Psalm 127:3 Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. Proverbs 17:6 Children’s children are the crown of old men; and the glory of children are their fathers. Ephesians 6:4 And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
‘Rayhaneh Ameri, 22, was recently killed in Kerman, Iran by her father for returning home late one night. In a violent rage, Rayhaneh’s father allegedly beat her with an axe, causing her to bleed out and slowly die.
According to a report from last Tuesday, when Rayhaneh’s sister and mother came home to an empty house, the two found Rayhaneh’s blood-soaked garments leading a trail to their father’s car.
After tracking the father’s phone to a nearby village, he allegedly confessed to ‘proudly’ killing his daughter and dumping her body, according to Radio Farda.
This comes three years after he first tried to reportedly kill her by severely beating her with a stick and breaking her arms and leg.
A day later, the Deputy Police Chief in Kerman, the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps Colonel Kourosh Ahmad Yousefi told the state-sponsored news agency IRNA that Rayhaneh’s father killed her with an iron bar, not an axe.
Colonel Yousefi offered a different story, reporting that while angry and struggling with his daughter, Rayhaneh’s father threw a bar at her, which he later regretted.
This is now the third “honor killing” in Iran, causing officials to do damage control for all of the criticism and backlash being received for these savage murders.
Under Islamic Republic law, fathers who kill their children are not considered murderers and cannot receive the death penalty.
The Marxist Muslim Leftist Lovies are dominating the news these days or so it seems. Therefore, you probably haven’t heard that the ‘Administrators at Michigan State University have forced Professor Stephen Hsu to resign from the graduate student union after he had the gall to share research that shows that police violence is not particularly related to the race of either the cop or the victim.
This research, which has been completely ignored by the activists in the streets shouting “Black Lives Matter” as loudly as they can, is peer-reviewed and thought to be extremely credible. For the most part, it’s been done by researchers and academics who thought their studies would come to the opposite conclusion. It’s exactly the kind of research that should be informing our current debate about racism and police brutality.
Unfortunately, the story of Hsu’s ousting illustrates exactly why it isn’t.
From the College Fix:
The union has criticized Hsu’s promotion of a study that found there is no racial bias in police shootings.
“We found that the race of the officer doesn’t matter when it comes to predicting whether black or white citizens are shot,” according to the Michigan State-based research Hsu had quoted that drew the ire of many.
Hsu said that the attacks against him are baseless.
“The GEU alleged that I am a racist because I interviewed MSU Psychology professor Joe Cesario, who studies police shootings,” he wrote in an email to The College Fix. “But Cesario’s work (along with similar work by others, such as Roland Fryer at Harvard) is essential to understanding deadly force and how to improve policing.”
It used to be that a university was a place that prized independent, thought-provoking research, championed free speech, and put all of their resources towards following the evidence to its logical conclusions – no matter how controversial those conclusions might be. This is the backbone of intellectual progress, it is the absolute standard by which science is conducted, and it is why we are further ahead as a species than we were in the Middle Ages.
Make no mistake: Going backwards on these central tenets isn’t an annoyance like political correctness or canceling Aunt Jemima – it is a devastating move that could, with no exaggeration whatsoever, plunge us into a new age of scientific darkness.
That’s why a story like this one is so disturbing. This is angering on a personal level, of course, because a good professor lost his standing in the union. But it’s so much more than that. This is a terrifying glimpse at our future – one where we will build policies and solutions based on anecdotal evidence and “lived experience.” In other words, a future based not on science but on identity politics. Ready to have unqualified, uneducated black transgender women take over science and academia and shape our future as our nation?
It could be said ‘God broke the mold when He made John Jasper.
Psalm 139: 1-3 …O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me. 2 Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off. 3 Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.
‘JASPER’S mother was near the century line when she died, and he attained unto the extraordinary age of eighty-nine. Truly there must have been rare endurance in the texture of the stock. Jasper’s thoughts did not turn to religion until he was twenty-seven and yet by reason of his longevity he was a preacher for sixty years. During twenty-five years of that time he was a slave, and he had about thirty-five years of personal civil freedom, during which he won the distinctions that will make him a figure slow to pass out of history.
Jasper can have no successor. Freedom did not change him. It came too late for him to be seriously affected by its transforming hand. It never dazzled him by its festive charms nor crooked him with prejudice against the white people. There was far more for him in the traditions, sentiments, and habits of his bondage-days than in the new things which emancipation offered. He never took up with gaudy displays which marked his race in the morning of their freedom. This was especially true as to his ministry. He clung without apology to the old ways. In preaching, he spurned the new pulpit manners, the new style of dress, and all newfangrled tricks, which so fascinated his race. He intoned his sermons,–at least, in their more tender passages–sang the old revival songs of the plantations and factories, and felt it a part of his religion to smash, with giant hand, the innovations which the new order was bringing in. Of all the men whom I have known this weird, indescribable man cared the least for opposition;–unless he believed it touched his personal honour or was likely to injure the cause of religion. Indeed, he liked it. He was a born fighter and a stranger to fear. There was a charm in his resentments: they were of a high order, and inevitably commanded manly sympathy. He instinctively identified himself with the Lord and felt that when he fought he was fighting the Lord’s battles. Satire and sarcasm were like Toledo blades in his hands. He often softened his attacks upon his enemies by such ludicrous hits and provoking jests that you felt that, after all, his hostility lacked the roots of hatred. He was far more prone to despise than to hate his enemies.
