much different than hawks who revel in casting all Middle Easterners in the worst possible light. There is an ugly crudeness to being anti-Muslim. The same can be true of being anti-military too.

Many war critics are careful to explain the context of anti-American sentiment made by some in the Arab world, that certain U.S. policies naturally provoke emotion and extreme rhetoric. These critics should approach Kyle and some of his controversial statements with the same depth, consideration, and judgment.

Being antiwar can, and should, also mean being pro-soldier. “American Sniper” should be instructive in this regard, despite attempts by left and right to see only what suits their ideological purposes. Director Clint Eastwood says his movie makes “the biggest antiwar statement any film can.”

Ultimately, “American Sniper” is about what the Iraq War did to Chris Kyle and his family. He wasn’t just some cocksure cartoon. He was a man. And he was a mess.”

The New York Post  and The Washington Post  state that the Kremlin-owned news agency linked to the alleged Russian spy-ring (busted by New York’s grandstanding DA, Preetinder Singh Bharara) is TASS.

It’s not Russia Today, as The Daily Beast insinuated a few days ago, in what seems to have been a desperate effort to smear RT (and ZeroHedge, EPJ) contributor, Bob English.

See my earlier post:

“Bob English: I Am Not A Spy.”