September 5, 2007 | 4:03 pm

‘Study: Casual Sex Rewarding for First Few Decades’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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Looking for a Jewish tint on those satirical Onion stories? Here’s one Luke Ford posted today in which he comically credits The Jewish Press, an Orthodox paper, with breaking the news that casual sex is only enjoyable for a few decades:

ARLINGTON, VA—An alarming new study published in Jewish Action reveals that casual sex, the practice of engaging in frequent, spontaneous sexual encounters with new and exciting partners, may only provide unimaginable pleasure and heart-pounding exhilaration for, at most, 25 to 30 years. “People who choose to participate in random, no-strings-attached lovemaking sessions with sexually adventurous strangers should be advised that this type of behavior is only incredibly liberating for the first quarter-century or so,” said Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, executive vice-president of the Orthodox Union, who coauthored the study on the long-term side effects of living out one’s wildest fantasies on a semi-weekly basis. “Though sometimes it can be longer.” The study observed 100 sexually active volunteers who were not tied down by dull, passionless relationships and were therefore able to have sex with whomever they wanted, whenever they wanted. A control group of individuals who were married or had otherwise allowed their erogenous zones to fall into complete and utter numbness was also monitored for comparison.

Please remember that this is satire (not my indirect way of saying I wish I was still single, or that single people should be sleeping around). Here is the unadulterated Onion version.

September 5, 2007 | 11:10 am

European anti-Semitism

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Anti-Semitism is on the rise throughout Europe. In Britain no less than Poland. Here’s what British PM Denis MacShane had to say in The Washington Post:

Hatred of Jews has reached new heights in Europe and many points south and east of the old continent. Last year I chaired a blue-ribbon committee of British parliamentarians, including former ministers and a party leader, that examined the problem of anti-Semitism in Britain. None of us are Jewish or active in the unending debates on the Israeli-Palestinian question.

Our report showed a pattern of fear among a small number of British citizens—there are around 300,000 Jews in Britain, of whom about a third are observant—that is not acceptable in a modern democracy. Synagogues attacked. Jewish schoolboys jostled on public transportation. Rabbis punched and knifed. British Jews feeling compelled to raise millions to provide private security for their weddings and community events. On campuses, militant anti-Jewish students fueled by Islamist or far-left hate seeking to prevent Jewish students from expressing their opinions.

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Europe is reawakening its old demons, but today there is a difference. The old anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism have morphed into something more dangerous. Anti-Semitism today is officially sanctioned state ideology and is being turned into a mobilizing and organizing force to recruit thousands in a new crusade—the word is chosen deliberately—to eradicate Jewishness from the region whence it came and to weaken and undermine all the humanist values of rule of law, tolerance and respect for core rights such as free expression that Jews have fought for over time.

(Hat tip: DMN religion blog)

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September 4, 2007 | 1:26 pm

‘Mideast peace through porn’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

That headline was for an eye-popping, but ideologically wanton editorial in Saturday’s LA Times.

The Vietnam War-era slogan “Make love, not war” has been taken to its logical extreme by an Israeli pornographic website, which is engaged in a sort of cultural exchange of bodily fluids with the Arab world.

According to a recent report in Daily Variety, when executives at Ratuv installed software that could track where their users were logging in, they found that the site was getting thousands of hits a week from such countries as Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq, even though some of these governments block the “.il” domain address on Israeli websites. So Ratuv responded by translating the entire site into Arabic, and traffic quickly skyrocketed.

What makes this more than a tale of clever entrepreneurs making a buck off Middle Eastern sexual repression is that Ratuv isn’t an ordinary porn site. It’s a clearinghouse of political parody porn, making fun of Israeli affairs such as sex scandals and often featuring Mossad agents or army soldiers getting out of uniform, thus providing a view of the Israeli military seldom seen in the Arab world. The next step, says Ratuv’s manager, is to make movies with Israelis and Arabs performing together, in order to foster more intimate relations between the two peoples.

Yeah, right. Right? Forget the fact that plenty of people find pornography to be a demeaning, degrading thing. Is the LA Times—a lightning rod for anti-Israel accusations—really saying that if a Hamas suicide bomber watches a porno featuring Jews and Arabs together (think “Assraelis in the Occupied Territories”) that he’s suddenly going to think twice about exploding in a crowded market?