There is a curious fact in connection with Jasper’s language Evidently in his early days his speech was atrociously ungrammatical. His dialect, while possessing an element of fascination, was almost unspellable. During his long ministerial life his reading and contact with educated people rooted out many of his linguistic excrescences. There were times when he spoke with approximate accuracy, and even with elegance; and yet he delighted, if indeed he was conscious of it, in returning to his dialect and in pouring it forth unblushingly in its worst shape, and yet always with telling effect. But the wonder of his speaking was his practical independence of language. When he became thoroughly impassioned and his face lit with the orator’s glory, he seemed to mount above the bondage of words: his feet, his eyes, indeed every feature of his outer being became to him a new language. If he used words, you did not notice it. You were simply entranced and borne along on the mountain-tide of his passion. You saw nothing but him. You heard him; you felt him, and the glow of his soul was language enough to bring to you his message. It ought to be added that no man ever used the pause more eloquently or effectively than Jasper, and his smile was logic; it was rhetoric; it was blissful conviction.
Those who thought that Jasper was a mere raver did not know. Logic was his tower of strength. He never heard of a syllogism, but he had a way of marshalling his facts and texts which set forth his view as clear as the beaming sun. The Bible was to him the source of all authority, while his belief in the justice and truth of God was something unworldly. He understood well enough his frailties, his fallibility, and the tendency of the human soul towards unfairness and deceit. I heard him say once with irresistible effect: “Brutherin, Gord never lies; He can’t lie. Men lie. I lie sometimes, I am very sorry to say it. I oughtn’t to lie, and it hurts me when I do. I am tryin’ ter git ober it, and I think I will by Gord’s grace, but de Lord nevur lies.” His tone in saying this was so humble and candid that I am sure the people loved him and believed in him more for what he said. A hypocrite could never have said it. Jasper could never be put into words. As he could speak without words so it is true that words could never contain him,–never tell his matchless story, never make those who did not hear him and see him fully understand the man that he was.
A notable and pathetic episode in Jasper’s history was the fact that during the bitter days of the Confederacy when Richmond was crowded with hospitals,–hospitals themselves crowded with the suffering,–Jasper used to go in and preach to them. It was no idle entertainment provided by a grotesque player. He always had a message for the sorrowful. There is no extended record of his labours in the hospitals, but the simple fact is that he, a negro labourer with rude speech, was welcomed by these sufferers and heard with undying interest; no wonder they liked him. His songs were so mellow, so tender, so reminiscent of the southern plantation and of the homes from which these men came. His sermons had the ring of the old gospel preaching so common in the South. He had caught his manner of preaching from the white preachers and they too had been his only theological teachers. We can easily understand how his genius, seasoned with religious reverence, made him a winsome figure to the men who languished through the weary days on the cots. It cannot be said too often that Jasper was the white man’s preacher. Wherever he went, the Anglo-Saxon waived all racial prejudices and drank the truth in as it poured in crystal streams from his lips.
Quite a pretty story is told of Jasper at the beginnings of his ministry. It seems that he went down into the eastern part of his town one Sunday to preach and some boisterous ruffians interfered, declaring that a negro had no right to go into the pulpit and that they would not allow Jasper to preach. A sailor who chanced to be present and knew Jasper faced these disorderly men and declared to them that Jasper was the smartest man in Virginia and that if he could take him to the country from whence he had come he would be treated with honour and distinction. There was also a small white boy standing by, and touched by the sincerity and power of Jasper, he pluckily jumped into the scene and exclaimed, “Yes, let him go on; what he says is all right. I have read it all in the Bible, and why shouldn’t he speak?” The incipient mob was dispersed, and his audience was fringed with a multitude of white people who were attracted to the scene.
It is not intended by these things said, concerning Jasper’s favour with the white people, to indicate that Jasper, in the least degree, was not with his own, race. Far from that. He loved his own people and was thoroughly identified with them; but he was larger than his race. He loved all men. He had grown up with that pleasing pride that the coloured people who lived in prominent families had about white people. Then, too, he had always been a man who had won favour wherever he went, and the white race had always had a respect and affection for him. Jasper was never ungrateful.
