The Grand Chessboard

A'int it a cryin' shame when the kOOks have clearer vision than the sheeple?

[Thanks to Komrade Gregoire for pointing the way to these open-eyed kOOks.]

Class War and Blood? Not As Long As We Still Have The Dollar Menu.

I wish it were true, Pepe, I really do. But you underestimate the sloth of the American. One or two psychotics can be roused by blow-hards such as Hannity to go on shooting sprees, but the kind of sustained energy required for *class war and blood* is beyond the American. Maybe in Europe, France certainly, the French still have a pulse, but not in America. After losing their jobs, Americans quietly disappear from the homes they can no longer afford. . .they drift to $600-a-month apartments, take part-time service industry jobs, eat off the fast food dollar menus, watch *Lost* and then go to bed. The thought of picking up a brick and tossing it through the window at the corner branch of JPMorganChase never enters their somnolent minds. There are enough bread crumbs and circuses to keep the infantile American pacified.

I Love The Smell Of Pestilence In The Morning

Random thoughts on the *pandemic:*

1) I believe if you study the NAFTA agreement carefully, you will find Mexico is only supposed to send us fruit pickers, janitors, fast food workers and cocaine. This is not the *Change* I was hoping for under Lord Obama.

2) You know Media cannot wait for the first American to die. 300 million Americans trapped in their homes with nothing to do but let FOXMSNBCCNN force-feed them panic.

3) I can’t wait to see the TMZPEREZHILTONPOPEATER pics of Lindsay Lohan stripping off her panties and wrapping them around her face as a surgical mask.

4) I love the smell of pestilence in the morning!!

The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight: I finally watched this thing on dvd a couple nights ago. . .

It scores 9.0 on IMDb and is rated the #6 film of All-Time! Please.

This is more Fisher-Price Light & Sound Show than movie. It’s something you hang over a crib to distract a baby.

Well, that is what movie audiences have become: babies crying for distraction. Art is now beyond the masses. They do not have the patience or the education. Shine a light in their eyes, say *boom!* and they squeal with delight!

This isn’t a terrible movie. It’s mediocre. If the critics who raved about this and the boobs who scored this #6 on IMDb had been able to recognize its mediocrity, there would be no need for me to bother with this review. I would have watched it, yawned, and then continued waiting for Dexter Season 4. But for this to be regarded as some kind of landmark cinematic achievement—no, I cannot let that pass.

There’s a decent comic book story here:

Batman (poorly played by the usually competent limey Christian Bale. Bale’s Batman voice is ridiculous. . .he sounds like he’s auditioning for a job as a transsexual phone sex operator), Lt. Gordon (played as a nervous pragmatist by the reliable limey Gary Oldman) and District Attorney Harvey Dent are successfully cleaning up Gotham City. . .until the Joker arrives. The Joker’s schemes force Batman, Dent and Gordon to make difficult moral choices, revealing less-than-sterling character in all three. The Joker’s tricks also create tension in a *love triangle* involving Batman, Dent and Assistant District Attorney Rachel Dawes.

A decent story. . .simple. . .not particularly thought-provoking. . .but enough to keep your interest. Enough, if it hadn’t been buried beneath the rubble of all the explosions and car crashes and other ridiculous *action.*

This is a two-and-a-half hour movie. . .you would think there would be plenty of time to show adequate character development. . .to detail the complexity in the *love triangle* and to show the pathology of Dent’s psychic breakdown. But the *love triangle* is painted in the broadest strokes possible, and Dent’s breakdown occurs almost instantaneously. But in this two-and-a-half hour movie, there is no time for character development. . .because the filmmakers have to give the dumbed-down audience the ninety minutes of crashes and explosions they have become addicted to. So the story is told in short-hand.

As I said, it’s not terrible. It’s mediocre. It could have been better. . .but this is the cinema Americans are willing to settle for.

