Film and TV icon Lee Meriwether is scheduled to join us on the next edition of TV CONFIDENTIAL, premiering Monday, Nov. 30 at 10pm ET, 7pm PT on Shokus Internet Radio, with a rebroadcast Tuesday, Dec. 1 at 11pm ET, 8pm PT on Share-a-Vision Radio, KSAV.org.

Known to many of us for playing Betty Jones on the long-running private detective series Barnaby Jones (CBS, 1973-1980), as well as The Catwoman in the original Batman motion picture from 1966, Lee Meriwether has been a film and TV icon for more than four decades. We’ll talk about these famous characters, plus her roles on such classic series as Star Trek, The Time Tunnel, The Fugitive, Mission: Impossible, Dan August and Perry Mason, her work with such legends as John Wayne, Rock Hudson, Andy Griffith, Jonathan Winters, Irwin Allen and James Garner, and a whole lot more.

If you want to be part of our conversation, if you have a question for Ms. Meriwether about her career or any of the films and TV series in which she’s appeared, we invite you to join us for our live broadcast Monday, Nov. 30 beginning at 10pm ET, 7pm PT on Shokus Internet Radio. Phone number is (888) SHOKUS-5 / (888) 746-5875. Email address is talk@tvconfidential.net.

TV CONFIDENTIAL with Ed Robertson and Frankie Montiforte
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Right now I’m in the Library, typing away, trying to ignore that clacking noise, but instead making a kind of music out of it.  In any case, my mind wandered as I was researching my law paper.  I picked up a book entitled ‘Lawyers & Vampires’.  How intriguing!  So, leafing through it, I stumbled upon a passage taken from Dracula.  They claimed he would make a good lawyer!  (Sometimes lawyers can have such a sense of whimsy!)

In this, they quoted Dracula, something about his dead hands, and the author asserted that this was an nod to the branch of property law known as mortmain, French for ‘dead hand’.  Mortmain had been established during the Middle Ages when the church held much land, and, stood as its own legal person apart from the Crown, or the clergy members.  This means that, when the abbot or bishop died, the land would not be returned to the Crown, it would be held in perpetuity by the Church.

So, though the clergy dies, and there no one to assume the property, the dead hand waits for the deed to be ripped from its clutches by the Church.  I thought it was so perfect that Dracula sought Johnathan Harker to provide legal support for a real estate transaction.

The dead hand gets the land.

From this time forward

I pledge my loyalty to Australia and its people

whose democratic beliefs I share,

whose rights and liberties I respect, and

whose laws I will uphold and obey.

If you’ve been an Australian citizen since birth, and you’ve ever wondered what the Australian Citizenship Pledge is, that’s it. Prospective Australian citizens have the option of pledging “under God”, but thankfully, this is not compulsory – that is, unless the people running the ceremony make a mistake and seat you in the “under God” section. This is precisely what happened to my friend when he decided, after 18 years as a permanent resident, that he would like to officially become an Australian.

Born in England to a couple of non-Australians, my friend (who I’ll call Dr. Bandit) moved to Australia at the age of four and grew up in the picturesque hills east of Melbourne in the ’90s and early 2000s. As an undergrad, Dr. Bandit realised that his access to HECS was limited by the fact that he wasn’t officially an Australian citizen. So, in order to continue his course, he decided to do the test, take the oath and accept the gift of a showbag, seedling and paper flag from the Australian people.

Now, I’d like to argue that Dr. Bandit’s experience of becoming an Australian is perfectly congruous with what it means, to many, to be Australian. I’m eager to avoid any jingoistic celebrations of ‘Aussie battlerism’, and I don’t want to imply that there’s an overarching meaning associated with being Australian. But there’s something in Dr. Bandit’s story that resonates with me – his experiences seem somewhat transgressive and punkish, kind of like he gave the finger to citizenship while reaping the benefits associated with it. Let me explain.

