Culling the Opposition

Do you think Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei and President Ahmadinejad and former Foreign Minister and former Prime Minister Mousavi can remember 30 years ago?

That was a generation ago.

That was when the Shah of Iran was toppled and the US Embassy taken over for 444 days by the student radicals and protesters and revolutionaries of that day.

That was their heydey…and I’m sure they remember it well.

I suspect they would like to keep the new generation from doing to their power as they themselves did to the Shah’s power.

But how do you bring out into daylight the new generation of student radicals and protesters and revolutionaries…where you can ID them and/or arrest them and/or demoralize them and/or eliminate them?

And how do you increase the odds that in the process you might snag some agent provocateurs of the foreign sort — especially Israeli and American?

You stage a fraudulent election! 😯

So those three men (Khamenei, Ahmadinejad, and Mousavi) got together with other Iranian power brokers and planned the whole thing.

Is that my belief, my accusation? 🙄

Oh, don’t be silly!

On the other hand, I do not find such a scenario to be impossible or even improbable.

I just don’t know. And neither do you.

But I read it here first. And so did you (I suppose).

Now we’ll see if it develops legs.

Horsetail Falls, Oregon

Via I-84 via old Columbia River Hwy via Crown Point Vista House

We — all 18 of us — were there yesterday for our annual James & Noreen Roth family outing.

Horsetail Falls is upriver two-and-half miles or so from the more-famous Multnomah Falls in the Columbia River Gorge.

We didn’t go directly there, of course. We took Exit 22 off I-84 East to the old Columbia River Highway (Hwy 30) and stopped first at the Crown Point Vista House. What a structure! And what a view!

From there we went to Multnomah Falls to see it (of course) and to hike up to the bridge. Two of us (namely, Russell and Andrew) hastily chugged up to the top of the falls. Before they got back, most of the rest of us backtracked a quarter mile of so to Wahkeena Falls to set up our picnic lunch. Then we drove on — roughly 2.5 miles to Oneonta Gorge where we walked through the old tunnel as well as down by a creek a bit.

Another half mile or so of driving got us to Horsetail Falls.

Read it all

Father’s Day Message

No, this isn’t a message to my father.

This is a message from me as a father:

That’s your mother you’re talking to!

OK, there’s a second message that’s like unto it:

That’s your mother you’re talking about!

Those are my messages to all children out there.

Here are excerpts on the same subject, as recorded in God’s Word in Proverbs:

“Forsake not the law of thy mother” (1:8).

“A foolish man despiseth his mother” (15:20).

“Despise not thy mother when she is old” (23:22).

“There is a generation that…doth not bless their mother” (30:11).

MCC Iran Silence

Should the Mennonite Central Committee be silent on Iran?

As a Christian and a conservative Mennonite (the latter of which MCC isn’t, by the way), I say they shouldn’t make any political statements regarding the unrest in Iran.

Alas, they have not kept silence when it comes to Israel’s “mistreatment” and “oppression” and so forth of Palestinians. Nor have they kept silence when it has come to saying good things about Iran’s leadership.

Therefore, it seems the folks at CAMERA make a good point:

When it comes to rehabilitating his image in the United States, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad can count on the Mennonite Central Committee for assistance.

The organization has sponsored two dinners and an interfaith pilgrimage to Tehran during which Christian leaders have met with the Iranian President and offered kind words about the man afterwards.

Now that events demonstrate that Ahmadinejad is the public face of a brutal regime willing to suppress the people it governs, the organization has fallen silent.

After more than two days of protests and violence in Iran, the MCC has not published any statement about the organization on its website, nor does it have any plans to.

Even though I don’t identify with MCC, I still cringe at that kind of negative publicity seared to the the term Mennonite. 🙁

Oh, the above-quoted story is dated June 15. I just probed the MCC site and found no current Iran-related statement.

Maybe MCC has turned over a new leaf and has decided to stay out of politics. If that is the case, I commend them for that.

Irate Iranians

I just saw this photo on Drudge:

That is such a sad photo, if you stop and think about it well.

What hope is there for them?

Are they even alive yet?

The unrest and violence and efforts-at-revolution in Iran remind me again of my immense blessing at living in the United States. Why me and not they?

And I wonder again, how are God’s people faring in Iran? Right now?

And how many of God’s people in the USA are praying for those in Iran?

And how many other countries are experiencing this kind of chaos…but just aren’t getting the attention?

Now another thought: Will this mess cause Iran’s leaders to launch some sort of strike against Israel in an effort to turn national disunity into national unity?

And another thought: If Iran’s leaders determine they are on the way out, will they try to take out Israel with them?

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem…and of Persia!

Private
Above all, love God!

since November 9, 2005