It’s a quirky story, something editors love. But let’s not take this seriously.

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September 4, 2007 | 9:31 am

‘What did Paul really mean?’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Christianity Today has a cover story this month titled “Rethinking Paul.” It’s a story I’ve been wanting to dig into for a few weeks, but still haven’t had time. Here’s a link to the story; I’ll offer my thoughts when I get a chance.

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September 4, 2007 | 9:24 am

‘Paintball for Jesus’ in ‘gun-toting Christian town’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

“Gun-toting Christian town” is not a common descriptor in news stories, but that’s the deck head for a story in yesterday’s Contra Costra Times about a Christian ministry using paintball as an evangelistic tool on public grounds.

MARIPOSA—This is a mountain town where there’s a Bible verse painted over a pizza parlor door and a local politician keeps a cardboard cutout of John Wayne holding a Winchester rifle in his office as proof of fealty to the NRA.

  But a proposal to bring “Paintball for Jesus” to public land has some people riled.

“I’m sorry, maybe I’m missing something in my upbringing as a Methodist, but Paintball for Jesus? God help us all. Seriously, this teaches bad habits of shooting each other,” said Mariposa County Supervisor Brad Aborn, 71, the John Wayne fan who is a former Vietnam War Navy helicopter pilot.

The Bible Belt Blogger responds: “I guess Mr. Aborn didn’t receive his “Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors” memo from headquarters ... “

Though my only memories of paintballing as a teenager are of outings with my church youth group, we always splattered each other orange and green and yellow and blue at a private paintball park. But at what point does public land become remote enough for paintballing or dirt biking or any other activity that requires open land and is officially unsavory?

(Image: tee-shirt-fantasy)

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September 4, 2007 | 1:43 am

Another Muhammad cartoon controversy

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Remember those Danish sketches of the Prophet Muhammad that inflamed anti-Western tensions in the Muslim world and led to deadly riots? Well, it’s time for round two. And this time it’s in Sweden, according to the AP, via DMN religion blog, where a paper published a cartoon of the prophet’s head on a dog’s body.

About 300 people rallied outside the newspaper’s offices, demanding an apology and saying the cartoon, a rough sketch showing Muhammad’s head on a dog’s body, was insulting to Muslims, the news agency TT reported.

“We want to show Nerike’s Allehanda that Muslims in this city are upset over what happened,” Jamal Lamhamdi, chairman of the Islamic cultural center in Orebro, told Swedish public radio. Orebro is a city of about 100,000 residents, 200 kilometers (125 miles) west of Stockholm.

Earlier, a handful of people, mostly youth, staged a separate demonstration outside the newspaper in defense of press freedom, TT reported.

Nerikes Allehanda editor-in-chief Ulf Johansson met with Lamhamdi but refused to apologize for the cartoon, which was part of an Aug. 19 editorial criticizing several Swedish art galleries for refusing to display a series of prophet drawings by Vilks.

“They say they are offended and I regret that, because our purpose was not to offend anyone,” Johansson told The Associated Press. “But they are asking for an apology and a promise that I never again publish a similar image ... and that I cannot do.”

The editorial defended “Muslims’ right to freedom of religion” but also said it must be permitted to “ridicule Islam’s most foremost symbols - just like all other religions’ symbols.”

 

Well, we know that is never going to happen because you can’t just tell someone that what their religion has always held as sacred is no longer above mocking. So what happens next?

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September 3, 2007 | 11:41 am

Five Jehovah’s Witness ministers die in crash

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

From the AP:

A plane carrying five Jehovah’s Witness ministers crashed in a remote area of eastern Tennessee, killing all aboard, officials said.

The crash, which happened around 10:30 a.m. Saturday, wasn’t discovered until more than eight hours later, when another pilot spotted the wreckage.

Authorities had to clear a path Sunday to get to the crash site in the Cherokee National Forest on Holston Mountain. Five bodies were found, said Carter County Sheriff Chris Mathes. One of the ministers was believed to be the pilot, he said.

The men were traveling to discuss the building of a new church.

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September 1, 2007 | 2:30 am

The God Blog rested ...

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I have the feeling that few people will be sitting in front of their laptops waiting for the latest posts on The God Blog this weekend, so I’m going to take a prolonged Sabbath. See you Tuesday.

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