Heath Ledger? Yes, he is good as the Joker. . .when he acts. . .which is maybe fifteen minutes out of this two-and-a-half hour *wham bam thank you cgi* mess. . .the rest of the time Ledger is a just a prop riding on the various trucks, buses, planes, trains and automobiles that go crash bang.

Yes, Ledger does a fine job as the Joker. But is it the stuff of the legend that has already been made? Sorry, no. What does Ledger do that any of twenty other actors couldn’t have done just as well? The performance is mainly make-up and a continual series of lip-lickings and tongue protrusions—Ledger’s Joker has Kluver-Bucy Syndrome. Ledger is good, no doubt about it. . .but his performance, like the movie itself, benefits from the hype of over-blown praise.

And who the hell is this plain-Jane actress who plays Rachel Dawes? Batman and Dent can’t live without this washerwoman? She’s such a mule, it’s hard to believe Harvey Dent goes schizo when she is killed.

In movies like this, the female lead is also supposed to be a *special effect*. . .who let this poor homely thing wander onto the set? Was there one big action sequence too many, leaving no money in the budget to hire some A-list eye candy, such as Jennifer Connelly? Instead, we get the mediocre mug who plays Rachel Dawes. A mediocre mug for a mediocre movie.

America 2009: Airheads Babbling

Ha ha ha. . .Americans are not a serious people. Double-digit unemployment, forgotten foreign wars bleeding a dying economy, mass murders and bizarre sex crimes popping up daily, and the sleepwalkers wake only for the Great Phony Homosexual Marriage Debate between two airheads.

Now that I have established that I am above this nonsense, let me give you my two cents. Penny #1, the poor little Miss California, Carrie Prejean, Christian Exhibitionist. If you read this article you will note that the Christian Exhibitionist compares her pageant inquisition to what our Lord endured in Gethsemane:

"Out of all the topics I studied up on, I dreaded that one; I prayed I would not be asked about gay marriage," Prejean told the Fox News Channel's Courtney Friel in an exclusive interview. "If I had any other question, I know I would have won."

Jesus in Gethsemane:

O My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me: nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt.

But the Heavenly Father would not remove the Cup of Homosexual Marriage from Carrie Prejean. We must conclude it was not the Father’s will for Carrie to be crowned Miss USA. Why? Why would the Father deny this pretty girl her crown? In the same article linked above, we read:

"I knew at that moment after I answered the question, I knew, I was not going to win because of my answer, because I had spoken from my heart, from my beliefs and for my God," she told NBC's "Today" this morning. "I wouldn't have answered it differently. The way I answered may have been offensive. With that question specifically, it's not about being politically correct. For me it was being biblically correct."

She claims to speak for God Almighty. . .she claims she had to answer the question about homosexual marriage in a *biblically correct* fashion.

Uh, just a few minutes earlier, she was parading around like this:

Is that a biblically correct way to behave? Whoring the Temple of God to win a *pageant?* Arousing the lusts of heterosexual men and homosexual women?

Carrie, it might be that God Almighty wants somebody who is just a little more consistent in their *biblical correctness* to be His spokesperson.

Penny #2, the potty-mouth homosexual celebrity leech, *Perez Hilton.* Uh, why was he even at the Miss USA pageant in the first place? To judge one of these things, shouldn’t you be able to gain an erection over the contestants?

As for him being so *devastated* by the Christian Exhibitionist’s refusal to approve his wedding gown, listen, methinks our fairies are getting a wee bit uppity. Here is another selection from the linked article:

Hilton also appeared on NBC's "Today," explaining that he demands a Miss USA winner be "politically savvy," and that even though Prejean is a Christian, he doesn't want her "talking about Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, because that's offensive." Celebrity Miley Cyrus sided with Hilton in a Twitter conversation. "Ya that's lame!" the "Hannah Montana" star wrote. "God's greatest commandment is to love. And judging is not loving. That's why Christians have such a bad rep." Heidi Montage and Britney Spears also came out in support of Hilton.