There were sometimes hard passages in the road which Jasper travelled. At the end of the war he was left high and dry, like driftwood on the shore. He had no church; no place to preach; no occupation. His relations with the white race were shattered, and things were grim enough; but ill-fortune could not break him. A large part of Richmond was in ashes, and in some places at least the work of rebuilding commenced at once,–or rather a clearing off of the debris with a view to rebuilding. Jasper walked out and engaged himself to clean bricks. During the Egyptian bondage the Hebrews made bricks and thought they had a hard lot; but Jasper spent the first days of his freedom in the brick business,–a transient expedient for keeping soul and body together until he could get on his feet again. Little thought the eager men who were trying to lay the foundations for their future fortunes that in the tall serious negro who sat whacking hour after hour at the bricks was one of God’s intellectual noblemen. Born in bondage, lowly in his liberty and yet great in the gifts with which God had endowed him, it was Jasper’s nature to be almost as cheerful when squatted on a pile of bricks and tugging at their cleaning as if he had a seat in a palace and was feeding on royal dainties. He carried the contented spirit, and that too while he aspired after the highest. He did not uselessly kick against the inevitable, but he always strove for the best that was in his reach.
One of the most serious jars of Jasper’s life was his conflict with some of his brethren in connection with his notable and regrettable sermon on the motion of the sun. Intelligent people do not need to be told that Jasper knew nothing of natural science, and that his venture into the field of astronomy was a blunder. It was a matter that did not in the least involve his piety or his salvation, nor even his ministerial efficiency. His whole bearing in the matter was so evidently sincere, and his respect for the Bible, as he understood it, was so unmeasured that it set him off rather to an advantage than to a disadvantage. It is told in another place how he was drawn into the preaching of that sermon which gave him an odd, and yet a genuine, celebrity. It was no love for sensation and no attempt to show his learning, but simply an attempt to vindicate the Bible as he understood it. When the sermon was first delivered it created a wide-spread sensation. Some of the coloured ministers of Richmond were shocked out of their equanimity, and they felt that something must be done. It was a case of hysterics. In a fit of freakish courage some of them made an attack on Jasper. A letter was written to a Richmond paper and signed by several prominent negro Baptists, one of them being the pastor of a strong church. In this letter Jasper’s sermons were bitterly denounced, and they were spoken of as “a base fabrication,” out of time and place, and doing more harm than good. It was said further that these sermons had drawn such crowds that it had resulted in the injury of a number of persons, and that a better way for the author of these sermons would be for him to preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
Some time after this the Ebenezer Baptist Church called a conference to consider the situation and to see if matters could not be adjusted. Jasper was an ardent believer in the independence of the individual Baptist church, and he was summoned to appear before that conference. He refused to go, saying that he did not recognize the authority of the church to interfere with him. Thereupon they sent a committee to him inviting him to come and make any statement that he wished to make concerning the question at issue.
He went. The point in the published letter concerning Jasper that was most offensive to him was the statement as to “base fabrication.” That hit him between the joints of the harness. His soul was stirred with a furious resentment, and when he got before that council and fell afoul of the three men who had charged him with “a base fabrication” it was a day not to be forgotten. When he had got through it would be hard to say how many baskets would have been required to hold the fragments. The man who had really written the letter suddenly discovered that it had no reference on the earth to Brothel Jasper. It was intended to answer something that had been said in a paper in New York. Attempts were made to refresh his memory. Quite a respectable minister reminded this letter writer that they had talked together concerning this letter, and that the attention of the writer was called to the “base fabrication” part of it, but the memory of the brother could not be revived. No stimulant could reach the case. Other folks might charge Brother Jasper with base fabrication, but not this man. It was a lamentable and discreditable conclusion. He was crippled in both feet and respected by none. This ended the matter. Jasper strode away from the council with the marks of victory about him; and while bad feeling could not die at once, yet the attacks on Jasper went entirely out of fashion. Let it be added that there were multitudes who shared the prejudice against this old warrior, but little cared he. On he went his fine way, growing in nobleness, and loving the God in whom he believed.
Jasper’s pleasures were of the meditative sort. For a long time his church gave him an ample vacation in the summer. He retired to the country and courted its quiet. His only sport was fishing along the streams, and that suited his task. If the fish didn’t bite, his thoughts always did. Like the fish they ran in schools, but unlike the fish they ran in all weathers and in all seasons. But Jasper never achieved marked success in the art of recreation. Go where he might, his fame was there to confront and to entangle him.
Demands for him to preach always came in hot and thick, and there was hardly a Sunday when Jasper was in the country that he was not surrounded by a crowd and preaching with everglowing fervour and delight. Indeed, Jasper was sought after to dedicate churches, deliver lectures and to preach special sermons in every part of Virginia, and often beyond it. It was said that he preached in almost every county and city in Virginia. He was the one ever sought Virginia preacher, and in that respect he stood unmatched by any man of his race.
