Taking risks, suffering consequences

Nearly two weeks have passed since CBS "60 Minutes" correspondent Lara Logan was sexually and physically assaulted in Tahrir Square, Cairo, by a group of Egyptian Muslim males who thought she was a Jew. Similarly, nearly two weeks have passed since Angella Johnson was sexually assaulted in Tahrir Square, though not as severely as Logan, thankfully. More than three weeks have passed since CNN’s Anderson Cooper and his crew were assaulted and ABC’s Brian Hartman was carjacked and threatened with beheading. Reports indicate approximately 140 journalists have been injured or killed in Egypt in the past month. And just this past week, four Americans, including a Christian missionary couple sailing around the world distributing Bibles, were captured and killed by Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden.

In each of these cases, the associated risks were well-known and accepted by the would-be victims. The acceptance of the potential consequences, even in naïveté, does not mean the victims deserved to be assaulted or killed. This argument, made by some in recent weeks, is particularly insidious for it implies that risk-takers should be punished for daring to take risks. It carries undertones of cowardice and timidity, of condemnation for those who dare to accomplish great things, of malice toward those who courageously accept the enormous potential sum on the risk calculator.

I condemn that line of thinking because risk-taking is the substance of life. Rewards are often the greatest where the risks are highest. Unfortunately, those risks sometimes materialize and the consequences are very costly, even to the taking of human lives.

Men (and women) who risk little accomplish little. We need more men and women who are willing to risk greatly to accomplish incredible things and less men and women who would sneer at those who stumble in the fight. Men and women that risk great loss to report news from the four corners of the globe, or bring the Gospel to the four corners of the globe, deserve our respect. I do not count them among the timid and weak souls; they are the bold, the living and the free. They deserve sympathy as much as any other man when the risks they accept as part of a job, or simply as a matter of living, materialize and cause them great harm.

The victims in each of these cases are bearing the consequences of their decisions. As much as we may wish to do so, it is now impossible to absolve them of the consequences they accepted and subsequently received. There is little point in reminding them of the fact they accepted the risk. They well know; they're living through it. And far be it from me to condemn them post facto for taking great risks. All we should say is that it is too bad the risks materialized, and then do our very best to sympathize with those who live to tell of their ordeal and grieve with those whose loved ones paid the ultimate price for freedom.

Happy hunting, boys!

Grey seal hunt begins. In your honour:

Recipe: Seal Flipper Pie

4 seal flippers
1 L water
500 ml soda
125 ml fat pork, diced
1 cup milk
2 white onions, chopped
5 ml salt
60 ml flour
250 ml cold water
5 ml Worcestershire sauce

Soak flippers in 1 L of water and soda. Trim off excess fat. dry flippers and dip in seasoned flour. Brown in pork fat. Add onions and make a gravy of flour, water, and sauce. Pour over flippers. Cover and bake at 160C for 2-3 hours. Make a pastry and cover the flippers. Bake at 220C for 30 minutes. Serves 6-8.

Go ahead Austrian man

... marry a 6-year-old girl and have sex with her when she is 9. It's not paedophilia as long as you're still married to her when she's 18. After all, what's good for the Muslim is good for the kaffir too, yes?

“Paedophilia” is factually incorrect, since paedophilia is a sexual preference which solely or mainly is directed towards children. Nevertheless, it does not apply to mohammad. He was still married to Aisha when she was 18. It is a “denigration of religious teachings” and are found guilty and sentenced to 120 days, which approaches the minimum of € 480.

Jesus is the Light of the World

You don't need to erect a 25-foot cross to prove it. Just get out there and live like He asked you to. Serving the community will work a far greater eternal reward for you than peeving them off.

Daily Dose of Islamicism

Via.

[14-year-old] Hena was raped by her 40-year-old relative Mahbub on Sunday. Next day, a fatwa was announced at a [Bangladesh] village arbitration that she must be given 100 lashes. She fell unconscious after nearly 80 lashes.

Fatally injured Hena was rushed to Naria health complex where she succumbed to her injuries.

But remember: Canadian culture and its Judeo-Christian moral foundation are not superior to any others.

No place for religion in Quebec schools

Excepting the Cult of Gaia, of course.

Is the cult of environmentalism now so zealous and pernicious that it has come to this – a six-year-old Quebec kindergartener is punished for bringing a sandwich to school in a plastic bag? What’s next, suspending him for using a nightlight that has an incandescent bulb rather than a compact fluorescent one? [...]

Recently, Felix began crying when his mom went to pack his lunch in a resealable plastic bag. When asked what the trouble was, Felix told his parents that his kindergarten class had had a draw for a stuffed toy, but that he had been excluded from the contest because his teacher had found a plastic sandwich bag in his lunch kit. So he pleaded with his mom not to make him an enviro-criminal again.

For the record....

Educational curriculum always promulgates a set of beliefs and ideals, subtly, in most cases, and incessantly, year over year over year. There is always an indisputable dogma being promoted and reinforced. Educators themselves are hardly objective. Except for the scattered "rogue" teacher, they promote and enforce the cultural, religious and sociological ideals of the system in lockstep. Breaking the mold makes you a troublemaker and is a surefire way to crimp your status with the school administration and hinder your advancement through the union ranks. If you're not a believer, if you're not "with the program," then you're in for a rough ride.

And so it is that in Quebec public schools, while organized religious activities of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Mormonism, etc., are considered verboten outside of some sort of innocuous World Religion and Ethics course, a totalitarian environmentalist program can be implemented at a school-wide level with compliance rewarded and non-compliance punished down to the youngest child.

Similarly, the Ontario Human Rights Commission is poised to "take over" all education curriculum, including that of private and home schools, according to the Family Coalition Party of Ontario.

The question is not whether or not any credo will be taught to the next generation as much as it is which one(s) will be taught.