Uh, so this is our new America, where faggots have church weddings and where talking about *Jesus, Jesus, Jesus* is offensive?

Well, let this Hilton preen and talk shit on TV now, and with his limp wrist wave-off Christ. . .let Miley Cyrus and Britney Spears validate Romans 1:32. . .let them live unto themselves, and enjoy the rewards they earn from the world. The Christian Exhibitionist Carrie Prejean says she will pray for Perez Hilton. In that, she surpasses me. For I will content myself with the following:

The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field: But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares? He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn. . .

Obama vs The Pirates

13 April 2008: President Barack Obama promised Monday to work with other nations "to halt the rise of piracy," while Somali pirates vowed revenge for the deaths of three colleagues shot by snipers during the daring high-seas rescue of an American sea captain.

The pirates' threat raised fears for the safety of some 230 foreign sailors still held hostage in more than a dozen ships anchored off lawless Somalia. At a Washington news conference, Obama said: "We have to continue to be prepared to confront them when they arise, and we have to ensure that those who commit acts of piracy are held accountable for their crimes," the president said. Somali pirates said they were undaunted. "From now on, if we capture foreign ships and their respective countries try to attack us, we will kill them (the hostages)," Jamac Habeb, a 30-year-old pirate, told The Associated Press from one of Somalia's piracy hubs, Eyl. "(U.S. forces have) become our No. 1 enemy."

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said the Somali pirates who were killed were 17 to 19 years old. "Untrained teenagers with heavy weapons," Gates said at the Marine Corps War College in Quantico, Va.

So now it comes out the *terrifying* pirates our great hero SEALS blew away were just three raggedy Somali teens who probably didn’t even know how to use the weapons they were holding. . .

What was *heroic* about these ridiculously named *SEALS?* From the information that is now coming out, it appears the raggedy Somali teen pirates were ready to surrender. . .a bit more patience in the negotiating, and nobody would have to have been killed. But the SEALS probably didn’t want their chance to win some cheap headlines spoiled by a peaceful ending, and Obama wanted to appear *decisive,* so the quintessential American thumbs-up to violence was given, and the teen pirates were shot dead.

And now we have our new Leader declaring war on pirates! Absurd. But typical. A typical American over-reaction. A typical VIOLENT American over-reaction.

Look, let’s put this thing in perspective:

Phil Spector has killed more people than these Somali pirates.

But now we have Obama and his brain trust plotting a full-blown military campaign:

AP, 14 April 2009: The United States is considering new strategies in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean hostage drama, including adding Navy gunships along the Somalian coastline and launching a campaign to disable pirate "mother ships."

The pirates are a nuisance. Nothing more than a cost of doing business.

[And that *business* Westerners are doing may be corrupt. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but it appears there may be more to the *pirate* story than meets the eye.]

Well, they WERE just a nuisance. But now with the *sage* Obama making a tsunami out of a Somali splash, he has the pirates contemplating more violent tactics.

There is no *change* with Obama. He is just as committed to the Military Media Complex as Bush and Clinton and Bush and Reagan and all the others. . .

All these *liberals* with their God damned Obama signs and their embarrassing fawning over an empty mulatto, please explain to me how you can tell Bush is no longer in office? What difference is there?

What a crazy mixed-up world. You got the Great Charlatan Obama, who is just one white woman away from being one of those raggedy-ass pirates himself, sitting in the Oval Office, acting like it is the most rational, civilized, enlightened thing to be considering increasing the violence on the Indian Ocean. . .(along with increasing the violence in *AfPak,* as well).

And while myopic Americans celebrate the cherry-picker killing of three raggedy black boys, the families of the other 200+ pirate-held hostages are now sweating even more, knowing the pirates’ trigger fingers just got a little more itchy. . .

The pirate *rescue* was a typical American action. . .with no consideration of the possible consequence for the other hostages. Obama couldn’t bear the *distraction* of one fucking measly American hostage. . .no patience. . .no leadership.