As a rule, Jasper did not preach very long sermons. His Sunday afternoon sermons very rarely exceeded fifty minutes in length, but on extraordinary occasions he took no note of time. Jasper was not a sermon-maker. He did not write them, and homiletics was a thing of which he had never heard. He was fond of pictorial preaching and often selected historical topics, such as “Joseph and His Brethren” or “Daniel in the Lion’s Den,” or “The Raising of Lazarus.” He had quite a large stock of special sermons,–sermons which had grown by special use, and which embodied the choicest creations of his mind. These he preached over and over again and in his own pulpit, and without apology to anybody. But after all the themes which interested him most profoundly and on which he preached with unsurpassed ardour and rapture were the fundamental doctrines of the Scriptures. The last sermon he ever preached was on Regeneration; and on many phases of the Christian system he preached with consummate ability. He believed fully in the doctrine of future punishment, and his description of the fate of the lost made the unbelieving quake with terror and consternation. His preaching was of that fervid, startling, and threatening sort, well suited to awaken religious anxieties and to bring the people to a public confession. He was his own evangelist,–did chiefly the work of bringing his congregation to repentance, and the growth of his church consisted almost entirely of the fruit of his own ministry. His church on the island began with nine members, and it was reported that there were over 2,000 at the time of his death. He had uncommon caution about receiving people into his church. He was not willing to take people to count, and he preached searchingly to those who were thinking of applying for membership.
Just two little and yet important things call for a place in this chapter. Jasper was an inexorable debt-payer. The only debt that he could tolerate was a church debt, and he could ill tolerate that. The unsettled account of his great new church building grappled him like a nightmare. It was his burden in the day and his torturing dream at night. Even during his dying days the church debt haunted and depressed him, and loud among his parting exhortations was his insistent plea that the church debt should be speedily paid.
In his early life Jasper contracted the use of tobacco,–as, indeed, almost his entire race did, and he was also quite free with the use of alcoholic drinks,–though never, so far as is known, to the extent of intoxication. No question as to his sobriety has ever ridden the air. But these habits lingered with him long after he entered the ministry, and even until he was winning enviable and far-spreading favour as a preacher. So far as known, these facts did not becloud his reputation nor interfere with his work. Of course, he never entered a barroom, and never drank convivially, but he kept liquor in his house, and took it as his choice dictated. But gradually it worked itself into his conscience that these things were not for the best, and without the least ostentation or even publicity he absolutely abandoned the use both of tobacco and alcoholic drinks. He made no parade about it, and took on no fanatical airs. Just as he thought it was wrong to owe money which he could not pay and therefore hated a debt, so he felt that these habits, useless at best, might really be harmful to him and to others, and therefore he gave them up.
His moral and religious ideals were very lofty, and he lived up to them to a degree not true of
MONUMENT OVER JOHN JASPER’S GRAVE
many. Not long after his death a really magnificent monument was erected over his grave. It was quite costly, and the money for it was raised by his church people and other lovers of whom he had legions. While he lived, legislators, judges, governors, and many men of eminent distinction, went to hear him preach. Many of the most distinguished white ministers of the country made it a point to go to his church on Sunday afternoon whenever they were in the city, and he was justly ranked as one of the attractions of Richmond.
Now that he has found his grave not far from the site of his church, and this stately shaft has been placed as a sentinel over his dust, multitudes as they come and go will visit the tomb of the most original, masterful, and powerful negro preacher of the old sort that this country has ever produced.’ https://docsouth.unc.edu/church/hatcher/hatcher.html
There is that slippery slope which the West is rushing down to its own demise. For instance, making so-called same-sex marriage legal was not the beginning down the slide but it certainly gave a BIG push! Therefore, ‘Let me totally clear at the outset. One of the purposes of this article is to say, “I told you so!” Or, more precisely, many of us have been predicting this moment for years. As reported in the New York Times, “A Massachusetts City Decides to Recognize Polyamorous Relationships.
The city of Somerville has broadened the definition of domestic partnership to include relationships between three or more adults, expanding access to health care. Is anyone really surprised?
After all, if the winning mantras of the same-sex “marriage” movement have been “Love is love” and “Love wins” and “I have the right to marry the one I love,” why limit that number to two? Isn’t that discriminating against love? Isn’t that simply carrying over the outdated, outmoded, limiting ways of the past?
To this day, in all my dialogue and debate with LGBTQ activists and their allies, I have yet to hear a reasonable explanation of why marriage should be limited to two people if any two people can marry. Why limit the union to two people? Based on what? All the solid arguments for limiting marriage to two people are, ultimately, arguments for marriage being the union of a male and a female. All other arguments fall short. Very short. (For a glaring illustration, see here.)
