Reuters Fake Photographs and Media Misleads the Public.So am I a prophet as a couple of religious fundamentalists requested to know? If I am, then I don't understand why many more are not? My "prophetic vision" does not come from thunder and blinding lights, accompanied by supernatural voices, it comes from a mind that has learned the hard way not to trust people who claim to have the truth, and one that prefers to look at everything honestly while totally aware of the human preponderance toward prejudice.
On the issue of Prophecy, in an 2011 updated article about the new accord between Hamas and Fatah designed to obtain Statehood recognition in September, I made a Prophetic Statement. I predict that within 3 years, there will be an all out war between the Arab Nations and Israel. Given recent world events, it is hardly a 'prophetic' statement.
What is a prophet?
If you do a web search on this question, you tend to find that a prophet is described as someone acting as a mouthpiece of God; a person who foretells the future; a person who stands between God and Man.
Many years ago I was taught that a prophet is really just a person with enough commonsense and willingness, to speak out and warn people of the consequences of their behaviour. You might call this action foretelling, and there are plenty of writers at Magic City Morning Star News who fit that category.
One Jewish View of a prophet is that he/she is a person who has reached "a sufficient level of spiritual and ethical achievement" that the Divine Spirit rests on them, and they are therefore able to know the divine will and therefore to 'speak forth' the Divine warnings and advice.
Of course, most people imagine a prophet to be someone who foretells the future. If you look at the old testament, you will find that the major work of a prophet was to criticise both the national civil and religious leadership and the social behaviour of the general populace. They were social critics who could both 'see' (what was happening) and 'foresee' the consequences of such behaviour.
Well, I make no claims to be a prophet, except perhaps by way of Balaam's ass, but I would draw your attention to recent world events and to a social critique of the media and politicians, that I published 2 weeks before these events sparked off a war. Right now you want to quit this article! - See I know human behaviour!
The first thing I want to draw your attention to is the Reutersgate scandal; the recent revelations that Reuters were using doctored photos to provide distorted images in the Lebanon/Israel war. [If you are a blissful person still unaware of this scandal go to : Don't Trust If They Won't Verify By Glenn Harlan Reynolds.]
Some people seem to be very shocked by what Reuters "allege" was inadvertent or unnoticed, blaming the whole thing on an individual correspondent. Tim Rutten writing in the Los Angeles Times draws attention to the "U.S. news media's grudging response to the revelation... and its utter lack of interest".
But what this scandal really reveals is that for far too long we have simply believed everything we've been told, especially if it suits our own personal agenda, and I made this point two weeks before the recent Israel/Lebanon war broke out.
Truth should be acknowledged, even if it does not suit our agenda. No where is this lack of honesty in supporting political agendas more obvious, than in the Middle East, in relation to Israel, Iraq and terrorism.
I made those remarks in an article I published on July 1st 2006. I published the introduction and ending (2000 words) at Magic City, and the full article on my own website under the title "What is Truth? A Political Camera Angle!"
That article was quite long, quoting and citing dozens of news articles on the issue of truth and prejudice. In the members' newsletters dated June 19th 2006 not only did I mention that I was writing it, but stipulated the name under which it would be published. Now two months later we are reading that the media has been deceiving us with photographs and news reports that are not just false, but fabricated with the intent to deceive us.
So am I a prophet as a couple of religious fundamentalists requested to know? If I am, then I don't understand why many more are not? My "prophetic vision" does not come from thunder and blinding lights, accompanied by supernatural voices, it comes from a mind that has learned the hard way not to trust people who claim to have the truth, and one that prefers to look at everything honestly while totally aware of the human preponderance toward prejudice.
Was this particular instance just a one off? On December 12th 2005 in an article entitled: Sydney's Racial Violence which was a commentary on the violence that had just erupted in Australia, I wrote:
It's like being in a pressure cooker, and one day, there will be a violent explosion, as average Australians refuse to be told what to think and believe and feel about just about everything.
