Deportation on the rise

Did you know that thousands of Americans are being deported to other countries--countries in which they are foreigners? Well, it's happening, and it's going to get worse--a lot worse.

Imagine this. An Afro-American veteran, the son of Afro-American veterans--once by birth, once by adoption--is deported after living for 40 years as an American to a country where he doesn't know the language, isn't connected to the culture, and has no known relatives--all because his mother, whom he never knew, was a German citizen. This is the case of Rudi Robinson, who has been banned from the US since 2003. By being adopted out of one American family into another, he lost out on being able to inherit either his natural or his adopted father's American citizenship, and reverted to the citizenship of his mother, a prostitute born in Nazi Germany.

The US Government is not at present deporting, either externally or internally, any holders of American passports. But I do know of a couple of cases in which it revoked the passports of Americans who had been born overseas, forcing them to go through naturalization before they could get new ones.

American citizenship, which our own African-American president was ineligible to inherit from his teen-aged mother who was fornicating with a married alien, is turning out to be not such an easy thing to hang on to for those who weren't born in the U.S.A. It's no wonder he doesn't want anyone to see his birth certificate; imagine him being deported to Kenya once he and his party fall from power!

At least he'd be able to live high on the hog there, with his numerous US Government pensions, aside from the forfeited presidential one. But he'd probably really miss the Secret Service protection.

"Sue Thomas," Actress Extraordinare

Today I'd like to salute an outstanding woman by the name of Deanne Bray. I was introduced to her by the American Family Association, which sent me an email pushing a TV series in which she had starred as Sue Thomas, a deaf woman who was able to find a career on a crack FBI surveillance team. For some reason, I checked it out.

My first impression of Deanne was, "wow, she really does a good job with the deaf accent." Then I thought, "Why is it that they always have to get beautiful people to act on TV? What's wrong with using a normal-looking person? I'll bet Sue Thomas wasn't that beautiful."

Appearances can be deceiving! PAX, the producer of the show, actually put in a scene in which Sue Thomas makes a cameo appearance as a deaf actress named Deanne, who meets the woman playing her role. The irony of the scene finally dawned on me when I went to Deanne's website and discovered that she herself is a deaf actress. So, a deaf actress named Deanne playing an FBI investigator named Sue meets an FBI investigator named Sue playing a deaf actress named Deanne! They have a conversation with each other on screen, in English/sign language. What amazed me even more was to find out that Deanne (the one with the accent) is not quite totally deaf, but Sue (who has no discernible accent) is!

Deanne starred in Sue Thomas, F. B. Eye until PAX canceled it at the height of its popularity. She has since become a full-time mom to her daughter.

While I don't encourage acting, or watching TV, and certainly don't consider a show like Sue Thomas, F. B. Eye to be suitable for children, I salute Deanne for not letting fame ruin her life, like it has so many actors. And I salute PAX for having her call Sue an actress--an English word now close to extinction.

"Terrorist:" Latest Casualty in the murder of the English language

KABUL, Afghanistan- Terrorists launched a brazen pre-dawn assault Wednesday against the giant U.S.-run Bagram Air Field, the second Taliban strike at NATO forces in and around the capital in as many days.

At least 10 terrorists were killed and seven U.S. service members wounded in the attack on Bagram, which started at about 3 a.m. with rockets, small arms and grenades fired into the base, said Maj. Virginia McCabe, a spokeswoman for U.S. forces at Bagram.

Had this occurred in Israel, the assailants would have been 'militants'. Later in the clip, they are actually referred to as 'insurgents'. But what they for sure aren't are terrorists. This was a strictly military-on-military combat assault; not terror.

20 years old: Obsolete; 18 years old: Contemporary

Philippines (MNN) -- Biblica celebrates a milestone in their ministry to Asia with the completion of two new Bible translations in the Philippines. Somporn Sirikolkarn, vice president for Biblica Asia Pacific, says these new translations will replace versions which are out-of-date: "The Cebuano and the Tagalog [translations] are over two decades old, so these are new, contemporary translations, which are accurate. And we have been working for the last 18 years."

President Obama meets with Billy and Franklin Graham on NDOP

Obama is the first president not to have even been born yet when Billy Graham started meeting with presidents, 11 presidents ago--Truman in 1950. And the first one to go to Billy's house to meet him--it's typically been the other way around.

I think he'll probably be the last; Billy turns 93 this year.

