Forgiveness: Mother Lives Next to Son’s Killer

I doubt I could do this:

A mother whose only child was shot dead has shown the ultimate forgiveness – by inviting her son’s killer to live next door.

Mary Johnson, 59, now lives in the apartment adjoining the home of 34-year-old Oshea Israel and they share a porch.

In February 1993, Mrs Johnson’s son, Laramiun Byrd, 20, was shot in the head by 16-year-old Israel after an argument at a party in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Israel, who was involved with drugs and gangs, was tried as an adult and sentenced to 25 and a half years. He served 17 before being released.

 

She sought a relationship with him:

Then just a few years ago, the 59-year-old teacher and devout Christian, asked if she could meet Israel at Minnesota’s Stillwater state prison.

She said she felt compelled to see if there was a way in which she could forgive her son’s killer.

At first he refused but then nine months later, changed his mind. Israel said he was shocked by the fact she wanted to meet him.

He said: ‘I believe the first thing she said to me was, ”Look, you don’t know me. I don’t know you. Let’s just start with right now.”

‘And I was befuddled myself.’

The pair met regularly after that. When Israel was released from prison around 18 months ago, Mrs Johnson introduced him to her landlord – who with her blessing, invited Israel to move into the building.

What a woman!
Read more: 
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2000704/Woman-shows-incredible-mercy-sons-killer-moves-door.html#ixzz1P6Yh4r3g

 

Moses Meets Microsoft

From today’s Wall Street Journal:

 

Jihad Cosmo

How would you begin a news article about a women’s magazine published by Al-Queda — what one might call “Jihad Cosmo”?  The Daily Mail opens with one of the most striking sentences in the history of journalism:

Al-Qaeda has launched a women’s magazine that mixes beauty and fashion tips with advice on suicide bombings.

Apparently, the magazine is full of timely advice for the complete woman:

Al-Shamikha magazine – meaning The Majestic Woman – has advice for singletons on ‘marrying a mujahideen’.

Readers are told it is their duty to raise children to be mujahideen ready for jihad.

And the ‘beauty column’ instructs women to stay indoors with their faces covered to keep a ‘clear complexion’.

After all, nobody likes a leather-skinned suicide bomber.

Read more:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1365806/Glossy-Jihad-Cosmo-combines-beauty-tips-suicide-bombing-advice.html#ixzz1Gb8CtQrg

 

Americans REALLY don’t know their own religions

A new study by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life suggests that Americans really don’t know much about their own religion:

More than four-in-ten Catholics in the United States (45 percnt) do not know that their church teaches that the bread and wine used in Communion do not merely symbolize but actually become the body and blood of Christ. About half of Protestants (53 percent) cannot correctly identify Martin Luther as the person whose writings and actions inspired the Protestant Reformation, which made their religion a separate branch of Christianity. Roughly four-in-ten Jews (43 percent) do not recognize that Maimonides, one of the most venerated rabbis in history, was Jewish.

The chart below breaks down the respondents’ accuracy on the Pew quiz:

Amazingly, atheists/agnostics scored higher than anyone but Jewish respondents.

The image at the top of this post came from the article (link below).  It reminded me of this bumper sticker that I recently saw on the web:

Via:
http://www.bigquestionsonline.com/blogs/heather-wax/most-americans-don%E2%80%99t-know-much-about-their-own-faith-traditions

 

Whoops! Neo-Nazi Couple Learn They’re Jewish

How do you say “irony” in Polish?

Two Polish neo-Nazis who were childhood sweethearts and later became skinheads have discovered what for them is a shocking family secret: They’re actually Jewish.

Pawel and Ola, identified only by their first names, are the subject of a CNN documentary about Poles rediscovering their Jewish roots generations after their ancestors hid their religious identities to escape persecution during World War II.

A few years ago, Ola found out from Warsaw’s Jewish Historical Institute that both she and her husband are technically Jews. “It was unbelievable — it turned out that we had Jewish roots. It was a shock,” she said.

At the time, she and Pawel were active in Warsaw’s neo-Nazi movement. “I was a nationalist 100 percent. Back then when we were skinheads it was all about white power… that Jews were the biggest plague and the worst evil of this world,” Pawel said.

Both 33, they’ve now embraced their Jewish identity and are active in their local orthodox synagogue.

via Neo-Nazi Couple Find Out They’re Jewish.

 

Honor Killing in America

These are the Said sisters, Amina and Sarah — two pretty Texas teens who were brutally murdered on New Year’s Day 2008. The main suspect: their father, Yaser. Their crime: dating non-Muslim boys. Their penalty: honor killings.

Tonight (Friday, August 6) at 10 p.m. eastern, Fox News will broadcast Bill Hemmer’s one-hour special investigating the case, and the risk Muslim girls face at the hands of their male relatives if they act too . . . American.

via Honor Killing in America – The Corner – National Review Online.

