After writing about Bob Dylan's meeting with the pope, the YouTube algorithms served up for me several videos on the event. One, on a channel called Catholic Snack, actually shows the two giving each other a Masonic handshake!
Writing about Dylan reminded me of a favorite co-worker of mine at the Naperville Sun newspaper (1990-1996). Bill was a theatre and music critic as well as my editor in the features department.
He grew up in the thick of the hippie period, and even though he was in no way your typical hippie, he was liberal in his politics and shared some basic ideologies with Dylan. Bill, who wrote and produced his own theatrical plays in Glen Ellyn where he lived with his wife and two kids, worshipped Dylan's music and considered him a major legend.
So, Bill was anxiously awaiting Dylan's arrival in Chicago for a concert in which he was able to garner an interview time with Dylan! Bill even said this was pretty much a bucket-list dream of his. He could not have been more excited the day of the interview and we were all anxious to hear its outcome.
To make a long story short, the whole thing was a major let down. Dylan was standoffish, curt and all-around not in much of a "peace, love, happiness" mood for Bill's little window of time with him.
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Tonight, driving home from work as usual, I had on WKRP in Cincinnati on my car radio. Yes, there is a real FM station named after the famous TV sitcom (circa 1978) and they play soft rock from the '60s, '70s and '80s.
So, the deejay out of downtown Cincinnati was doing his usual rundown of stuff, including today's birthdays of the famous. At the end of his list, he said something like, "And lastly, today is the birthday of one of our very own, Dayton native Jonathan Winters."
This, of course, reminded me of how I've kept Winters (a legendary comedian who frequently appeared on the Johnny Carson Show) in the back of my head since I moved to Dayton, Ohio during COVID in 2020, not knowing anything about the city or its inhabitants. I still have to tell that little story!
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Finally, writing about Ed Bradley of 60 Minutes the other night reminded me of the weekday afternoon living in NYC (circa 2006) that I was in a neighborhood Starbucks near CBS Studios (524 W. 57th Street) and saw none other than longtime 60 Minutes reporter Lesley Stahl sitting at a table by herself.
She had a mini-cassette recorder up to her ear and was taking notes in longhand on a reporter's notepad. At one point, she even made a phone call on her cell and was furiously writing down stuff at the same time she was talking.
I remember I was envious, thinking what a great life she had, but then I recalled how my pastor, not remembering her actual name, once referred to her (in a Bible study) as the "bubble-headed blonde" for saying incredulously to someone in a 60 Minutes segment, "People don't really take the Bible literally anymore, do they?"
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Well, I've just come through another long spate at work (only relieved by calling in sick on Saturday--a very rare event for me), where I'm filling in for people on vacation as well as an overnight person, in this instance, who walked off the job. I plan on getting back to writing now that it's over.
I will have a new article tomorrow for certain and in the meantime:
Isaiah 10 begins: [1] Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed;
[2] To turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless!
[3] And what will ye do in the day of visitation, and in the desolation which shall come from far? to whom will ye flee for help? and where will ye leave your glory?
He's going to talk about the social injustice that the government has established. When he says "Woe," chapter 5 is where you see these six "woes." For example:
Isaiah 5:20: [20] Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
God's saying, "Woe to them that have everything so turned upside down that what I call good they call bad and what I call evil they call good." They've got their whole value system turned upside down, explains Richard Jordan.
Some people when teaching Isaiah say Isaiah 10:1 is the seventh woe, but it isn't. This is a different kind of context, but Isaiah 5:20 is exactly what's being described here. It's fascinating the way He says it: "Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees."
That's the government; that's the legislators and they're going to bring injustice into the social order and they're going to legalize it.
When the verse says "that write grievousness which they have prescribed," that's the actual thing that they write. The laws they pass cause grief; they cause suffering. They make things go wrong.
They call evil good and good evil. They make things more deplorable because they're writing laws and decrees that really produce grievousness.
Wickedness has consumed them, so with the legislation that they set to govern the nation with, it produces catastrophe.
Again, verse 2 describes it: [2] To turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless!
The social order that God established for the nation Israel can be found in Leviticus. Leviticus 19: [9] And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest.
[10] And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger: I am the LORD your God.
In other words, there's what's called a "workfare." You didn't harvest it to give it to them. It's not a handout system. It's, you leave it there and then they can come and harvest it for themselves. So, the abundance of the land is left.
[11] Ye shall not steal, neither deal falsely, neither lie one to another.
When the guy works you pay him. You don't try to beat him out of it. There's an issue of honesty going on.
[15] Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour.
You're not going to say, "Oh, you're poor so I'm going to do this for you." You treat everybody the same; you respect them on an equal basis. You do what's right.
[16] Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people: neither shalt thou stand against the blood of thy neighbour: I am the LORD.
We hear that verse a lot, but you don't realize it's in the midst of a context of social justice. What they're doing in Isaiah 10:2 is they're taking away from the needy.
What's the right of the poor? To have workfare, but it's taken away. Literally, turn helpless people--the widows and orphans--into prey and spoil. You're robbing them. And they're doing it in their legislation. It's not just the culture doing it; this becomes the law of the land.
Verse 3: [3] And what will ye do in the day of visitation, and in the desolation which shall come from far? to whom will ye flee for help? and where will ye leave your glory?
What are you going to do when the Lord comes? When the judgment comes? There's no escape. You can't stop it.
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“Embedded within the secret teachings of Babylon is a code—one based on satanic power—to control money, government, and humanity. This secret has been passed down from generation to generation through occult societies with an untold number of different names. Remember, it’s all about subterfuge and secrecy," writes Paul McGuire and Troy Anderson in their 2015 book, The Babylon Code: Solving the Bible's Greatest End-Times Mystery.
"One of the most powerful truths in the Bible is that money, economics, business and commerce are at their very foundation spiritual systems,” writes McGuire and Anderson. “This was commonly known in ancient Babylon and has been passed down through the various empires such as Egypt, Greece and Rome, and institutions such as the international banking system set up by the Bavarian Illuminati in the late 18th Century.
“The very wealthiest people in the world are fully aware of this, and that is why the select few who actually control the world’s wealth belong to organizations such as Skull & Bones, Bohemian Grove, and the Bilderberg Group. The elite understand that ultimately the economy is connected to a Luciferian spiritual-economic system . . ."