One of the results of these constant accusations that 'we Australians' are racists, is that 'we Australians' feel that 'we' in fact, are the victims of 'reverse racism'.
The 'Newcomers Network' article (published 3 weeks before the violence), came about because that organisation, having read some of my articles, asked me to write 'specifically' for them.
So that makes two prophetic utterances out of two! Certainly not enough to qualify as a prophet. (I didn't even forsee my recent 6 weeks of encephalitis). But it does not take someone connected with the Divine, to divine the results of certain types of behaviour. It is just commonsense.
Unfortunately today we live not in a commonsense world, but a fast food world that dishes up predigested food that is spooned into our mouths and eagerly consumed without care or consideration. Mother just spoons it in and we swallow it straight away. Unfortunately, as I wrote in the 'What is Truth?' article, "We live in a world with competing ideologies that routinely seek to win us over, and which never let the truth stand in the way of a good philosophy". Whatever philosophy we follow, we just swallow what they feed us.
The tragedy of Reutersgate, is not that an organisation accidentally or deliberately deceived us, but that we willingly make ourselves vulnerable to deception. We live in a world that wants the "bottom line"; that wants everything in "black and white"; and more importantly, we live in a world in which, despite all our protestations to the contrary, we just want someone to tell us what to do and think.
It's really time for us to start thinking for ourselves, and, putting philosophical, religious, and political agendas aside, seek the truth. But then again, "What is Truth?"
As I was posting this article, I received the following email. I couldn't access the hyperlinked text, so I don't know where it comes from.
CBS: Sixty Minarets?
CBS newsman Mike Wallace last night interviewed Iran's ruler, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on Sixty Minutes. The famed tiger of "gotcha" journalism turned tabby cat with the world's leading sponsor of terrorism. Wallace fairly swooned in Ahmadinejad's presence: "He's an impressive fellow, this guy. He really is. He's obviously smart....You'll find him an interesting man." Wallace later said. "I expected more of a firebrand...He comes across as more rational than I had expected." Wallace didn't ask questions about Iran using Hezbollah to murder 241 U.S. Marines and Navy Corpsmen in Beirut in 1983. Nor about Hezbollah's murder of U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem in Beirut in 1985. No questions either about Hezbollah's hanging of Marine Col. Rich Higgins in Beirut in 1988--and broadcasting grainy, grisly pictures of Higgins' body swinging from a rope. Mike Wallace and CBS have joined forces with the pacifists. A better journalist wrote this in The Washington Post: "If Americans do not fight, the terrorists will attack America again. And we now know such attacks can kill many thousands of Americans. The American pacifists, therefore, are on the side of future mass murderers of Americans. They are objectively pro terrorist. There is no way out of this reasoning. No honest person can pretend that the groups that attacked America will, if let alone, not attack again. Nor can any honest person say that this attack is not at least as likely to kill thousands upon thousands of innocent people. Not to fight in this instance is to let the attackers live to attack and murder again; to be a pacifist in this instance is to accept and, in practice, support this outcome." Those are the words of Michael Kelly, prize-winning author, editor, and columnist. He died on the road to Baghdad in 2003. Let's honor his memory, by heeding his warning.
"The Patriarchs' Route" in Gush Etzion also passes through an area known as Netzer, located between the Elazar and Alon Shvut communities. The Netzer area is built on terraces that assemble a spectacularly beautiful, green mosaic; green grapes twining alongside old olive trees in plots of varying shapes and sizes, and in the pre-Spring season the Netzer space looks like a Claude Monet masterpiece: the green background is spotted with the pink and white of the almond trees at the peak of their bloom. But this pastoral bubble bursts the moment we 'zoom-in' on the photo, then we discover a real battle for this land and the future of the country, with the innocent plants often standing like soldiers on the frontline.