When it comes to polyamory, which can include virtually any combination or number of men and women, on what basis should the government not recognize such relationships? Is not love still love? Does not love still win? And is not love the only thing that matters? So the argument goes.
Today, we’re talking about just one city in Massachusetts extending health benefits to polyamorous families. But one city is all that is needed to begin a trend. That’s also why this is national news, even in the midst of an unrelenting, tumultuous news cycle.
As for warning about this for years, polyamory was mentioned frequently in my book A Queer Thing Happened to America, published in 2011, but with research for the book dating back to 2005.
In fact, in the book I drew attention to a polyamory seminar hosted by the Metropolitan Community Churches – obviously, pro-LGBT churches – back in 2005: “Yes, ‘polyamory’ – in other words, having multiple sexual partners (loving, of course!) – was also a topic of discussion at the MCC conference, and church members were encouraged to come out of the closets with their ongoing, multiple sexual relationships.”
Again, this was at a church conference in 2005. And even then, this trend had been building for years. We told you so!
In the book I also quoted polyamorous advocates who marched prominently in gay pride parades, stating, “We’re 30 years behind the gay activist movement.” They probably underestimated the timeline. (On a different but related front, I could point to articles like, “Here Come the Polygamists,” dating back to 2012.)
In my 2015 book, Outlasting the Gay Revolution, I wrote, “Perhaps we should change the wedding vows to sound more like this (with the man speaking here): ‘I take you as my wife, but probably not for life. I take you as my own, but not just you alone. I pledge myself to you, and perhaps to others too. I take you as my bride, although your name is Clyde.’
“Is this really so farfetched? If you can have a bride and a broom, if ‘husbands’ can be women and ‘wives’ can be men, if you can be married and dating and swinging and swapping, if you live together before marriage and end the marriage whenever it suits you best, then what does ‘marriage’ mean?”
Back in 2015, Stephen Colbert mocked the idea of a slippery moral slope when it came to redefining marriage. The reality of the matter, as he likely knew, was that the mocking predictions he made had already come to pass. I illustrated all that in this video. You can mock, but you can’t deny reality. (Take a minute to watch. You’ll be shocked.)
In saying all this, I am not saying that gay couples do not love each other or that gay couples will inevitably become polyamorous throuples and beyond. I’m simply stating the obvious: if two men or two women can “marry,” then there is nothing sacrosanct about the number two. Any potential number will do, as long as the relationships are based on “love.”
Already in March, 2016, Oliver Bateman wrote on Mic.com, “When it comes to marriage, three is still a crowd. But that might be changing sooner than we think. According to a 2015 Gallup poll, a small-yet-growing percentage of Americans report that they find the concept of plural marriage ‘morally acceptable,’ while polyamorous relationships are increasingly receiving mainstream media coverage. A 2014 Newsweek article even estimates that there are more than 500,000 openly polyamorous families living in the United States today.”
John Jasper was a preacher that made the Bible literally come alive!
‘IN the circle of Jasper’s gifts his imagination was preëminent. It was the mammoth lamp in the tower of his being. A matchless painter was he. He could flash out a scene, colouring every feature, defining every incident and unveiling every detail. Time played no part in the performance,–it was done before you knew it. Language itself was of second moment. His vocabulary was poverty itself, his grammar a riot of errors, his pronunciation a dialectic wreck, his gestures wild and unmeaning, his grunts and heavings terrible to hear. At times he hardly talked but simply emitted; his pictures were simply himself in flame. His entire frame seemed to glow with living light, and almost wordlessly he wrought his miracles. But do not misunderstand. Some insisted on saying that education would have stripped John of his genius by subduing the riot of his power and chastening the fierceness of his imagination. I think not, for John in a good sense was educated. He was a reverential and laborious student for half-a-century. He worked on his sermons with a marked assiduity and acquired the skill and mastership of faithful struggle. Even his imagination had to work, and its products were the fruit of toil. There was no mark of the abnormal or disproportionate in his sky, but all the stars were big and bright. He was well ballasted in his mental make-up, and in his most radiant pictures there was an ethical regard for facts, and an instinctive respect for the truth. Moreover, his ministrations fairly covered the theological field, were strongly doctrinal, and he grappled with honest vigour the deepest principles of the Gospel. He was also intensely practical, scourging sin, lashing neglect, and with lofty authority demanding high and faithful living.
Think not of Jasper merely as a pictorial preacher. There were wrought into his pictures great principles and rich lessons. But now and then he would present a sermon which was largely a series of pictures from beginning to end. His imagination would be on duty all the time and yet never flag. I cannot forget his sermon on Joseph and his Brethren. It was a stirring presentation of the varied scenes in that memorable piece of history. He opened on the favouritism of Jacob, and was exceedingly strong in condemning partiality, as unhappily expressed in the coat of many colours. That brief part was a sermon itself for parents. From that he passed quickly to the envy of his brothers.