When it came to the citizenship test, Dr. Bandit’s attitude was blasé. I mean, he’d been through the Victorian public education system, he’d done his primary school projects on ANZAC day and the First Fleet – what questions could they possibly ask him that he wouldn’t know the answer to? The citizenship people gave him a book with all the information he’d need to pass, but he skimmed it, went ‘pffft’ and chucked it aside on the assumption that, well, he’dberight. When he turned up to take the test, however, Dr. Bandit’s examiner advised him to re-read the book, just in case. He skimmed it, went ‘pffft,’ chucked it aside and proceeded to take the test. First, he got a tick for being able to speak English (based purely on the initial pleasantries between him and the examiner,) and answered some questions correctly (tick, tick, tick.) When it came to knowing what documents Australian citizens are entitled to, Dr. Bandit got a little stuck, but the kind examiner prompted him with “for instance, if you wanted to go overseas, you’d need to take your…” Fortunately, Dr. Bandit’s response of “oh. uuuuummm…a passport?” elicited a tick, and he passed the citizenship test, thankfully without having to answer any questions about Sir D-Brad.

The citizenship ceremony took place on the last day of Dr. Bandit’s exams for the semester. Exhausted, he got home from uni after his final exam and decided to celebrate. A couple of hours later, he arrived at the local town hall to take his citizenship oath, fairly stoned and in quite a happy place. He thought it was a little weird that they gave him a card with the “under God” version of the Australian Citizenship Pledge written on it, especially seeing as he’d opted for the non-religious one, but he nevertheless sat down where they told him (in the front row, directly in front of the lectern where the JP stood) and waited to say his pledge, on the assumption that he could just ignore “under God” and stick to saying the secular pledge.

Unfortunately, at Australian citizenship ceremonies, prospective citizens are segregated into those who want to pledge “under God” on one side of the room, and those who don’t on the other. Poor, stoned Dr. Bandit was on the side of the room that was “under God,” and failed to stand when the JP instructed those “under God” to do so. Three times. Eventually he cottoned on, said his pledge under God (much to his confusion) and waited to sing Advance Australia Fair, Verses 1 and 2. Which he’d forgotten the words to, not having sung the national anthem since he was in primary school. After all of the official standing, pledging and singing, it was time for the proud new Australian citizens to recieve their Australian plants and showbags, have photos taken with their families and get their papers signed by an Australian citizen friend. But poor, stoned Dr. Bandit went to the ceremony stag, so he spent the rest of the evening trying to find a “friend” to sign his certificate, eating some fingerfood and stealing a glass. Then he went home.

It’s too bad that while pledging his loyalty to Australia’s democratic beliefs, Dr. Bandit’s own beliefs (that is, his non-belief in God) were so carelessly ignored, albeit due to an administrative error. If becoming an Australian citizen is to be ceremonialised with such solemnity, these kinds of mistakes make a mockery of anyone who sincerely pledges to respect the rights and liberties that are ostensibly granted to all Australian citizens. So, snaps to Dr. Bandit for managing to flout the (drug and property) laws that he pledged to uphold and obey – right before and  directly after he pledged them – under a God that he doesn’t believe in.

It has, as the title suggests, been a very busy week indeed.  I’ve attended two half day courses.  The first was entitled “How not to be sued by mortgage lenders” and it seems that the only sure fire way is actually not to bother doing conveyancing!  It was a long journey through rush hour Nottingham to be given all of the doom and gloom.  It seems that some lenders are calling in solicitors’ files on a fishing exercise, so that they can check them and see if there’s any hint of anything worth suing over.  Touch wood, nobody has asked for any of my files yet – either my excellent reputation precedes me (!) or my clients have just been good at avoiding this new fashion for repossession!

The second course was about acting for Developers, something that I’ve done a fair bit of for a number of developers.  However, its always useful to make sure that nothing has changed so that you can offer the best service to your clients.

Work is generally busy at the moment with people instructing me this week with a view to completing before Stamp Duty Land Tax goes back to being payable on properties over £125,000 on 1st January (it’s been at £175,000 for the last year).  I have a sneaking suspicion that the government will announce that the higher tax threshold will remain for a little longer when they make their financial statement next week.  That would be a relief because, with most firms of solicitors closing between Christmas and New Year, we now have effectively 4 weeks in which to run a surprisingly high number of transactions from start to finish.  As Tallents’ criminal department has to be on call over the Christmas period, it would be unfair to make them work alone.  Because off that, all of our offices will be open on 30 and 31 December this year.  With most other firms being closed, it does provide an opportunity to catch up without the phone ringing every 5 minutes

* Ireland wants a rematch against France, but FIFA says it won’t happen. More here.

