Assange's case: media are often more like electrically lit barbarians

Assange is not prosecuted for what is normally understood as rape but for rather obscure reasons. Assange could never be prosecuted for such sex crimes, as they exist in Sweden,  in other countries. A closer look at those allegations reveals an entirely different picture than what might be assumed: sex by surprise.

Those allegations against Assange and their non reporting in many media are a blatant case of the media behaving as gatekeepers, letting their readers only know what they chose. That's the case in many matters as well only this time it might turn out to work out against them.

Instead of proper reporting, the readers are being served totally uniformed opinions and somehow with that being told how to think. The Guardian had an interesting article how newspapers were in 1984 andhow they had changed over the years. It begins:


How did readers know what to think in 1984? Once you get over the minuscule, blurred pictures and the lack of colour, the first thing that strikes you about the
newspapers of that year  is the paucity of opinionated columnists. The finger-jabbing, red-faced anger of today's commentariat, the passionate, omniscient certainty with which they declare opinions, scarcely existed 25 years ago. Incredibly, the Sunday Times – under that most opinionated of editors, Andrew Neil – did not then have a single serious regular weekly columnist, ...
 ...continue reading article

Other reasons why media are behaving strange is certainly that many are war mongers like Murdoch and his staff, his many pundits. A good idea of Murdoch as war monger on his own is provided in that article,telling it how he praised Tony Blair in 2003 for his courage to go to war against Iraq. And he also made some great economic predictions:
He said the price of oil would be one of the war's main benefits. "The greatest thing to come out of this for the world economy, if you could put it that way, would be $20 a barrel for oil. That's bigger than any tax cut in any country."
Following his own logic, stupid economic (bastard) reasoning, he has no idea
of the costs of the war, like here for the US.

And in order to complete the picture, a look at what Murdoch had to say recently. Speaking at a Baroness Thatcher lecture, he threw his support behind the coalition government tonight, applauding its tough approach to cutting the budget deficit and praising David Cameron."Strong medicine is bitter and difficult to swallow," he said. "But unless you stay the political course, you will neither be robust nor popular."

In other words, life is full of surprises for news consumers as well as non consumers the way things turned out economically and financially.

Church scandals. Can priests and bishops go to hell?

For a laugh about that danger for the clergy, whatever rank they might have.
One of the Tom and Jerry comic videos tells it how Tom, the cat, one day
is facing the danger of going to hell. Thing is, Tom is having far fewer sins
than all those clerics and are surely having a far bigger chance of going to
hell than poor Tom. So, lets see what Tom is facing and what kind of nightmare
those clerics should have:

Tom & Jerry: Heavenly Puss

(links like this have better streaming quality than posted videos)

Throughout the millenias priests were always good in scaring the hell out of the
lay folks. A practice that  is  known as the 'message of threat' while in fact they
would have many good reasons to worry about their own destiny and be afraid
of being sent to hell themselves. They are in the hot seat as far as the LORD is
concerned.

If anyone is held accountable in the first place then it is all the many servants of
Christ:. He made this very clear right from the beginning in no uncertain terms,
for instance with that, one those quotes regarding those operating in his / Gods
name:
Matth. 7:22:
"On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name,
and cast out demons in your name and do might works in your name? And then I
will declare to them: I never knew you, depart from me, you evildoers!"

Church scandals and the Vatican's handling of all that.. What a wast of time

For those who have some faith left probably the best way to solve all those
problems  is by converting from the Church to God / Jesus. It even makes fun,
can be done with a smile. And thus all such problems are really solved instead
of being fooled along all the way by the Church again and again.

Would Jesus or God go to Church? It's a question many writers were asking, time
and again when the Church was stuck up to to the neck in the mud of scandals.

There is the interesting advice Jesus gave when he said: "And when you pray go into
your room, shut the door and pray to your father, who is in secret..." (Matth. 6:6)

Not bad this advice if one considers just the first part 'And when you pray go into
your room, shut the door ...' what kind of problems somebody, knowingly or
unknowingly, avoids, saves himself, by following this advice and stays at home on
Sundays when looking at the history of religion and Churches. A visit to a public
library would definitely be justified in order to spend some time going through
books in the religious sections. It's really unbelievable what sort of problems
somebody can save himself in good consecience. Take for instance the tenacity
and persuasiveness of clerics and preachers, the way they usually overwhelm
people with their talk, and that is just the initial problem.
They never give up on their own even though it is more than clear that the fruits
they are growing are sour grapes at best.

