Spock’s brain splits into 2 states

I’m a closet Trekkie without the elf ears or phaser.  I don’t attend those goofy conventions but I love Star Trek and have since I was a kid.  A few times a year when I can’t sleep, I have a ST marathon (I have all the DVDs. And for the original series I go to FirstOnMars.com or hulu.com and watch on my computer.)

I like the original series and the Next Generation – don’t watch the newer incarnations like DeepSpace 9. As far as I’m concerned, no one can be better Enterprise captains than William Shatner or Patrick Stewart.

Live long and prosper with a 2 state solution - Mr.Spock

Why am I telling you all this Star Trek stuff? Answer: Because Mr. Spock has come out for a 2 state solution in Israel. Leonard Nimoy is an 80 year old 2 stater Jew. I know he’s a Jew thanks to Adam Sandler:

Nimoy is advocating splitting Jerusalem. Making it the capitol of both Israel and the Palestinians, in addition to land swaps.  What land is going to be swapped? If the Palestinians have control of the holy sites that are now in the hands of the Jews, will they remain open to all? I doubt it and so does Andrew Klavan:

In his letter, Nimoy sites the episode of ST called Let this be your last battlefield (Season 3, episode 15.)  Two aliens are transported on board the Enterprise who have been in mortal combat for thousands of centuries. If you get a chance to watch the episode, it’s an obvious portrayal of the race issues in America in the ’60’s.

Star Trek - Let this be your last battlefield

Both men are half black and half white and the only difference is that white is on the left of one and on the right of the other.  The dialog is Oppressor vs Oppressed, bad guy/good guy and guess who’s the oppressive bad guy? The one (Frank Gorshin) who represents the white American male. He’s white on his right.  Get it?  (As a side note, this is the television Primetime Propaganda that Ben Shapiro writes about in his new book.)

So Nimoy thinks that a lesson can be learned from this episode of centuries old conflict and puts it in the context of the 2 state solution in Israel.  I’m not really seeing a connection here. Israel has taken a dry desert and turned it green. It’s created a nation that is the most productive and democratic in the entire region – a nation that is open to anyone and just to all, including women and gays, unlike it’s Muslim neighbors. It has never enslaved Palestinians (as the ST episode posits about Black Americans.) It has never religiously oppressed them, as their Muslim neighbors do to Christians and Jews.

The ST episode and the letter Nimoy has written suggests and encourages a form a reparation for the oppressed (Black Americans in the 60’s and now Palestinians.)  This is not only unrealistic (I mean, after all it was just tv!) but dangerous to the Jewish state.  How will Israel be more prosperous, more safe with the Palestinians owning half of Jerusalem and swaths of the country? These are people who have sworn their intent is to destroy Israel.

And why do the Israelis owe reparations to the Palestinians? They never enslaved or stole this land from anyone. It was a UN charter that granted this land to them. Why have the other Muslim nations not absorbed the Palestinians into their nations but instead expect the Israelis to do so?

A 2 state solution will not work. It will empower the Palestinians to attack the Jews and to take more and more if they can get away with it. It’s their stated goal to eradicate the Jewish state and giving them more of a toehold by donating half of the holiest of cities, Jerusalem to them, will only encourage them on their dastardly course.

My message to Mr.Spock is logical: In television, conflicts that have simmered for centuries are routinely solved in less than 50 minutes. Not so in real life.

~~ooOoo~~

By the way, if you’re not a trekkie you probably don’t get the reference in the title of this blog, to another ST episode: Spock’s Brain.  In that episode, Spocks brain is surgically removed by another alien invader, much prettier than Frank Gorshin, and he’s kept alive by the gifts of Dr. “Bones” McCoy.  (insert smiley face emoticon here, please.)

Come on, ask me anything Star Trek — I got an answer for it!

The Passive Persecution of American Christians

According to R. Emmett Tyrell, Jr. at The American Spectator, the Andy Warhol Foundation is threatening to pull it’s funding from the Smithsonian. Their complaint is that the Smithsonian caved to Republicans and the Catholic League over “hosting a video showing ants crawling over the crucifix entitiled “Fire in My Belly.”

As Tyrell says, the double standard that the liberals operate on is fundamental to their mindset. It’s okay, justified and in fact, righteous to disturb the peace of those who disagree with them but when the public at large doesn’t want their ‘art’, it becomes an issue of social injustice, bigotry, civil rights violations and hate crime.

“If the ants were swarming all over the Koran it would clearly be a hate crime and out it would go without the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts having a leg to stand on.”

Not only would the Foundation not have a leg to stand on but they would be in the front lines demanding religious tolerance and decrying the bigotry of holding such an exhibit — but only for Muslims.

The Foundation’s argument is one of censorship. “For the Arts to flourish,” writes Joel Wachs, president of the Warhol foundation, “the arts must be free, and the decision to censor this important work is in stark opposition to our mission to defend freedom of expression wherever and whenever it is under attack.”

No one has censored this particular video or the entire exhibit for that matter. This video is available at another New York City museum for those who are so inclined to view and support it. No one is stifling the ‘art’ of anyone. Taxpayers just don’t want to pay for it. All art should be paid for by those interested in supporting it;  that’s where private foundations and patrons come in. Raise your own money for this “very important” exhibit.

Don’t be mistaken, this is not about freedom of expression or censorship. The liberals would love to paint that picture but it’s simply not true.  This is about religious persecution of those who are not Muslim or those whose religion is not fashionable to the artsy, elite left.  This particular assault on Christianity by the left is passive and insidious compared to the persecution they are suffering worldwide. Pope Benedict highlights this in his World Peace Day missive:

“Sadly, the year now ending has again been marked by persecution, discrimination, terrible acts of violence and religious intolerance,” Benedict lamented […]

Benedict singled out the “reprehensible attack” on a Baghdad cathedral during Mass in October, killing two priests and more than 50 other worshippers, as well as attacks on private homes that “spread fear within the Christian community and (create) a desire on the part of many to emigrate in search of a better life.”

[…]

“At present, Christians are the religious group which suffers most from persecution on account of its faith,” the pontiff asserted, and cited Christian communities suffering from violence and intolerance particularly in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the Holy Land.

“This situation is intolerable, since it represents an insult to God and to human dignity” as well as “a threat to security and peace,” Benedict wrote [. . .]

It’s time that Christians fought back. If that means fighting in court, then so be it. The First Amendment guarantees us that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” No one or entity, including the government or a private foundation, have the  right to stifle the free exercise of religious worship and religious assembly. But the left has hijacked the government and the courts and is passively (without violence) persecuting and stifling the practice of religion by Christians in America.

We see this passive religious persecution in America every day, from Chase Bank refusing to allow their banks to decorate for the holidays to schools that no longer allow Christmas trees.

If the left objects to paying, with tax dollars, for a Nativity scene on the courthouse lawn, then there is no problem with the religious objecting to pay for an exhibit of ‘art’ that depicts Christ or Christianity in an abusive, illegitimate and dishonest way.

As Governor Christie said (on another topic): the double standard ends now.  Christians have to stand up and object as loudly, and if necessary as obnoxiously as the left has.