Jealousy was a demon creeping in among them, inflicting poisonous stings, and spreading his malignant power, until murder rankled in every heart. Then came Joseph, innocent and ignorant of offending, to fall a victim to their conspiracy, with the casting of him into the pit, the selling of him to the travelling tradesmen, the showing to Jacob of the blood-stained coat, with scene after scene until the happy meeting at last between Jacob and his long lost son.
One almost lived a lifetime under the spell of that sermon. It was eloquent, pathetic, terrific in its denunications, rich in homely piety, and with strains of sweetness that was as balm to sorrowing souls. The effects were as varied as human thoughts and sentiments. The audience went through all moods. Now they were bent down as if crushed with burdens; now they were laughing in tumults at the surprises and charms of heavenly truth; anon they were sobbing as if all hearts were broken, and in a moment hundreds were on their feet shaking hands, shouting, and giving forth snatches of jubilant song. This all seems extravagant, without sobriety entirely, but those that were there, perhaps without an exception, felt that it was the veritable house of God and the gate of heaven.
At other times, Jasper’s sermons were sober and deliberate, sometimes even dull; but rarely did the end come without a burst of eloquence or an attractive, entertaining picture. But, remember, that his pictures were never foreign to his theme. They were not lugged in to fill up. They had in them the might of destiny and fitted their places, and fitted them well. Often they came unheralded, but they were evidently born for their part. On one occasion his sermon was on Enoch. It started out at a plodding gait and seemed for a time doomed to dullness, for Jasper could be dull sometimes. At one time he brought a smile to the faces of the audience, in speaking of Enoch’s age, by the remark: “Dem ole folks back dar cud beat de presunt ginerashun livin’ all ter pieces.”
As he approached the end of his sermon, his face lighted up and took on a new grace and passion, and he went out with Enoch on his last walk. That walk bore him away to the border of things visible; earthly scenes were lost to view; light from the higher hills gilded the plains. Enoch caught sight of the face of God, heard the music and the shouting of a great host, and saw the Lamb of God seated on the throne. The scene was too fair to lose, and Enoch’s walk quickened into a run which landed him in his father’s house. It was a quick, short story, told in soft and mellow tones, and lifted the audience up so far that the people shouted and sang as if they were themselves entering the gates of heaven.
One of his more elaborate descriptions, far too rich to be reproduced, celebrated the ascension of Elijah. There was the oppressive unworldliness of the old prophet, his efforts to shake off Elisha, and Elisha’s wise persistence in clamouring for a blessing from his spiritual father. But it was when the old prophet began to ascend that Jasper, standing off like one apart from the scene, described it so thrillingly that everything was as plain as open day. To the people, the prophet was actually and visibly going away. They saw him quit the earth, saw him rise above the mountain tops, sweeping grandly over the vast fields of space, and finally saw him as he passed the moon and stars. Then something happened. In the fraction of a second Jasper was transmuted into Elijah and was actually in the chariot and singing with extraordinary power the old chorus: “Going up to heaven in a chariot of fire.” The scene was overmastering! For a time I thought that Jasper was the real Elijah, and my distinct feeling was that the song which he sang could be heard around the world. Of course, it was not so; but there was something in the experience of the moment that has abided with me ever since.
At a funeral one Sunday I saw Jasper attempt a dialogue with death, himself speaking for both. The line of thought brought him face to face with death and the grave. The scene was solemnized by a dead body in a coffin. He put his hands over his mouth and stooped down and addressed death. Oh, death–death, speak to me. Where is thy sting? And then with the effect of a clairvoyant he made reply: “Once my sting was keen and bitter, but now it is gone. Christ Jesus has plucked it out, and I have no more power to hurt His children. I am only the gatekeeper to open the gateway to let His children pass.” In closing this chapter an incident will largely justify my seemingly extraordinary statements as to the platform power of this unschooled negro preacher in Virginia.
In company with a friend I went very often Sunday afternoons to hear Jasper and the fact was bruited about quite extensively, and somewhat to the chagrin of some of my church-members. Two of them, a professor in Richmond College and a lawyer well-known in the city, took me to task about it They told me in somewhat decided tones that my action was advertising a man to his injury, and other things of a similar sort. I cared but little for their criticism, but told them that if they would go to hear him when he was at his best, and if afterwards they felt about him as they then felt, I would consider their complaints. They went the next Sunday. The house was overflowing, and Jasper walked the mountain tops that day. His theme was “The raising of Lazarus” and by steps majestic he took us along until he began to describe the act of raising Lazarus from the dead. It happened that the good professor was accompanied by his son, a sprightly lad of about ten, who was sitting between his father and myself. Suddenly the boy, evidently agitated, turned to me and begged that we go home at once. I sought to soothe him, but all in vain, for as he proceeded the boy urgently renewed his request to go home. His father observed his disquietude and putting an arm around him restored him to calmness. After the service ended and we had reached the street, I said to him: “Look here, boy, what put you into such a fidget to quit the church before the end of the service?” “Oh, doctor, I thought he had a dead man under the pulpit and was going to take him out,” he said. My lawyer brother heard the sermon and with profound feeling said, “Hear that, and let me say to you that in a lifetime I have heard nothing like it, and you ought to hear that man whenever you can.”
