The baddest Buddhist - "When it comes to proving who's the meanest monk in town, Buddhist Zhang Xiao Ju takes the crown jewels. The martial arts expert let former California State Assembly speaker Herb Wesson kick him in the groin - as you do - and didn’t flinch. In fact, the politician booted Zhang where it is supposed to hurt SEVERAL - as the Shaolin monk's pals urged him on."


"We don't want the man going there after work or the housewife going there when she's free in the afternoon. So there must be controls on who can gain access to the casino... And if you are not of a certain economic class, you should not even think of going there. You should confine yourself to 4D, Toto or horse racing." - Trade and Industry Minister George Yeo on the Sentosa Casino.

I can't *believe* he said that. I thought they said they'd junked this sort of attitude. Guess not.


Crime of Passion

"As barbaric as it seems to me, Jesus' suffering has a powerful emotional affect on Christians' love for him. It goes back to John 3:16, "God so loved he world that he gave his only son." They truly feel they owe him a debt of gratitude. For the reasons to follow, I hope there are marginal Christians who might be turned off in disgust.

Let's forget the arguments about the nonexistence of God and Jesus and treat the events of the crucifixion as if they really happened. We'll treat this the way Christian theology tells it, that God the Father sent his Son to atone for the sins of mankind. The most important character doesn't appear in the movie: God.

Let me rephrase John 3:16 a few different ways without the piety. The Creator screwed up, so rather than take personal responsibility he used his son as a scapegoat. Because mankind wasn't living up to his expectations, he took his revenge out on his son by putting him in harms way. A man gets pissed at his wife, so he throws his son in a lion's cage. A man gets fired from his job, so in anger he pushes his son in front of a speeding car. It would be just as dastardly if the son offered to give his life to please his father, and his father assented.

Romanticizing the language doesn't change the nature of the crime. Whether the action is initiated by a god or a human it is the same morality. Simply stated, God took his vindictiveness out on the one he loved the most. The most innocent person was sent to die because the masses weren’t conforming to God’s expectations. It reverses the meaning of justice. Christians won't see it this way because they refuse to judge God. Their response is cowardly.

One reviewer preferred the classical movies on Christ because they presented a "positive" message. Billy Graham said "it was our sins that caused his death." A recent email comment I got was that I "haven't imagined why Christians welcomed a horrible death for love of Jesus." Years ago I was stunned when a Christian explained to me how grateful he was because Jesus' sacrifice was so extraordinary. Christians see Jesus as savior who taught and died for them.

And yet the enemy who threatens them is God. This is something we see in political history where a despot is so powerful and vindictive that his subjects are afraid to think questionable thoughts out of fear they might be punished. So out of fear they learn to love him. Compared to God, Hitler doesn’t seem so bad."

As you can see, the article, putatively a review of Passion of the Christ, goes totally out of point. This should have been two separate articles.