* Kurt Vonnegut’s letter home as a POW, 1944.

* The headline reads, “IBM makes supercomputer significantly smarter than cat.”

* Eric Barker calls this New York Times article on DNA testing and parental rights “thought-provoking”, and I suppose it is—but mostly I was completely aghast at the idea that a father would desert his child after a decade just because the child turned out to be “not really his,” “someone else’s kid.” Speaking off the cuff, it seems to me the best solution here would probably just be to change the law to allow children to have more than two legal parents—but regardless of the legal question there’s a clear ethical imperative to remain a parent the child you have raised and claim to love, whatever the mother might have done or said in the past. In some sense this actually seems to me to be beyond ethics, or rather before; it seems to me you’d want to stay the child’s father, that you’d be desperate to, in whatever way you could.

* Autocomplete Me is a blog devoted to revealing the weirdest gems in Google’s autocomplete feature. (Hat tip: Neil.)

* The Board of Regents for the University of California system has voted to raise tuition 32% over 2008. How the University Works declares California is burning.

* Troubled times in Casino City. Via Atrios.

* Stopping ACTA. Via Boing Boing.

* Dump Geithner: A growing consensus?

* Good and bad polling news: Even Fox News viewers overwhelmingly think the bow was appropriate (good news), but 52% of Republicans think ACORN stole 9.5 million votes in the 2008 election to put Obama in the White House (bad news). Naturally, ACORN stole NY-23 as well.

* Meanwhile, 52% of Americans are shockingly misinformed about whether an army of gorillas could beat an army of bears.

* And the news story that launched a thousand 2010 puns: there could be fishlike life on Europa. All these puns are yours, except Europa. Attempt no punning there.

Benjamin Franklin once wrote, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” So far in the book of Romans, Paul has shared with us the glorious news of how Christ has died our death, that we might live His life. But believe it or not, the apostle also deals, with taxes. Romans 13:1-7 deals with the Christian and politics. Now there’s a hot subject! What should be the Christian’s attitude to the government?

The Christian and Politics

“Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God” (Rom. 13:1). It seems clear from this text that Christians are duty-bound to obey the government because it was God who established it in the first place. Paul seems to suggest that even a bad government is better than having none at all. This idea is graphically portrayed to us in one of the worst books of the Bible – Judges. This book is full of slaughter and bloodshed, promiscuity and perversion. But there is a punch-line in that is repeated at least three times throughout the book that I believes helps explain this behaviour, “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 17:6; 18:1; 19:1; 21:25). We can all agree that governments are not perfect, but it is better to have them than anarchy. God established them for our own good. Without civil government life exists only by the law of the jungle.

But how far should we go in obeying the government? “Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment upon themselves” (Rom. 13:2). What? Does that mean we have to submit and follow everything the state might force us to do? It is important for us to remember that here Paul is stating a general principle that operates under normal conditions. He is not setting forth an absolute. John Stott in his commentary on Romans noted:

We need to be cautious… in our interpretation of Paul’s statements. He cannot be taken to mean that all the Caligulas, Herods, Neros, and Domitians of New Testament times, and all the Hitlers, Stalins, Amins and Saddams of our times were personally appointed by God, that God was responsible for their behaviour, or that their author is in no circumstances to be resisted (p. 340).

When Romans 13 is compared with Revelation 13, for instance, we find the state to be a “minister” of the devil instead of a “minister” of God (cf. Rom. 13:4; Rev. 13:2-7). Must we obey the political powers portrayed in Revelation then? Of course not. The midwives in Egypt disobeyed Pharaoh when he commanded the baby boys to be drowned in the Nile River; Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego disobeyed Nebuchadnezzar when they were commanded to worship the golden image; Daniel disobeyed the decree of Darius to pray to no one else by the king. The determining principle is found in Acts 5:29: “We must obey God rather than men!” The main point of the apostle’s discussion here is that practical obedience must be given to the government in all areas where it has the right to govern, such as rendering “taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honour to whom honour” (Rom. 13:7, cf. Matt. 22:21).