Obama is a mulatto slave to public opinion. Here was a chance for Mr. Change You Can Believe In to actually make a change in American policy. He had a chance to make a decision by placing the situation in its proper perspective. But like a mongrel dog returning to the vomit of BushCo, he cynically authorized a violent *quick fix* that will only end up creating a much larger and more difficult problem.

Ha ha ha. . .all the adoring *liberals,* who thought Obama would bring their secular rapture and fly them all to the New USA. . .ha ha ha. . .you’ve been Left Behind!

Mark Fidrych: The *Charly* Of Sport

I saw the Bird pitch a couple games at Tiger Stadium back in 1976. I was a teenager, sitting in the centerfield bleachers with Jill Jameson. It was almost like a bad Bob Seger song. Anyway, the crowd loved this kid. I believe we could sense his purity. . .there was nothing phony about him. Sports fanatics believe athletes are lucky to get paid to play a game, and the Bird was the one athlete who seemed to confirm the fanatics’ belief. Even 33 years ago, American sports *stars* were surly, and had an offensive sense of entitlement. These nitwits actually went on strike, as if they were garbage collectors trying to gain advantage over a system stacked against them. Insane, that these pampered divas should ever feel exploited.

Fidrych was the biggest *star* in American sports. . .for five months. Then it all ended. A sore shoulder that never healed. He was the *Charly* of sport. He never made the big money. But he had a moment in the American sun, loved even by the opponents’ fans, that a piece of shit like Barry Bonds could never imagine.

Still, if you watch this interview with Mark *the Bird* Fidrych, you can sense the regret and a tiny bit of bitterness:

He wonders why he didn’t get more out of it, though in the Bird’s lumpenproletarianism, it isn’t the mansion and the fleet of luxury cars and the hangers-ons and the strip clubs he feels cheated out of, it is the guest spot on Magnum PI. His is an innocent bitterness.

He was the brightest *star* in American sports for five months, then had to live nearly 33 years as a white dwarf. From the sporadic accounts that came in over the years, whatever his true innermost feelings, he was always able to project an image of good cheer, and never self-pity. In the end, this was his greatest accomplishment.

And Being In An Agony. . .

Can you see it?

Look closely.

And being in an agony He prayed more earnestly: and His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

Your soul hangs on a drop of blood red sweat. . .

And being in an agony. . .

Listen: He wasn’t gung-ho to get on that cross, my friend.

Let us not flatter ourselves, as the modern visible church flatters itself.

John 3:16, the most well-known verse in the Bible:

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Our modern visible church changes this. They pervert Christ into some lonely god-nerd, frantic to get on that cross and die for us, desperate for us to *accept* Him, to *invite Him into our heart.*

Our modern visible church would have it as this:

For Jesus so loved the world, He gave Himself, that whosoever would invite Him into their heart should not perish, but have everlasting life.

And the visible church, giving it no more thought than some punk kid accepting a Facebook friend request, says all right, Jesus, You can be my saviour.

We have no idea who we really are, we have no idea of our true station in the cosmos, if we think it is like that.

And He was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast, and kneeled down, and prayed, Saying, Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from Me: nevertheless not My will, but Thine, be done.

Does that sound like He was in a great big hurry to get up on that cross, and then receive our *invitation?*

Jesus is wringing His hands there in Gethsemane, fretting over who will *invite* Him into their heart? I think not.

Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from Me: nevertheless not My will, but Thine, be done.

A couple of days prior to this, Jesus was confronted by the priests and the elders of the temple. Jesus told them His simplest story:

But what think ye? A certain man had two sons; and he came to the first, and said, Son, go work to day in my vineyard. He answered and said, I will not: but afterward he repented, and went. And he came to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go, sir: and went not. Whether of them twain did the will of his father?

You don’t think, just a handful of days from the cross, there wasn’t a little bit of Himself in the first son?

He came to the first, and said, Son, go work to day in my vineyard. He answered and said, I will not: but afterward he repented, and went.

Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from Me: nevertheless not My will, but Thine, be done.

No, I don’t see Jesus running to Calvary, telling the Roman soldiers, I can’t wait, give me some wood and a hammer and some nails, and I’ll do it Myself, I can’t wait to die for the world, to get all those *invitations* into all those hearts.

I don’t see it that way.

I see it this way:

And being in an agony He prayed more earnestly: and His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

That ought to tell us our proper place in the cosmic order.

Stop and think. Let’s get over ourselves, for a minute, and think about the life of Christ.

There was never a more isolated being on this planet. Who was His friend? Who understood Him? He lived on earth for thirty years, and there is no evidence He had a single friend.

Then, after thirty years here, He walks alone to John the Baptist, who among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater, who supposedly is Christ’s *cousin*. . .the Baptist does not recognize Him.

After thirty years here, He walks up alone to the Baptist, and begins His mission.

Those who were acquainted with Him, his kinsmen, thought Him mad, and His supposed *brothers,* Mary’s and Joseph’s children, taunted Him and did not believe in Him.

Even Mary, whom the catholics come so close to elevating to co-Redeemptrix, does not seem close to Christ.

While He yet talked to the people, behold, His mother and His brethren stood without, desiring to speak with Him. Then one said unto Him, Behold, Thy mother and Thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with Thee. But He answered and said unto him that told Him, Who is My mother? and who are My brethren?

We can infer from the scant detail in the gospels Christ was an exceptionally isolated figure. Some might argue there is not enough evidence to draw this conclusion.

But stop and think. We need only imagine Christ and the world, and it becomes self-evident. How would Jesus participate in a world of sin and sinners?

The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay His head.

Was Jesus going to live for thirty years as we live? Lying, cheating, stealing, gossiping, backstabbing, jealous and envious? Was He going to engage in addiction, violence and perversion? These are the bonds that join us sinners in friendship.

Now stop and think. What would Christ have thought of the world after living in it for thirty years? After leaving the glory of Heaven, and spending thirty years in human flesh, living in a world of sin and sinners?

He was here, in the belly of the beast, for thirty years. He got a nose-full of the stink of humanity. This wasn’t the long view, from another realm, from a throne surrounded by adoring, worshipful beings. He was right in it. In the bowels of it. He heard the crying, the screaming. He saw all the depravity.

Here is what our Lord had to say when the scribes and the Pharisees criticized the disciples for not washing their hands before eating:

Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man. . . Do not ye yet understand, that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draught? But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: These are the things which defile a man. . .

This was not some academic theory proposed from the Ivory Tower of Heaven. Jesus lived in the mire of humanity for thirty years and witnessed from flesh the evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness and blasphemies.

His judgment is sure, because He observed for thirty years.

Well, at age, thirty, what do we think of the world? Do we have a high opinion of it? Do we have a high opinion of our neighbors? Our neighbors, who are no worse than we are, do we have a high opinion of them? Are we ready to get on that cross for them?

Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from Me: nevertheless not My will, but Thine, be done.

And being in an agony He prayed more earnestly: and His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

Sorry, He didn’t want to get on that cross for you or me. He wasn’t here to win some popularity contest. He wasn’t here putting on a show for you and me, so we would vote for Him to be our next idol.

That is what we think, if we say within ourselves, I have reviewed the gospels, He went up on that cross and died for me, I’m going to say, good job, Fella, you can come on in into my heart.

Listen: that’s not why He was here, to win our approval.

But I receive not testimony from man. . .

I receive not honour from men. . .

He wasn’t here to impress you or me.

I don’t mean to imply He was cold or indifferent to humanity.

He served with compassion. He ministered with love. He understands our failings, our weakness.

But He also understood human nature.

After He walked alone to John the Baptist and began His ministry, His isolation ended. People rushed to Him. . .crowds followed Him. . .wanting their bellies filled, as He said, but still, this is the basis of most human connection. . .we want something from the other.

