Upcoming Anapra show:

(passed on from an Anapra post and posted with the assent of Anapra)

"Anapra Free show at Towson

This Friday March 31 at 9:00 pm,
Anapra plays at PAWS Cafe,
Towson University Union Building,
8000 York Rd., Towson, MD 21252

The coffeehouse starts at 7:00 pm, but the band plays at 9pm. So come early and say hello to us.

peace,
Ryan

PS our album can be downloaded now in seconds at www.musicane.com/anapra or listen at www.purevolume.com/anapra"

The ReelNotBot blog keeps up with Anapra better than I do.  So, don't forget to check Reel's blog out.

Weird Flight Plans on OneWorld Alliance

I'm trying to book a flight from Washington to Dublin (5 hours in front of DC), and the system is wanting me to go through Los Angeles (3 hours behind DC).  The upside is that I love flying anyway and I get 2000+ extra frequent flyer miles; the downside is flying 5 hours west to go 6 hours east.  (From LAX, it is 9-10 hours instead of 6.)

The OneWorld Alliance is comprised of American Airlines, Aer Lingus, British Airways, Qantas, Iberia Airlines of Spain, and several other airlines.

1981 Irish Hunger Strike Pictures - part 2

(Sands and his 9 fellow strikers were in what is called the "H-Block" of Long Kesh Prison.  From an aerial view, it looks like a city block interspersed with H-shaped buildings.  I don't know what particular building in which they were. Some of the 10 strikers started off as Blanketmen because the British wardens wanted them to wear prisoner uniforms, and the blanketmen refused because they thought they were political prisoners instead of true criminals.) 

(Patsy O'Hara's Funeral):

(Mickey Devine's Family:)

(Devine's Wake:)

A Militant Republican Propaganda poster:

"God Save the Queen!"

Though I identify more with my Irish ancestry than my more prevalent English ancestry, I've no reservations about exclaiming "God Save the Queen!".  It is not merely a British patriotic statement but also and moreso an exclamation with deeper spiritual implications.  It is certainly my desire for the Queen of the UK and Commonwealth saved from sin and Hell by His Grace Alone through Faith Alone in and by Christ Alone for the Glory of God Alone.  Not only her but all living humans.  Hence I always add "(and the rest of us sinners)". 

Without further ado,

GOD SAVE THE QUEEN (AND THE REST OF US SINNERS)!

A charitable brother in the Lord asked me the following questions about Mr. Sands:

"How many Brits did he blow up?  How many Protestants did he kill?  What did he die of/how did he die?  Who "forced" him to start a hunger strike?"

1.  None

2. None

3.  He died of starvation in the Long Keash Prison hospital on 5/May/81.

4.  He led and undertook the Hunger Strike (inspired by the peaceable Gahndi and an earlier 1920's Irish hunger protest) in an entirely voluntary manner and was directly coerced by noone.  The British prison wardens, in fact, increased his food rations greatly to try to get him to eat (food nearly falling off his plate according to his diary).  So, the British cannot be at direct fault for starving him.  However, that does not mean that the British were categorically innocent in the matter.

Not all Republicans are Catholic for (1) there are Catholics on both sides and (2) there were and are Protestant Republicans (e.g, Theobald Wolftone).  Hence, the troubles are not entirely Catholic vs. Protestant.

Although Mr. Sands was part of the IRA, he was an peaceable exception to the IRA.  He did keep 4 or 5 firearms for personal self-defense, and he was dedicated to practical society improvements (e.g, speed bumps for children-prevalent neighborhoods) rather than the militant offensives.  In 1976, he was in the area of a furniture company bombing.  He was not treated like a human in his interrogation.  The British judge ruled that there was insufficient evidence linking him to the bombing yet in late 1977, the judge gave him and several others each a 14-year prison sentence for possession of a firearm in their car during their arrest near the bombing site.  (I do know that firearms are currently illegal in Ireland, though I don't know if they were illegal or not at that time in Irish history.)  That was how he wound up in prison.  During the Hunger Strike, he was elected as an MP (Minister of Parliament) under political prisoner status to serve at Westminster in London. 

The only 2 things I don't like about Mr. Sands are that he was a strong Socialist, a baby step away from being Communist and that he seemingly disregarded religion (a typical indicator of Socialists/Communists) whether his own (Catholicism) or another.

BTW, this politcal prisoner stuff about the Hunger Strike is strongly linked with the Blanketmen of Long Keash.

Currently, the IRA and Sinn Fein are under Cease-Fire and peaceable.  However, those small breakaway factions from the original IRA are still militant and active.  The primary breakaway factions are the CIRA and Republican Sinn Fein.  There are also their sister militant organizations such as the IVF and INLA.  On the British side, the primary militant organizations are the UDA and UVF.

