Author: Marc Alan Di Martino

Prophecy Derailed

Ron Rosenbaum has an interesting reflection on the 2012 cult, which I’ve never heard of before (but then again, I don’t really follow these things). It’s typical pseudo-prophetic mishaguss. And many people lap it up.

Here’s Rosenbaum:

“Why am I so fascinated with unmitigated full bloom looniness? Shouldn’t we just laugh it off? Unfortunately nonsense like this has led to millions of dead from religious wars over just such clashing idiocies. I think it reminds us that this kind of baseless belief is at the heart of all religions and that man has suffered immeasurably since the beginning of civilization from it and that, it’s looking more likely that it will cause the death of enlightment civilization, just a brief candle in the vast darkness of ignorance.”

I, too, am fascinated by unmitigated, full bloom looniness. Recall The Secret? We all should be so fascinated, because we live in a world full of apocalyptic death cults and nuclear weapons. Also, we should be slightly worried for the future of our planet and our civilization.

Today’s nutjobs might be tomorrows deathmobs. The point is worth making.

No Illusions: Obama’s Prague Speech

Me: Wow, he’s a really great orator. And we have every reason to believe he means what he says.

Martha: Let’s hope someone doesn’t assassinate him.

Pessimistic? Nah, just Italian.

p.s. Did you notice, at about midway through the speech, the Italians apologizing for Berlusconi?

Better Than Porn

A few days ago I had never heard of the Neti pot. Now I feel like I missed the latest cultural boom: nettypotting.

Now for the money shot:

Of Righteousness and Demonology

Jerusalem Talmud
Jerusalem Talmud

I’m no talmudist, and I’m not even capable of reading Aramaic. But from time to time I like to pry open my copy of Abraham Cohen’s Everyman’s Talmud and troll for wisdom. It’s a distillation–one of the first in English–of the oceanic collection of post-biblical Jewish folklore, wisdom, law and other treats (I know this is a poor summary, but I’m rushing through this) which form the underpinnings of  modern Jewish culture. I’m assuming there are still people out there who’ve either never heard of it, or have an extremely vague working definition of what the Talmud is. Of course, this is entirely understandable, as it is one of the most maligned books in the history of the world. And one of the most overpraised.

Anyway, what drove me to this post was the skeptical tone of one (anonymous?) rabbi’s remark about charity–one of the great themes of talmudic moral hairsplitting. Should you give to the poor? Of course! It’s a mitzve to give, but a shanda to receive. But I never would’ve anticipated a remark like this:

“We must give credit to the imposters among the poor; were it not for them, if a man were asked for alms and did not give them at once he would be incurring punishment.”

In essence: since a good portion of beggars are misfits and crooks, there is nothing especially evil about casting an incredulous eye when the seemingly downtrodden ask you for change. Like most other things in life, it’s a question of individual judgement.

p.s. There are no links in the post because there is too much to wade through–both good and bad–on the internet. Just type “talmud” into any major search engine and see what I mean.

A Little Matter of Stupidity

Deborah Lipstadt brought this to my attention, but I recently had a dream about Ward Churchill. No shit.

He’s on the Chomskyite fringes of public discourse and, like other acolytes of the Dean, has come into hard times for saying really stupid things in public.

He doesn’t matter much, on the whole. He’s not worth getting upset about, even. He’s not well-spoken, like Noam, nor does he have any big achievements under his belt. He doesn’t get invited to speak on Al-Manar or Al-Jazeera–just at my alma mater, VCU. No shit.

So just sit back and dig his style. Straight up, no chaser.

Spring Fever

This could be me. It’s that time of year again.

And to show I’m not joking, here’s the lowdown on nasal irrigation.

The Late, Great Agnostic

Robert Green Ingersoll had many memorable things to say about a great many topics. He loved Shakespeare and Thomas Paine above all other authors. Most people have never heard of him, but he was one of America’s most famous speakers in the late nineteenth century.

Ingersoll had this to say about Darwin’s then-novel theory of evolution by natural selection:

“I believe that man came up from lower animals. When I first heard of that doctrine I did not like it. My heart was filled with sympathy for those people who have nothing to be proud of except ancestors. I thought, how terrible this will be upon the nobility of the Old World. Think of their being forced to trace their ancestry back to the duke Orang Outang, or to the princess Chimpanzee.

After thinking it over, I came to the conclusion that I liked that doctrine.”

And so should we.

Boxing Christopher Hitchens

Shmuley Boteach has a worthy rebuttal to Christopher Hitchens in today’s JPost.

As far as the New Atheist lawfirm Hitchens, Harris, Dawkins and Dennett goes, the one I’ve always been half-hearted about is Hitchens. He is an excellent writer, and it is hard not to be persuaded by him, but sometimes he comes out with such screeds that you just want to say, “Stick a sock in it, Hitch!”

Then again, free speech is to be defended.

And I believe Shmuley Boteach would agree.

Chain Mail

We call them chain letters. In Italy they’re referred to as “St. Anthony’s letters”, and I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation as to why (but I don’t know it). They arrive at your inbox, usually with a subject like, “URGENT: READ AND PASS ON” or “THIS EMAIL WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE.” Then there is the ubiquitous promise that if you send said message to five ten twenty-five fifty people, good fortune will befall you. Or at least you will have a nice day.

Today’s message reads, “The most beautiful email you will ever read.” Then it goes on to postulate a very probable situation: you are driving home in your car. On the radio you hear of a death on the other side of the world, but you think nothing of it. The next day you hear of more deaths, still far away but closer than before. Suddenly it appears an epidemic is threatening your country–and with it, the entire world. There is only one answer: create a vaccine that can be used to cure the sick. But, since almost everyone is infected and dropping like flies, good blood is hard to come by. Finally, they find someone with the kind of untainted blood they need, and he is your son. You are asked to choose: either humanity extinguishes itself as we know it from a preventable disease, or you authorize the doctors to draw your son’s blood–all of it–for the necessary vaccine to save the world. It is a question of child sacrifice. I think you can see where this is leading.

The tale ends with a tear-jerker: Would you be able to turn your son over to the doctors, while he cries, “Mommy, daddy, why are you abandoning me?”

OK, you get the point. The parents authorize the doctors to drain their son of blood, vaccinating all of humankind (yeah, sure) against the horrible virus, but the people of the world are too caught up in their own lives to notice the selfless sacrifice. The parents cry out: “Our son died for you! Don’t you care?!”

And then the little story dips into the real message: “God sacrificed his son for you! And you don’t care!!”

Man, do I dislike chain letters.