The Christian and the Law

Romans 13:8-10 is a very important passage: “Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law.” He then goes on to list part of the 10 Commandments and then says, “and if there is any other commandment, they are all summed up in this saying, namely, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ Love does no harm to a neighbour; therefore love is the fulfilment of the law.” Jesus also lays this out for us in Matthew 22:37-40. “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” Here is the real law of God, the Law behind the laws – LOVE (see study on The Law for a more detailed discussion).

Now some people think that since love is the fulfilling of the Law, they can forget the 10 Commandments. Don’t be silly! Jesus said that all the “Law and the Prophets” spring from the great principle of love. If I love God, I will naturally keep the first four commandments because I won’t want to worship anyone else; I won’t want to worship idols; I won’t take His name in vain; I won’t want to neglect His Sabbath. Likewise, if I love my neighbour, I will naturally be keeping the last six commandments because I won’t want steal people’s stuff; I won’t covet what others have; I won’t be unfaithful or untruthful and so on. You see, love to God and to our neighbours is the centrepiece of Christianity. It points us to the Law behind the laws and reveals to us the motivation for keeping the commandments – because we love God and love our fellow man. And as we mentioned in the last study, this is the driving force of the transformed life of the Christian – selfless love.

The Christian Essentials and Nonessentials

Have you ever met one of those people who seem to make a big deal over nothing? We all know how irritating they can be at times. But we are still to love them and accept their concerns. In Romans 14, Paul deals with a typical situation where some believers were turning hills and into mountains and atoms into worlds. The apostle draws on a contemporary issue of his day to illustrate this timeless issue of tolerance.

“For one believes he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats only vegetables” (Rom. 14:2). Now, regardless of what some sincere Christians believe, this is not saying that vegetarians are “weak.” This passage is not dealing with health. In the early church, an issue rose over eating meat that had been offered to idols (see 1 Cor. 8). Of course the idols could not eat the meat that was offered to them, so following their worship service the meat was sold in the marketplace. Christians would then buy the meat and eat it. But some considered the meat to be unclean, and thus not being sure which meat had been offered to idols and which hadn’t, they didn’t buy any meat at all. These are referred to as “weak” because they were more cautious and sensitive to these things than other believers were.

Paul moves on to another contemporary issue. “One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind” (Rom. 14:5). And no, this is not talking about which day is the Sabbath! If you don’t believe me, read the whole chapter and you’ll find there is nothing about the law or which day Christians should worship on. It is dealing largely with the topic of food and drink, in the larger context of Christian tolerance towards fellow believers. The days Paul is speaking of in this verse are the days on which some Christians chose to fast. “He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it. He who eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives God thanks; and he who does not eat, to the Lord he does not eat, and gives God thanks” (14:6). Again, there were some believers who kept those days, and others who didn’t. This is why Paul says in verse 13, “Let us not judge one another anymore, but rather resolve this, not to put a stumbling block or a cause to fall in our brother’s way.” Some people have a case to grind that they might think is important, but it may not be the same conviction that another has. But let everyone be convinced in his own mind in regards to these nonessential things is the wise advice of the apostle. Augustine summed it up nicely when he said, “In essentials, unity; in nonessentials, liberty; in all things, charity.”

So we’ve seen some examples of peripheral issues. But what are the essentials? Romans 14:17, “The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” In other words, the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.

A witness “without sin” is a credible witness in God’s law.

When Jesus asks for a witness “without sin” to go ahead and stone the woman caught in adultery, he is applying the law of Moses, specifically Exodus 23:1, “Thou shalt not raise a false report: put not thine hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness,” and Deuteronomy 17:7 “The hands of the witnesses shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people. So thou shalt put the evil away from among you.” The accusers recognized they were wicked, unrighteous witnesses. In fact, if one flips through the translations, “without sin,” anamartetos in the Greek, is also used to translate the Hebrew chamas (evil, violent, wicked, cruel, and unjust) in the Septuagint. Thus, “without sin” is kind of too vague of a translation for what Jesus is really saying to the accusers, but the good news is that the law leads them to repentance, and they leave.