There is evidence Jesus had more than a superficial connection to Lazarus, Mary and Martha. Greater still appears to be the connection to the *beloved disciple,* John. John’s gospel is much different from the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. John had a much deeper understanding of the Saviour.

Jesus served with compassion. He ministered with love. He understands our failings and weakness. He forgives our sins. Yet, as John reveals, Jesus will not whitewash human nature:

Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of Me. And ye will not come to Me, that ye might have life. I receive not honour from men. But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you. I am come in My Father's name, and ye receive Me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive. How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?

The world cannot hate you; but Me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil.

Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to Him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God. Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love Me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of Myself, but He sent Me. Why do ye not understand My speech? even because ye cannot hear My word. Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.

If the world hate you, ye know that it hated Me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.

Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept My saying, they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for My name's sake, because they know not Him that sent Me. If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloak for their sin. He that hateth Me hateth My Father also. If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both Me and My Father. But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated Me without a cause.

Jesus felt hatred from the world of sin and sinners. Where did this sense of hatred come from? The crowds had not yet completely turned against Him. He had been loved (imperfectly, yes) and celebrated for the forty-two months of His ministry.

He had the perfect understanding of us. He lived with us for thirty years and saw us as we really are. Thirty long years living in and observing the world of sin and sinners. He knew the world and the hearts of men. Before He began His ministry, He knew how it would all play out. When the adoring crowds were following Him, when the *world had gone after Him,* as the Pharisees put it, He knew how it would all end.

Knowing the hearts of men, He knew exactly the value the world would place on His kingdom, when the time came to choose. Would they give up their life in their world for His kingdom? He knew how it would all end:

His blood be on us, and on our children. . .

When it came time to choose between going with Jesus to His kindgom or staying in the world of sin and sinners, it was a *no-brainer:*

His blood be on us, and on our children. . .

From the cross, He said:

Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. . .

He understands us and He forgives us. He has compassion toward us. To have compassion, one must understand. He understands our failings and our weakness. But He also understands our corruption. That is true compassion. That is true forgiveness. There is no need to hide our true self from the Lord Jesus Christ. He saw depraved man at his worst from the cross. He has seen us as we are. We do not need to hide.

The Father will bring some of us to Christ.

We can come as we are. No need to pretend we are better than what we are.

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

The Father so loved the world. . .

The Father gave His only begotten Son. . .

Jesus did what He did to please the Father. . .not to please you or me.

He wasn’t on that cross wangling an invitation from you or me.

But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do.

He was here because the Father would give Him some of us to save:

All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me; and him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven, not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me. And this is the Father's will which hath sent Me, that of all which He hath given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.

We can *accept* Him. We can *invite* Him. We can flatter ourselves that Jesus came to win a popularity contest. That He endured the world of sin and sinners to put on a show for our benefit, so that we would pick Him to be our next idol.

The truth:

No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him. . .

So here is Christ in Gethsemane:

And being in an agony He prayed more earnestly: and His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

He knew us perfectly from having lived with us for thirty years. He knew our sins. He saw them. The full range. From the everyday hardness of our hearts to the murders and blasphemies. He had been in the world of sin and sinners for thirty years. . .and He would have to bear those sins. . .and all the sins before and after. All sin would be placed on Him, so those the Father draws to Him might be saved.

He wasn’t in agony because He was some coward terrified of death. You think some scum on death row holds up better than Christ under the pressure of impending death?

Who His own self bare our sins in His own body. . .

Christ was in agony because all sin, our sin, was about to be dropped on Him. Everything foul from the world (like this ugliness) was about to be thrown at Him. What does that mean? How was that carried out? How did Christ experience that? We don’t know the mechanics of the enforcement of Divine Judiciality. But I see Christ in agony.

Can you see it?

Look closely.

And being in an agony He prayed more earnestly: and His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

That is THE picture of love. . .

The love of the Father for the world. . .

The love of the Son for the Father. . .

Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from Me: nevertheless not My will, but Thine, be done.