I heard no later criticisms from any man concerning my conduct in evincing such cordial interest in this eloquent son of Fluvanna.
One doesn’t have to be a scientist of any kind to know the sun does not produce as much heat in the winter as the summer. Duh! All this solar and wind renewable talk is lies. For instance there is an ad for solar that tells the viewer that the solar panels will be paid for by the savings. Nah, for most average homes this is an out and out lie. Sadly, governments contribute to this lie sometimes by millions of taxpayer dollars https://www.theland.com.au/story/6781773/solar-farm-at-goulburn/?src=rss&utm_email=1ec342a17f.
‘When energy policy sounds like something from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass it’s because lunatics have overrun of the asylum.
Sure, those with skin in the game will say and do anything that needs to be said and done to profit from the most obscene subsidy rort in history. But, their licence to operate comes from the great unwashed proletariat, plenty of whom are convinced that we’re well on our way to an all wind and sun powered future. It is, of course, just another example of mass delusion and the madness of crowds.
As the adage goes, people go mad in herds and regain their senses, slowly, and one by one.
Films like Michael Moore’s Planet of the Humans may herald just such a turning point, where logic and reason re-enter the fray to do battle with the unhinged emotions and irrational ideology of those who would readily drive us all back to the Dark Ages.
Norman Rogers delivers a neat little essay on the current state of energy insanity and how we landed where we are.
Green Electricity Delusions American Thinker Norman Rogers 22 May 2020
With global warming the alleged science is so complicated that nobody, including the global warming scientists, can really understand what is going on. Green electricity, mostly solar and wind, is different. It’s relatively clear cut. No supercomputers spewing out terabytes of confusing data are needed.
Green electricity is quite useless. The latest trend in green electricity is wind or solar with battery backup. This green electricity costs about nine times more than the fossil fuel electricity it displaces. The true cost is hidden from the public by hidden subsidies and fake accounting. (My book, Dumb Energy, goes into great analytical detail.)
Green electricity is ineffective for preventing climate change. The climate change alarmists James Hansen and Michael Shellenberger make the case forcefully in this video. Hansen is the most important and most famous scientist warning against climate change. His followers consider him to be the greatest authority on the dangers of climate change. He calls wind and solar energy a “grotesque idea” and a “fantasy.”
It’s true that we won’t run out of wind or sunshine. That doesn’t mean that wind and sunshine are effective tools for making electricity. They aren’t. The exhaustion of fossil fuels has been predicted many times. The current situation is that fossil fuels are in great over supply and the prices have crashed to low levels. Natural gas, currently the most economical fossil fuel for generating electricity, is painfully cheap and is being extensively exported from the United States to other countries.
Natural gas from wells, not served by pipelines to take it to market, is burned or flared to get rid of it. Only the more valuable oil is kept. Thanks to fracking, we have plenty of natural gas for the next 100-years.
Promoters of quack medicine sell various pills guaranteed to improve your memory or your sex life. Green energy is quackery too. It is promoted by green organizations like the Sierra Club. At one time the Sierra Club was a harmless club of backpackers and bird watchers. But it was taken over by ideologues driven by the delusion that modern society is a destructive fraud that must be rescued by the adoption of green principles. These armchair green commandos are math handicapped. They regularly propose policies that make no sense. The green commandos pontificate confidently without real understanding.
Coal is an excellent fuel for generating electricity. Unlike natural gas or oil, coal has limited uses other than generating electricity. The Sierra Club hates coal because it competes successfully against their beloved green wind and solar.
No lie is too outrageous as long as it is useful for discrediting coal. The Sierra Club uses trick photography to make it look like coal plants emit clouds of black smoke. The trick is to photograph clean white clouds of “steam” with the sun behind the plant. That makes the harmless white clouds look black. The exhaust products are composed of water vapor and carbon dioxide with very little pollution. As the exhaust mixes with the cool air, it condenses into a white cloud of clean water droplets commonly called steam.
In modern coal plants, almost all pollution is scrubbed away before the exhaust goes into the smokestack.
Residential rooftop solar energy is an uneconomic method for generating electricity but it sounds convincing to the naïve. Rooftop solar panels lack economy of scale. These small installations generate electricity for about three times more per kilowatt hour than the large-scale utility installations. The homeowner reduces his consumption of grid electricity, reducing his electric bill. Excess solar electricity is sold back to the utility, often at a price far higher than the cost of wholesale electricity.