Once they’re gone, Jesus did not accuse the woman of adultery because under the law of Moses, he couldn’t: “One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sinneth: at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established” (KJV Deut. 19.15). He wasn’t an eye witness, and he certainly wasn’t going to set himself up as a false witness to the act; that would have been sin! There was no case against her once all of her accusers left. Although he did not condemn her, he did recognize that she was in fact guilty when he told her to “go and sin no more.”

This passage is historically misunderstood and even sometimes creatively misread. I believe the passage is really not about the power of Jesus to forgive (although that power is wonderful); it’s about the power of the law to reveal sin and provide grace at the same time.

Kehilat T’nuvah, the Harvest, has a podcast called “The Woman Caught in the Adultery Trap” in its Torah Talk files addressing this issue at some length.

I’ll never forget the day that Jethro Clampett’s clone came to our house in Texas and pulled five dead baby rats out of the wall. He came complete with denim flood pants, red plaid shirt, and 6′ 4″ frame.  I couldn’t watch as he stuck a bare hand into the small gap between the air conditioning conduit and brick to remove the decomposing corpses that had been inundating the inner room with the stench of death. After that, we became familiar with a tool that would eliminate the problem in the future. Rat poison. I actually have a bit of an aversion to rodents, so it didn’t bother me at all to think that the furry usurpers would eat what they thought was yummy food when it was actually laced with a deadly anticoagulant. They would then become insanely thirsty, go outside looking to quench their thirst, but instead bleed to death internally far far away from my tranquil abode. To be honest, I rather relished the idea. But I do not relish the parallel spiritual reality for anyone!

Lately, I’ve been thinking about this rat poison as I consider the similarities between it and false teaching in the body of Christ. And as I recall our experience in Texas, I think that there are at least three correlations between rat poison and false teaching that are worthy of note. The first and most obvious is that rat poison is at least 99% innocuous food with only 1% or less lethal chemical. This, of course, makes it deceptively alluring to the consumers. Over the last several months, I have read many of the commentaries that Tim Hegg posts on his website concerning the Scripture portions for the weekly Sabbath readings, as well as his posted articles. A general perusing of his writings reveals to me that he is very knowledgeable about the Scriptures, and the languages, and the vast majority of what he says is consistent with all Biblical truth and orthodox interpretation. If it wasn’t, why would any believers in Jesus as Messiah and Lord still attend his assembly or put themselves under his teaching? In fact, he is certainly more forthcoming with factual information and application concerning the Old Testament practices, and presumably more knowledgeable in these areas, than the average pastor or teacher in most Christian churches. And considering the average seeker-sensitive type church in the Washington area where he operates, he is probably teaching more real information and most of it Scripturally right-on-target. So it is no wonder that his teaching is attractive to some who are tired of watered-down messages, consisting of very little real Bible teaching and projecting the acceptance of low standards of behavior in the body of Christ. No wonder it is perceived as good, nourishing food to those seeking for a life-changing, Biblical Christianity. The vast majority of what he teaches is Biblically correct.

Secondly, with rats, consecutive intake of the poison over a period of days is necessary in order to accumulate the lethal dose. One can presume that the same is true with false teaching. A mature and well versed believer would immediately note that Hegg’s teaching concerning “torah-observance” for believers in Messiah is not consistent with what Scripture teaches on the subject. But it is not hard to imagine that someone subjected to the same teaching week after week over a period of years might begin to think in a different way about Scripture, or have a difficult time objectively seeing what the Bible actually teaches on the subject. This is especially easy to envision if the dosing begins when the person is a child or young believer.

And finally, the main benefit of anticoagulants over other poisons is that the extended time taken for the poison to induce death means that the rats do not associate death with eating the poison. In other words, they don’t realize that the poison is having an effect on them, and they certainly don’t make the connection between the poison that they ate and the effect in their lives.  For all they know, they ate a good and hearty meal and will attest to you of the benefits of it. After all, it tasted better than anything else they have had in a while, and felt great going down, and even gave them energy for the journey to the watering hole. It was a good meal. But the volume of Scripture that is written to refute this false doctrine of mandatory observance of Mosaic Law reveals the heart of God concerning this teaching. If it was not important for believers to understand their freedom from the Law, God would not have written so much about the subject. [1] It must certainly be a lethal teaching.