As mentioned before, I detest such militant organizations whether Republican or Loyalist and only want a peacable approach to Irish Re-unification.  Both sides are guilty of atrocities against the other.  The militant have the warped sense that the only solution is a military revolution or "the armed struggle" as they call it.  "Up the RA!" and "Up the (U)DA!" are the popular, vain Repulican and Loyalist cries, respectively.  The footage of the conflicts I've seen make me sad for both sides and cause me to wonder in amazement as such stupidity.  (Although my own sin manifests itself in different ways than them, the footage also reminds me that I am just as much a sinner and no less deserving of God's Wrath than they are.  Like them, I too need a Saviour, who is only Jesus Christ.)  There are woeful similarities between the miltant groups of Ireland (i.e, the Republic and British Northern Ireland) and the militant groups (especially the PLO) of the Middle East.  That approach of an armed struggle, regardless of world location is really a facade and mask of hate whereas Scripture commands charity even towards enemies.  I further believe that the poster painting Lady Thatcher as a murderer is a bit extreme.  She has done far more positive things for society and against Communism than negative.  I put that up only to give people a taste of the extremist propaganda circulated by the militant minority of the Republicans.

Weekly Quote (25th Anniversary of the Irish Hunger Strike)

"... I am a political prisoner. I am a political prisoner because I am a casualty of a perennial war that is being fought between the oppressed Irish people and an alien, oppressive, unwanted regime that refuses to withdraw from our land.

I believe and stand by the God-given right of the Irish nation to sovereign independence, and the right of any Irishman or woman to assert this right .... That is why I am incarcerated, naked and tortured.

Foremost in my tortured mind is the thought that there can never be peace in Ireland until the foreign, oppressive British presence is removed, leaving all the Irish people as a unit to control their own affairs and determine their own destinies as a sovereign people, free in mind and body, separate and distinct physically, culturally and economically.

... I ate the statutory weekly bit of fruit last night. As fate had it, it was an orange (the color of Loyalists/Royalists - WR), and the final irony, it was bitter. " - March 1, 1981

"....We wish to be treated 'not as ordinary prisoners' for we are not criminals. We admit no crime unless, that is, the love of one's people and country is a crime.

Would Englishmen allow Germans to occupy their nation or Frenchmen allow Dutchmen to do likewise? ...." - March 10, 1981

quotes of Bobby Sands (b. 9/Mar/64), MP and Irish political prisoner (imprisoned by the British) in Long Keash Prison (H block) 

Mr. Sands started his hunger strike on 1/Mar/81 and kept a diary for the first 17 days of his hunger strike.  The diary is found here.

(There were 10 Hunger Strikers.)

Various Photos and murals of Mr. Sands, his funeral, and Irish Hunger Strike:

The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to Purgatory!

Here is how you matched up against all the levels:
Level | Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers) | Very High
Level 1 (Virtuous Non-Believers) - Limbo | High
Level 2 | Low
Level 3 | Low
Level 4 | Low
Level 5 | Very Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis | Very Low
Level 7 | Moderate
Level 8- the Malebolge | Moderate
Level 9 - Cocytus | Very Low

Level descriptions: http://www.4degreez.com/misc/dante-inferno-information.html
Take the test: http://www.4degreez.com/misc/dante-inferno-test.mv

Duke Blue Devils

Over the past year, I have increasingly learned one thing.  As a Duke fan coming out of the closet in the People's Republic of Maryland, I am an island in the midst of a turbulent sea of Duke detractors.  Perhaps the U-MD Terp lovers created the sea here.  I am a Terp fan but not when either of them play Duke or my alma mater Va Tech. 

GO DUKE!

Vodka

I tried Brian Boru Irish Vodka (chilled on ice as traditionally done by Russians and drunk in a snifter).  The nose of that vodka was that of vulcanised tire rubber, and the taste was of turnips.  I don't think it would make a good mixer either.  I think the Irish should stick with tea, squash, barley water, whiskey, mead, ale, poteen, and stout (all of which they do well) and get out of the vodka business.  Eireannach, use the grain for the delicious brown bread and soda bread instead!

For vodka connoisseurs, I would recommend Stolichnaya (Russian), Smirnoff (USA), Luksusowa Potato Vodka (Poland), and Absolut (Sweden).  I've yet to try Grey Goose, Ketel One, and Finlandia.

"History will undoubtedly record that the most influential opponent of Presbyterian  worship within conservative Presbyterianism  in the twentieth century was John McElphatrick Frame."

from Smith, F.J., "The Writings of John Frame Against The Regulative (Scriptural - WR) Principle of Worship", Confessional Presbyterian Journal 2005:1  (part of the broader work, "Reframing Presbyterian Worship: A Critical Survey of the Worship Views of John M. Frame and R.J. Gore" by F.J. Smith and D.C. Lachman, Sr., in the same volume)

(Although I agree that John Frame is an outspoke and influential opponent of Presbyterian worship, or rather the Scriptural/Regulative Principle of Worship; time will tell if he is the "most infuential opponent" as this prophecy, like all extra-Scriptural prophecies, is not infallible.)