Staying at home on Sundays instead of going to Church means leaving behind a
mountain of at least 5 349 724 "faith truths", and that's only counting the bigger
ones, piled up over the course of it's history. (A faith truth is for instance declaring
black to be white, and A as a Z, and so forth). Furthermore, there is the huge pile
of 140 786 contradictions and paradoxes theologions managed to create in the
context of this complex mixture of theology, philosophy and history.

Thus staying at home is good for the brain. It works much better there,
particularly when in a good mood. Not losing a sense of humor is the actual moral
requirement when it comes to something. Fear, anger, hatred are bad advisers.
The codebreakers working for the secret service would never have much would
they given in to anger, hatred or fear. This would have their abilities to solve the
problems they had on hand.

Staying at home on Sunday can become a nice little pleasure when for instance
looking at the sordid parts of church history, the medieval ages, the Borgias, who
became the reason for the upheaval, the protests against the Catholic Church and
teh subsequent reformation.

Merely staying at home and shutting the door means also avoiding the company
of the hypocrites and the fanaticism with which they pull off their stunts and
shows. And also the gossip and slander inevitably coming produced by them.
The history of religion would not be what it is, the almost eternal disaster,
without the gossip and blathering stemming from there. Gossip and slander
were time and again the means with which to implement and maintain certain
policies, be it something concerning the sexual moral or war mongering and
supporting dictatorships.

If the Church can be relied on in anything then it is the funeral service. The
Church has a history of getting people buried one way or another, it is
known for that. In other words, life is too short to be wasted like that.
And if one looks in the Bible what Jesus actually prophecied and warned
of were all those coming in his name, the name of God. Staying away from
Church as an act of conscience objection like quite a lot of "atheists" do
because they consider too many things as unchristian, rightly so, is thus
far more christian than going along with whatever.

In other words staying away from the Church makes life far more
interesting. It can be done with good conscience. The Lord in all that
simply did not tell not anyone to visit a temple. Quite logically to that he did
not have the list of sins in store for those not going to the temple like the
Church has. There are no Church sins in the four gospels. Waking up on
a Sunday morning, enjoying the bed and rest, enjoying to be lazy and falling
asleep again can become a special little pleasure in the hindsight of the
Church and theology. Sleeping longer on a Sunday means missing a
tradegy, a disaster, something like missing a flight that crashes, a journey
on a ship that sinks.



 Suggested literature:
James J. O'Donnell: Agustine. A New Biography.

When Jesus says, in Matth. 11:28:
"Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart
and you shall find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light,"
it may seem strange, not make much sense. But it is getting very clear in a secular,
totally rational sense, when coming across the exact opposite, the core of Catholic
religion.

Briefly: Augustine of Hippo is the guy whose theological achievements include
the faith and believe in the Church. It was others that began with that and he
eventually instituionalized it, brought it really forward. Before him, there was
no such creed in any church. When catholic kids are taught that believe and all
the related sins (not going to Church is a sin, and so forth) which includes the
believe in priests, the believe in rituals (the sacraments) then it is Augustine's
theology which they are fed. Most catholics never get to know or hear about
that guy though. The church, in its outward appearance, keeps increasingly
quite about him while he is the most important "Father" of the whole lot.

Augustine was furthermore completing the creation of the "horrible God," the
God of doom and gloom that ruled from then on the increasing world of faith..
It was Augustine's theology that was the real Bible, with Augustine thus the
real messia, the one whose every word mattered. Jesus and the four gospels
just served as some kind of sugar coating, the occasional sweet for kids to lure
them into something and nasty experiences to follow.
The Augustinian theology also, logically, includes the denial of the individual's
mind, conscience, autonomy, the freedom to chose. Not suprisingly, this
theology is force fed authoriatarian style. Unfortunately, there is no easy to read
book which compares Jesus and Augustine, the two are extreme opposites
altogether.
Augustine's theology is very complex, paradoxical, too much for a normal
human being to read it all through. It's is the benefit of that biography that it
provides a  readable and comprehensible understanding of all that. O'Donnell
is a bit stuck in the matter, maybe shy when talking of the fascination of that
"father", but he gives a really good acount and readable summary of this
incredibly complex theology and of that man. he also mentions what is fascinating
about Augustine. A reader thus gets a good idea, if he wants to, about the
deceit and abuse of confidence in Gods name. In other words, Augustine is
also shown from his sweet sides. It is book for people who like to think for
themselves, like to make up their mind on their own.