In earlier blogs on this site, I have written about three different passages in which Tim Hegg interprets Scripture to support his contention that the Mosaic Law is still binding on believers in Messiah. In those entries, I have shown that in one case, Mark 7:19, Hegg has made errors in the observation of the text by not considering the parallel passage in another gospel. In another case, I wrote that in his interpretation of Acts 15, Hegg left out words in the text that defined what the subject was that was being considered in the council. And in Acts 10, I wrote about how he makes erroneous assumptions concerning the text that lead to totally illogical conclusions. There are many other examples in his writings that I hope to deal with in future blogs, examples of similar treatment of Scripture by which he arrives at this aberrant doctrine. A doctrine that was even recently abandoned by his colleagues at FFOZ because it lacked Scriptural and scholarly support. Tim Hegg was the head theological editor of FFOZ since the early days of that ministry until just recently when they parted over theological differences concerning this issue. FFOZ admits to “working out” explanations that tried to make the Bible not say what it sounds like it is saying. [2]

What is the antidote for ingesting such a poison as required “torah-observance”? I am fearful that there is none, but reminded that all things are possible with God. I can imagine that the antidote might be time for the poison to work its way through the system, and hearty doses of true food, the unadulterated Word of God. But even with that, I think it would take a miracle, the supernatural intervention of God Himself. I pray for those who have come under this teaching, that the Lord would grant them the humility and spiritual insight to abandon it, and seek true, nourishing, and unadulterated food.

1. Romans 3-4, 6-8, Acts 10, Acts 15, 2 Corinthians 3, Galatians, Ephesians 2, Colossians 2, Hebrews 5-10

2. http://ffoz.org/blogs/2009/09/the_lone_voice_of_ffoz.html

The structure of the competition parallels the action in an appellate practice. Participants receive the moot problem about an imaginary armed conflict ahead of time. They are given time to research and prepare for the given case as if they were lawyers for both parties. Participants will be required to submit written briefs and participate in oral arguments.

All teams partaking in the competition are required to compete in the elimination rounds. Based on their elimination rounds, the four highest scoring teams will advance to the semi – final rounds. The two highest scoring teams in the semi-final round will advance to the final round. The elimination round and semi-final rounds will be held at the University while the final round will be held at the En Banc Session Hall of the Supreme Court of the Philippines.

This is an annual event organized and sponsored by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the Philippine National Red Cross (PNRC), Philippine Association of Law Schools (PALS) and the Supreme Court of the Philippines.

The three-day event includes a dinner party sponsored by PCU and a fellowship night courtesy of PALS to form camaraderie among law students, professors and partner institutions.

The year 2005 marked the first year for the National Moot Court Competition on IHL. With only six participating law schools, the Ateneo de Manila School of Law was the first winner. In 2006, there were already nine law schools that joined the event and Xavier University from Cagayan de Oro won that time. The first time that Philippine Association of Law Schools (PALS) and the Supreme Court of the Philippines co-organized the event with the PNRC and ICRC was on 2007. Last year, the event was participated by 14 law schools and the University of the Philippines won the competition held at the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila (PLM).

Our World At War

Apart from the National Moot Court competition, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) presents a photo exhibit featuring war photographers’ works create awareness and end the unacceptable suffering caused by war. The ICRC and five award-winning war photographers- James Nachtwey, Franco Pagetti, Antonin Kratochvil, Ron Haviv and Christopher Morris – unite in this exhibition to feature eight countries: Afghanistan, Colombia, The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Georgia, Lebanon, Liberia, Haiti and the Philippines; that were either at war or living through its aftermath. The 40 images in this exhibit bring individual stories of loss and suffering in war; women struggling to recover from sexual violence, families coping with displacement, and people victimized by gang warfare. The photos will be showcased at the PCU Lobby and Supreme Court from November 18 to 20.

For a sampling of the Our World At War Photos click on this link.

The exhibit is on display until this weekend at the PCU and the Supreme Court. Let me know if anybody wants to drop by so I can make arrangements.

Just to set the tone, this is my first attempt at blogging.  I’m a solicitor with the firm of Tallents based in Newark, although I run the Southwell office.  I’m a property lawyer and my aim is to update the blog regularly with legal updates (dull, but useful), news about Tallents (more interesting and equally useful) , news about Newark and its environs (now getting quite interesting indeed) and an insight into the life of a father of two who solicits in Nottinghamshire for a living (off the scale!)