 

Incentive Pay for Preachers

Why is this man smiling? Now we know!

ANOTHER idea I’d not thought of: according to a new study, the Methodist church gives its ministers an incentive payment for bringing in more congregants.

Of course, not all ministers avoid self-interest in their work.  But this seems to be making the matter overly explicit.

And, according to the study’s abstract, the payment is higher for attracting parishioners who switch from toher Methodist congregations.  That seems to be exactly the wrong incentive!

See: “Is a Higher Calling Enough? Incentive Compensation in the Church” by Jay C. Hartzell, of the University of Texas at Austin – Department of Finance, et al.

Abstract:

We study the compensation and productivity of more than 2,000 Methodist ministers in a 43-year panel data set. The church appears to use pay-for-performance incentives for its clergy, as their compensation follows a sharing rule by which pastors receive approximately 3% of the incremental revenue from membership increases. Ministers receive the strongest rewards for attracting new parishioners who switch from other congregations within their denomination. Monetary incentives are weaker in settings where ministers have less control over their measured performance.

via SSRN-Is a Higher Calling Enough? Incentive Compensation in the Church by Jay Hartzell, Christopher Parsons, David Yermack.

 

Ancient law calls all men to archery practice

Using a defense statute from the Middle Ages, the Vicar of Wiltshire recently summoned every man, woman, and child to gather for archery practice.  Those who complied were rewarded with a bar, a barbecue and live music.

The purpose of the “archery practice”?  To celebrate the addition of a lavatory in the parish church.  The  Brits really are different.

BBC News – Wiltshire vicar revives ancient archery law.

 

America’s First Muslim College to Open this Fall

Located, of course, in Berkeley:

Letters of admission went out last month to the approximately 20 students who will make up the inaugural freshman class of Zaytuna College, which founders hope will become the nation’s first accredited Muslim institution of higher learning.

… Zaytuna will be a Muslim liberal arts college in the same tradition as other sectarian liberal arts colleges that operate in this country. In its early years, Zaytuna will offer bachelor’s degrees in Islamic law and theology and Arabic, according to Dr. Hatem Bazian, a co-founder of the college and chair of its academic affairs committee. As the college grows, he says, it will add majors.

Just how liberal can a muslim college actually be?  Cartoons of Mohammed in art class?  Critical analysis of the Koran in philosophy?

It will be fascinating to see whether Zaytuna College will have to meet the multi-culti standards of political correctness imposed on other colleges, or whether it will get an exemption from all that.  I’m betting on the exemption.

via America’s First Muslim College To Open This Fall.

 

Bureaucracy Exceeding Itself

Illustrating the immutable law: Power corrupts.  PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.

General McChrystal’s response was priceless:

When we understand that slide, we’ll have won the war,’ General Stanley McChrystal, the US and NATO force commander, remarked wryly when confronted by the sprawling spaghetti diagram in a briefing.

via Afghanistan PowerPoint slide: Generals left baffled by PowerPoint slide | Mail Online.

 

Indulgences

‘As soon as the coin in the coffer rings,

The soul from Purgatory springs.’

The Catholic Church’s lack of a quality control manager over Johann Tetzel may have been the most consequential (and expensive) personnel snafu in history.

via History of GERMANY.

 

The Somali Who Couldn’t Make It to the Bathroom

On the evening of New Year’s Day, the Dane who drew the Mohammed cartoon was saved by his bathroom door, when he was attacked by a Somali extremist.   Kurt Westergaard, the 75-year-old cartoonist, was looking after his 5-year-old granddaughter, when the axe-wielding  Somali broke into his house.

Westergaard had little time to react.

He pressed an alarm button to summon police when the attacker entered the house … by breaking a window.  He did not have time to collect the child from the living room before locking himself into a “panic room”, a specially fortified bathroom. He said the assailant had shouted “swear words, really crude words” and shrieked about “blood” and “revenge”, as he smashed the axe in vain against the bathroom door….

The attacker, who was also carrying a knife, shouted, “I’ll be back”, before going outside to confront police. He smashed a police car window with the axe and was shot in the hand and a knee when he threw the axe at an officer.

So far, they’re 0 for 2: both Salman Rushdie and Kurt Westergaard are still alive.

Yet, one cannot adequately imagine the fear that Mr. Westergaard must have felt, knowing that his granddaughter was alone in the house with that terrorist, or the ongoing, corrosive tension from living under such threats.

And one can be sure that self-censorship occurs, out of fear of arousing these crazies.   Newspapers and academic journals refuse to print the Mohammed cartoons, in articles about those very cartoons.

The axe-wielding Somali is a grim reminder that we start a new year still facing the lamentable choice between running the risk of attacks from Muslim extremists or constricting our freedom of expression.  I really wish that I had more confidence that our government is serious about protecting our freedoms.

Link: Panic room saved artist Kurt Westergaard from Islamist assassin – Times Online.