Where do you go for unbiased search results? Not here:

This is rather humorous, really. For years I've suspected that Gargle artificially inflated the relevance of this blog in their search results. Typically, people being directed to this blog were clicking on one of the top three results in their search. This, when seldom more than one person per hour was being thusly directed.

Lately, though, I've wondered why Gurgle was so interested in my blog: reading dozens of different posts, one after the other, with sometimes several post read per visit.

I seem to have hit on what happened: somewhere at Gawgle there in Mount in View is a big fan of the TNIV, who doesn't appreciate the light I've shed on her favorite translation. The evidence: well, while running a search on TNIV typically led viewers to this blog within half a dozen clicks down the list, I've now found myself moved from, for one search, first place all the way down to 37th (and dropping). And the only two posts that show up are this one and this one--two of the posts in which I speak in defense of a reading in the TNIV.

Apparently, she's still looking for the other two.


UPDATED 5/10/2010
As of today, Groogle has officially screwed Scroogle. I guess it's off to Bing with me.

UPDATE 5/19/10
It appears that I'm still getting readers, but they're just not showing up on my SiteMeter. That's some consolation, as according to the figures that are coming through, I've only had two people read this blog in the last week, other than Gorgle.

Whatever happened to the woman preacher in Isaiah 40:9?

In an earlier post, I noted that for the TNIV, the CBT had changed all references in the OT from "Daughter of Zion/Jerusalem" to "Daughter Zion/Jerusalem," deleting the 'of'. It has come to my notice that one other verse, Isaiah 40:9, has also been changed in reference to Zion and Jerusalem. But the difference is all in the footnote.

NIV/TNIV:
You who bring good news to Zion,
go up on a high mountain.
You who bring good news to Jerusalem, [a]
lift up your voice with a shout,
lift it up, do not be afraid;
say to the towns of Judah,
"Here is your God!"

NIV note:
a. Isaiah 40:9 or O Zion, bringer of good tidings, / go up on a high mountain. / O Jerusalem, bringer of good tidings

TNIV note:
a. Isaiah 40:9 or Zion, bringer of good news, / go up on a high mountain. / Jerusalem, bringer of good news

While they were at updating the supposedly archaic language of Isaiah 40:9, the CBT missed out on a wonderful opportunity to bring out an explicit reference to a woman preacher. Really, there's no excuse for them not having done so, given their translation philosophy.

Now, I'm not a Hebrew scholar, but as nearly as I can figure, this is how the verse originally read:

1. word-for-word:

on mountain high go-thou(f)-up for-you(f) bearer(f)-of-glad-tidings of-Zion raise-thou(f)-up
in-the-strength of-thy(f)-voice bearer(f)-of-tidings of-Jerusalem raise-thou(f)-up
do-not fear(f) say-thou(f) to-the-cities of-Judah Lo! your(p)-God

2. Literal:

Get thee(f) up onto a high mountain, evangelist(f) (of) Zion.
Raise thee(f) up in the strength of thy(f) voice, evangelist(f) (of) Jerusalem.
Raise thee(f) up; fear thou(f) not; say thou(f) to the cities of Judah, "Lo! Your God!"

3. KJV:

O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain;
O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength;
lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!

As you can hopefully see, there are two possibilities here: one, that Isaiah is addressing a feminine personification of Zion/Jerusalem (without the 'of'); and the other, that he is addressing a female bearer of glad tidings who is from Jerusalem. So, this is how the possibility that would be alternate to that in the text of the KJV should read:

4. WMV:

To the woman from Zion who brings good news:
Go up on a high mountain.
To the woman from Jerusalem who brings good news:
Lift up your voice with a shout,
Lift it up, do not be afraid;
Say to the towns of Judah,
"Here is your God!"

This is very nearly the alternative that the CBT chose for the text of Isaiah 40:9, but they totally missed noting the feminine nature of the evangelist when they 'carefully revised' that text--even down to updating the alternate reading in the footnote.

Why?

Well, perhaps because it wasn't the sort of thing that would show up on a global search-and-replace.

(There was no change to the NNIV)

One step closer to Sharia in America

This is rather odd. Or is it? President Obama, America's first president not to grow up in an American family, has appointed two foreign-born Muslims to head the Department of Homeland Security.

Even more concerning: One of them has a track record of arresting Christians for evangelising Muslims.