A key portion of the meeting was White House Domestic Policy Council (DPC) Director Cecilia Munoz outlining President Obama's overall immigration reform proposal that includes creating a pathway to citizenship for up to 11-million illegal aliens. In my discussion with the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Safety and Border Security, I mentioned that a potential "State of State Emergency" might be unfolding, and deliberate steps might have to be taken by the State of Arizona to protect its' own sovereignty and welfare."
When we arrived, we noted that this place really was a resort centre. It had wave pools and other interesting things for people to enjoy, and even accommodated school tour groups with dormitory style accomodation. Opposite the breakfast room was a swimming complex, in the front of which was a very interesting sign. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to bring my .38 Smith and Wesson. When we went in for breakfast, we saw that the next room was set up for a wedding, and discovered that it was 'our' wedding reception. Taking a 'sticky beak', I noted that there were no knives on any of the tables. 'Ahah! Thank God I brought that solid clear plastic knife with me!'.. The whole time before and after the actual church service, the local beggars were inside the church hitting everyone for money. Oh the guilt of refusing a pittance for the poor in the house of God, but I was advised to give no one anything, for that would be more effective than the 'last trump' for the dead. All the beggars would arrive. Not that this mattered at all. Who was carrying money?
A Male Steward came off the plane and walked over to me and said: "It's alright! We aren't going to leave without you! Calm down! Catch your breath!" The 'So and So' was right. It was still another 30 minutes before we took off! I on the other hand was watching the driver through his rear view mirror. He seemed to be blinking an awful lot and his driving was a little erratic. Not that that is unusual in China, but when you are on the highway and you have 3 or 4 lanes to choose from and very little traffic, you would think that you could drive in at least one or two of those lanes for more than 500 meters at a time.
Anyway, I was not the kind of child that hung around and did nothing. I had to have my own adventures and make discoveries of this new place we were to call our home away from home. There was a huge Combined British Military Hospital and a Family Hospital attached to it. At first I avoided the Military Hospital, because the nurses and the orderlies who saw me loitering around might question me and then report this to my father who was the officer in charge.
Definition: King's Calendar Chronological Research
The Premise: Between the 5th and 3rd centuries BCE (but continuing down to at least 104 BCE), Sectarian redactors transcribed the legitimate 'solar year' chronological records of Israel and Judah, into an artificial form, with listed years as each comprised of 12 months of 4 weeks of 7 days, or 336 days per year, thus creating a 13th artificial year where 12 solar years existed.
When the Synchronous Chronological Data provided in the Books of Kings and Chronicles for the Divided Kingdom Period are measured in years of 336 days, the synchronisms actually align. [Refer to Appendix 5. to see how it synchronises the Divided Kingdom Period]
About the KingsCalendar Publisher
R.P.BenDedek is the owner and Editor of KingsCalendar.com which was originally set up to publicize his research results into the Chronology of Ancient Israel. Those results were published under the title: 'The King's Calendar: The Secret of Qumran'.
Whilst there have been many attempts to solve the chronological riddle of the Bible's synchronisms of reigns of the kings of Israel and Judah and their synchronism with other Ancient Near Eastern Nations, no other research is based on a simple mathematical formula which could, if it is incorrect, be disproved easily. To date, no one has been able to dismiss the mathematical results of this research.
Free to air Academic articles set forth Apologetics for and results of his discovery of an "artificial chronological scheme" running through the Bible, Josephus, the Damascus Documents of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Seder Olam Rabbah.
During the current economic downturn, this book has been drastically reduced in price but will eventually rise as the economy improves.
Check the Chapter Precis Page to see details of each chapter and to gain access to the Four Free to Air Chapters
R.P. BenDedek writes social commentaries and photographic 'Stories from China' both at KingsCalendar, and as a contributing columnist at Magic City Morning Star News in Maine USA.
(He has been teaching Conversational English in China since 2003 and currently (2013) is teaching in Suzhou City Jiangsu Province.)