For those excited by the legal facets of this blog, there’s a link to Tallents’ website on the right.  There’s a page on there dedicated to Alistair Millar Ltd (I’m being franchised) and I should point out that I’ve lost over 4 stones since the photo was taken.

1 Peter 2:9-12

⁹But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. ¹⁰Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

¹¹Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. ¹²Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.

God is building  a spiritual house, a spiritual Family, one that we know will last forever. God is forming us into a holy priesthood, the purpose of which is to offer up acceptable spiritual sacrifices to God through Christ.  As of right now we are a royal priesthood.

This is important because we are being built up into a spiritual Family whose function is to glorify God by offering spiritual sacrifices that He will accept.  We must not allow ourselves to become detached from this as if it doesn’t really matter to God.  We qoute scripture from Malachi all day and never really understand that he was talking about the Priesthood that started to ignore God’s command for offerings and sacrifices.  Even some pastors pass the buck onto others when the command is to all.  In Malachi 1:6, God chastises the priesthood for the irresponsible manner in which they were carrying out their charge from God: “‘A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am the Father, where is My honor? And if I am a Master, where is My reverence?’ says the LORD of hosts to you priests who despise My name.” Those are strong words for failing to offer sacrifices pleasing to God.

Yes folks the first episode of my soap opera. completely made up, total fiction but it may in places have germs of truth.

The setting is a pet store in the fictional town of Inverleven. A once thriving town centre has been reduced to the level of a shopping area in the former eastern bloc.

This was due to decisions made by a 1990’s local council who would have been quite at home in…………..the former eastern bloc.

Then there was the town centre manager Heinrich Stalin.

The owner of the store, Ry Rabsbig, has three employees Rasta McMasta, Harvey Treehugger and Shuggie Acorah.

Ry has recently extended his premises to accommodate bound volumes of the new employment law being churned out by Brussells and Westminster. He wistfully remembered the days when much was just decided by common sense.

Just then a rabbit was at his feet. It looked up at Ry in an appealing way just as a budgie flew past his ear. Ry looked over to see Harvey Treehugger releasing all the animals in the store from their cages. Before he could be stopped, he then took a hammer to the 34 aquariums in the place shouting “be free! be free!”

“Right! that’s it Harvey! you’re fired!” said Ry

“Not so fast!” said Harvey

“Under the terms of the The Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003 I am entitled to the philosophical belief that it is wrong to have animals in cages. Therefore you can’t sack me, you must allow me freedom to express my views”

“Furthermore you know our young work experience trainee Abdul? well I tripped on his prayer mat last week and I’m going to sue you!”

Ry was conscious that they hadn’t had a customer in the store for half an hour.

Desperately he went to the front door of the store and called out “IS THERE ANYBODY THERE?”

Shuggie Acorah looked up from his Daily Star.

“Did you hear that?” – “He’s taking the piss out of my deeply held belief in spiritualism”

“I’m going to report him for harassment.”

Ry looked to the counter where Rasta McMasta was sparking up a huge joint.

“For goodness sake Rasta put that out!”

“Hey man chill!” said Rasta “It me deep held philosophical belief…..innit”

Just then a man with a clipboard entered the store. “You are allowing a man to smoke here in contravention of the law! you will receive a summons!”

Two policemen looked on. They were trying to remember whether cannabis was a class B or class C drug this week. They decided it was class B and therefore Ry Rabsbig had to be arrested.

“Why me?” said Ry?

Then he remembered clause 22 of the The Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003:

22. – (1) Anything done by a person in the course of his employment shall be treated for the purposes of these Regulations as done by his employer as well as by him, whether or not it was done with the employer’s knowledge or approval.

“Criminal damage mate. look at all this broken glass! Then there’s the matter of you taking drugs!”

“But…..but…….”

It was no use Ry was on his way to the Lubyanka

The first ten amendments of the U.S. Constitution are known as the Bill of Rights. It has been into effect since December 15, 1791, when it was ratified by three-fourths of the states. Here’s the first two amendments’ language accompanied by their meaning:

First Amendment: 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.