The beauty of this scheme is that if the rules are sufficiently rigged in favor of the homeowner, it is possible for the homeowner to save money. No one could complain if the homeowner disconnected from the electric utility. But no one is disconnecting unless they live off grid. The utility is expected to maintain a power line to the home and maintain excess generating capacity to take over supplying electricity if it is cloudy or it is nighttime.
The true cost of maintaining this backup service, exclusive of any electricity sales, is around $100 per month, but utilities commonly charge only around $10 or $15 a month for a connection before the first kilowatt hour is sold. Every kilowatt hour of utility electricity displaced by solar costs the utility gross profit. If the utility is forced to buy the homeowner’s electricity at retail rates the utility may end up paying much more than the reasonable wholesale cost of the electricity.
In some places the homeowner is even allowed to bank excess solar electricity and draw it at a later time. The utility doesn’t have a bank where it can store electricity. In short, rooftop solar is a scheme of making everyone else subsidize the homeowner. The homeowner is under the delusion that he has discovered cheaper electricity. It is cheaper only because everyone else bears the cost.
The crippling weakness of wind or solar electricity is their intermittent and erratic nature. A fossil-fuel generating plant can be fired up as needed and throttled up and down as the consumption of electricity changes. Wind or solar generates electricity according to the vagaries of the weather. The grid operators, except in extreme circumstances, are required to accept all the green electricity presented. In order to do this, fossil-fuel plants have to seesaw their output to compensate for the erratic wind or solar.
Wind and solar plants can’t replace fossil-fuel plants for the simple reason that at times the wind and solar plants are not generating electricity. You must have enough fossil fuel along with hydro and nuclear to carry the full load. The consequence is that the system has to continue to maintain and pay for its traditional plants regardless of how much wind and solar is added to the grid. The only economic contribution of wind or solar is to reduce fuel consumption in the fossil-fuel plants during times when wind or solar electricity is being generated.
The proper cost comparison is to compare the cost of green electricity versus the marginal cost (fuel) of operating the fossil-fuel plants. Natural-gas plants have a fuel cost of about $15 per megawatt hour. Wind or solar with battery backup costs about $130 per megawatt hour.
For grid stability reasons new wind and solar plants are being equipped with battery storage, greatly increasing the cost. Without the battery backup wind or solar electricity costs around $75 per megawatt hour. To be clear, the electricity supplied by wind or solar at $75 to $130 per megawatt hour (not counting subsidies) could be generated in existing fossil fuel plants for $15 per megawatt hour.
‘Like millions of others, I was deeply disturbed by the tragic death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police on 25 May. Not only America but Britain and Australia have erupted in mass mayhem, led by the Black Lives Matter movement founded in 2013.
Floyd was 1.93 m tall and weighed 100 kg. His friends called him a “gentle giant”. He was a keen basketballer and rapper, using the stage name “Big Floyd”. After a stint in jail for armed robbery and home invasion his life changed – he became involved in the Christian ministry Resurrection Houston. He was known for decades as a mentor to a generation of young men and a “person of peace” – but things seemed to have gone wrong during the COVID pandemic. His autopsy showed the presence of drugs. Floyd’s death follows another tragic death at the hands of Minneapolis police. The Australian-born woman Justine Damond was fatally shot on 15 July 2017 by a Somali-American police officer. She had phoned the police to report the possible assault on a woman in an alley behind her house.
Why did the killing of a black man by a white cop provoke protests and riots, when the killing of a white woman by a black cop didn’t? The answer, of course, is the widespread belief that blacks are unfairly targeted by police due to racial hatred. But what are the facts? US homicide records show that, in the general population, there are more murders of whites by blacks than the reverse. In 2016, for example, over twice as many whites (533) were killed by blacks as blacks (243) killed by whites. A recent study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found no racial differences in the use of lethal force by US police. It said: “On the most extreme use of force – officer-involved shootings – we find no racial differences in either the raw data or when contextual factors are taken into account.” However, there are big differences in crime rates between the white and black US subcultures. In 2016, African-Americans became murder victims at the rate of 71 per million, compared with 15 whites per million. That is, blacks were 4.7 times as likely to be killed as whites. But most of these killings occur within the racial groups. Whites were killed by other whites in 82% of cases and blacks were killed by blacks in 90% of cases. The Black Lives Matter campaign is motivated by a common myth, that police unfairly target blacks. But the situation is far more complex. US attorney and radio host Larry Elder believes the underlying cause of much crime is fatherlessness. A large proportion of African-Americans are raised in fatherless homes. Lacking male role models who are strong yet caring and protective, boys often turn to crime gang leaders to provide their missing father figures. These days, those who promote stable marriage and families are mocked in the media, or worse. But out of love for our neighbours, we in FamilyVoice intend to keep on doing it.’ https://familyvoice.org.au/