The other book is:
Charles Freeman: The closing of the Western Mind: The Rise of
Faith and the Fall of reason, 2004

Freeman gives an interesting insight of what happened after Jesus, of what Jesus
actually warned of rightly and really prophetically. And what people often complain
about endlessy- instead of reading ambit. And missing quite a bit really interesting
things. The challenges of life include successfully or unsuccesfully coping with crime,
sex and money. Apart from censorship and it's consequences. There were indeed
longer periods of time when people had no chance at all to get their hands at
such insights.

Paywalls: the useless temptation. The strange world we live in.

 It's time to revive a 60's hit for that occasion. "Master Jack" by Four Jacks & and a Jill. It has surprisingly prophetic lyrics that make it so nice and worthwhile to listen to, ever since Murdoch is the proponent of that costly feature.
"Master Jack", a cheerful protest song, has reallz great lyrics, for instance;

You took a colored ribbon from out of the sky
And taught me how to use it as the years went by
To tie up all your problems and make them look neat
And then to sell them to the people in the street


"It's a strange, strange world we live in, Master Jack ..."

It is estimated that about 90% of the consumers are not paying for online news. That's very interesting and good news. Murdoch for instance is known for his war mongering, he and News Corp were actively involved to bring that war about.

People may actually be much better off without the "information" and
opinions from that corporation. Murdoch turned out to be a false economic
protest with his prognosis how the Iraq war would be beneficial:

"The greatest thing to come out of this for the world economy, if you
could put it that way, would be $20 a barrel for oil. That's bigger than
any tax cut in any country."
"Murdoch praises Blair for his courage ..."

Old media: News Corp and other media empires are getting older by the day

A video to watch this summer is this funny song parody making fun of the woes
of the advertising and media industry,
the:
Mad Avenue Blues

(Links like this often have better quality, are faster than posted vidoes. That's why
only the link.)

Who isn't a poor artist these days, in the economic crisis?

A funny old painting, The Poor Poet (1834) by Carl Spitzweg
has lost none of it's relevance in what it depicts. It can be of use
for reflections of the personal economic situation.
Presuming a sense of humor, it may assit when contemplating
such matters. That the economic is serious enough can be
gathered by many aspects. For instance, young irish people are
apparently coming to drastic conclusions at present when they
decide to emigrate to other countries for economic, job, reasons.

It may help to offset all those billionaire stories and get rich  quick
articles in the media that let people forget about their own
situation and didn't make anyone richer at all. It provides a basis
to think about the very existential needs in all relaxed ease. And
thus it may be comforting and inspiring when meditating over
financial matters when brainstorming.
It may also restore and regain lost self-esteem that was washed
away by all that media and advertising frenzy, not to mention the
priority of trivialities in the media. Thus it can assist to come to
terms, find the right ideas and problem solutions and consider
matters at length, take the time for it. That's what art is for.

Through the window snow covered roofs can be seen. It is
obviously cold. The tiles stove is not heated. The poor poet keeps
warm by staying on his matress, wearing his sleeping coat and
covering himself with a blanket. An umbrella protects his sleeping
place from dripping water coming through an obviously leaky roof.

Spitzweg, 1808 - 1885, lived in Germany all his life. He painted a
number of well know paintings. Considered an outsider bymost
art "experts" and reviewers who only had contempt for
him in his time, The Poor Peat  became one of the most popular
paintings, right after da Vinci's Mona Lisa among Germans a poll
found out early this century.



Books dealing with the lives, the circumstance and economies of
artists, for instance painters that lived centuries ago, have it in
them to make the reader hungry, make the stomach rumble. Every
bit matters.  A roasted chicken, a bottle of wine is eventually
greeted with joy when selling a painting. The economic history of
Dutch painters is for instance a history of personal good days and
bad days.

Czech writers, to name just one example, can be very appreciative
in their writings when it comes to cooking a soup, enjoying a meal
and things like. The Communist period was marked by food
rationing, people were subjected to a frugal life for a long time. That
personal experience is often reflected in their works, their books.
Russian writers are also often very descriptive, going into detail,
when it comes to getting a big chunk of meat, a scarce and thus
valuable commodity, cooking and eating it. A feast that is usually
- both in literature and in real life -  followed by Vodka.