Let us not flatter ourselves the cross was Jesus’ Grand Finale to win our approval in some popularity contest.

It was agony for Christ to follow His Father’s will.

Our soul hangs on a drop of blood red sweat. . .

Let us have a little humility on Easter Sunday as we warm the pews for an hour, and rush through McCommunion.

We are the ones that ought to be in agony. Have we ever agonized over our souls?

Without that drop of blood red sweat, do we realize what would be just ahead?

It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. . .

That isn’t a popular subject, anymore. Judgment is not talked about.

Nobody can be frightened into faith. I bring up judgment to point out what our station in the cosmos is, without that drop of blood red sweat.

Christ agonized in Gethsemane.

Let us try to understand who we are, and where we would be without Christ’s agony.

Father, for Jesus’ sake, have mercy on me, a sinner. Jesus knows my true self. He knows all about me. To please You, He followed Your will all the way to the cross. For His glory, let His blood cleanse me from all unrighteousness.

Cargo 200

Cargo 200: This is the kind of movie the Cohen Bros probably think they make, but don’t. Set in the decaying Soviet Union of 1984, it’s a bleak, perverse, morbid thriller cut with some very bitter and black humor. It wallows in the Soviet man’s mire, both on the individual and state level.

The difference between Cargo 200 and the trash the Coen Bros deface the screen with is honesty. The Coen Bros create comic book characters, place them in conflicts beyond their abilities, and then sneer at them. The characters in Cargo 200 are among the ugliest and most deranged (and, in one case, intellectually fraudulent) you will see this side of a torture porn flick. The script tosses the characters together by accident, bad luck and a desire for liquor, which then provokes orgies of drunkeness, violence and bizarre *romance.* But the filmmakers retain a humane objectivity in regard to their characters that is lacking in the Coens. The characters in Cargo 200 may be garbage. . .but they are human garbage:

Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth He yet find fault? For who hath resisted His will? Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to Him that formed it, Why hast Thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?

These characters (whether one views them as symbolic of all depraved mankind, or, as the filmmakers do, as products of the corrupt Soviet state) are what they are. They can be nothing else. To mock them, as the Coens would do, would be as dishonest as mocking a retarded person.

I’ll not reveal plot details, as that would spoil the demented fun for any who might be tempted to watch this thing. Instead, I’ll present the movie’s Grand Guignol Gallery of characters:

Zhurov: Soviet police captain. He *falls in love,* but, being impotent, must find a surrogate stud. Makes Harvey Keitel’s *Bad Lieutenant* look like a boy scout.

Zhurov’s mother: Crazy alcoholic hag spends all her time drinking in front of a beat-up old television. There’s a great scene where she is watching a negro song-and-dance man on the tv, and then squeals in delight “darky!”

Alexei: Farmer/bootlegger/alcoholic John the Baptist, preparing the way for the return of Christianity to Russia.

Tonya: Alexei’s hard-as-nails wife. Proverbs 31. . .with a shotgun.

Sunka: Alexei’s and Tonya’s filthy-on-the-outisde-but-clean-on-the-inside Vietnamese laborer.

Artem: Communist Party lackey/propagandist, Professor of *Scientific Atheism* at Leningrad University. . .sold his soul for extra rations of sausage.

Valera & Angelika: The Generation Perestroika kids. . .soft, whiny, already contaminated by the West. The future will be different. . .but probably not any better.

These are the main characters, and they interact in a depressing environment of alcoholism, shit cars with lawnmower engines, shabby, crumbling apartment houses, primitive farms, rusting industrial wastelands, scarred landscapes and polluted skies. Toss in the soundtrack of insanely catchy-but-bad Soviet ‘80s pop music and you have a truly memorable freakshow of Mother Russia at the cross-roads.

Oh, yeah, the title, Cargo 200, is the term for the dead soldiers being returned from Afghanistan. . .and one of these corpses has quite a homecoming!

A masterpiece from the Soviet sewer. . .