The First Amendment is famous for protecting the American people from anybody’s (including the government’s) intervention in the individual’s choices of religion, of opinion on anything, and of creating whatever kinds of entities with other individual(s), if the nature of these entities doesn’t involve hurting other people in a way (violating their piece, for example). It is also known as the one that provides the individual with their freedom of religion and of speech. It also provides the individual with the right to sue the government, if the latter acted in an unjust way to the former.

Freedom of speech is a broad term, and oftentimes it is a question of an individual’s perception to determine how far that freedom could go. In one case, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA), sponsored by Senator John McCain (R – Arizona) and Senator Russell Feingold (D – Wisconsin) whose purpose was to reform federal campaign finance in a way that would limit the political campaign contributors’ influence in the future politicians’ decision making,  was questioned as to whether or not it was constitutional regading the First Amendment. In McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, the U.S. Supreme Court held that “forbidding national party committees and their agents to solicit, receive, direct, or spend any funds that are not subject to limitations, prohibitions and reporting requirements of the Federal Election Commission Act (FECA) does not violate the First Amendment” because it is more important to prevent the actual or apparent corruption of federal candidates and officeholders, and anything that could lead to actual or apparent corruption.

In this case, such funds are so called “soft money” (which were not regulated by FECA) which were used in “issue ads” which did not mention “magic phrases” such as “vote against [John McCain]” or “vote for [Barack Obama]“. Under the law, this “soft money” may not come from the national level of a political party or from an agent, officer of such level within the party or from an entity that is (in)directly controlled by that party’s structure (2 U.S.C. §441i).

 Second Amendment: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Better known as the right to bear arms, the language of this amendment is so unusual that it is still questioned. Some people are still not clear about whom the word ‘militia’ is referred to, a concern that is addressed on the first ruling on the Second Amendment by the U.S. Supreme Court ever as you will see. 

Strict constructionists (conservatives) interpret the amendment as one that provides the American people (except for “mentally retarded people, criminals, murderers and other groups of that kind”, as I explained before) with the right to bear arms at most places, while judicial activists (liberals) claim that the U.S. Constitution is a living document, and – unlike more than 200 years ago when the Bill of Rights was written, and when Great Britain was still a threat to the existence of the American nation – nowadays, the conservative interpretation is not as functional as before, meaning that there is no such a desperate need to have the right to bear arms. 

In D.C. v. Heller, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled a 32-year old D.C. ban on handguns unconstitutional. The then majority of the highest court in the country was right in their ruling for the following reasons the ban included keeping firearms nonfunctional even at home, even when necessary for self-defense which technically makes the firearm completely useless.

In regards to the word ‘Militia’ the court interpreted it as “all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense”. It means that the Second Amendment provides the physically capable males, regardless of whether or not they are from the military (that’s what ‘common defense’ means here), with the right to bear arms for the purpose of defending the United States from an attack by an enemy. That enemy could be an individual, a foreign country, a militant group, and so on.

Deuteronomy 25:11-12:

When men fight with one another and the wife of the one draws near to rescue her husband from the hand of him who is beating him and puts out her hand and seizes him by the private parts, then you shall cut off her hand. Your eye shall have no pity.

The situation is pretty specific: a woman seeks to help her husband by grabbing the “secrets” (so named in the KJV) of the man fighting with her husband, and in return, she gets to lose her hand.

Harsh, no?

Well, maybe not. The passage just before this speaks of the woman whose husband dies and leaves her childless and the extreme shame that comes upon the brother-in-law who won’t due the duty and get her with child so that her husband will still have a name in Israel. Children–and not losing the ability to sire them–is a pretty big deal to God.

As I see it, a woman who grabs in that context is going to grab to injure, and if she succeeds in injuring, she has murdered all the children the man could have had and all the children of those children. A hand is not that much to lose in that case, no?

Did it ever happen? Did a woman do this and get her hand cut off? I don’t know, but I suspect rare would be the woman whose desire to help her husband would override her desire to keep her own hand.

This passage also reminds us that a man who has injured secrets cannot enter the assembly of the Lord (Deut. 23:1), another reason the woman ought to be dissuaded from grabbing at the secrets. Would to God that God-fearing men everywhere would read that passage and stop volunteering to have their own parts injured.