SelwynDuke.com

13-Year-Old Cancer Victim & Parental Rights

By Selwyn Duke

Every so often there is a case in which parents refuse to submit their child to medical treatment, citing religious beliefs. The most recent example is the saga of Daniel Hauser, a 13-year-old Minnesota boy stricken with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. After undergoing a round of chemotherapy that, understandably, made the boy quite sick, the family ceased the treatments, saying they would pursue alternative therapy in accordance with an American Indian religion known as “Nemenhah.”

A court order was then issued mandating that Daniel undergo the treatments, prompting him and his mother, Colleen Hauser, to flee the state on May 18. Their intention was to seek their alternative medicine in Mexico. But now mother and son are back in Minnesota, having surrendered to authorities voluntarily after a week on the run. They also have agreed to undergo the medical treatments prescribed by their doctors, despite vowing previously to resist them at all costs.

Read the rest here.

California’s High Court Upholds Proposition 8

By Selwyn Duke

In a 6-1 ruling yesterday, the California Supreme Court voted to uphold Proposition 8, which amended the state’s constitution so as to define marriage as the union between a man and a woman. This concludes the Golden State court system’s adjudication of the proposition; however, a federal suit by a group called the American Foundation for Equal Rights appears to be in the offing.

While the proposition’s supporters hailed the decision, quite predictably, its opponents held protests that led to arrests. Yet it’s obvious the latter didn’t quite understand what they were protesting. Sure, they would tell you they were there to support same-sex marriage, but what they don’t realize is that they’re protesting against the rule of law and our system of government as well.

Read the rest here.

Guest Piece: Pondering Reagan-Kemp in 1980

By Bruce Walker

1980 is yesterday for some of us, a long time ago for others of us, and the misty realm of medieval history for others of us.  But history and the list of decision that history represents is our future.  In 1980, Congressman Jack Kemp was one of the major front-runners to be Ronald Reagan’s running mate.   James Roberts, President of Radio America and Executive Director of the American Conservative Union from 1974 to 1977, has written a wonderful “insider” article in the May 20 issue of Human Events which explains why Jack Kemp was not Ronald Reagan’s running mate.  As luck would have it, I had just finished this article on the impact of Jack Kemp as Ronald Reagan’s running mate in 1980.

California and the Beauty of Bankruptcy

By Selwyn Duke

California's budget woes are the result of gross fiscal irresponsibility. And at this point there is only one realistic cure: bankruptcy.

There is a beauty in bankruptcy. Strange words, I know, but it's true. As an example, there is the story of an old friend of my father's, a man who at one point in his life was a compulsive gambler. Oh, he was a heck of a nice fellow, but a slave to his vice. He used credit to fund his rolls of the dice and he spent and spent and spent until there was nothing left to spend. Then, awash in insurmountable debt, he finally had to declare bankruptcy.

Read the rest here.

The Violence among Homosexuals

Judith Reisman, the intrepid culture warrior and sex researcher, has an excellent piece at WorldNetDaily.com titled "Gay-on-gay 'hate crimes.'"  In it she documents how there actually is far more homosexual-on-homosexual violence than the straight-on-homosexual variety.

This comes as no surprise to me, as I have long been aware of the rampant violence among homosexuals and lesbians.  In fact, I remember reading a statistic many years ago pertaining to self-reporting of violence in sexual relationships.  To wit: while only 11 percent of normal couples reported violence in their relationships, a whopping 53 percent (give or take a point; I read this years ago) of lesbians did.  This isn't surprising, of course, as lesbians are characterized by anger.  Anyway, here are two paragraphs from Reisman's article:

Violence is part of any transient, chemically abusing, lust-based culture, and it is only natural that the homosexual movement strives to hide the truth. However, data from the mainstream homosexual weekly the Advocate, confirms the findings of Charles B Johnson and myself in “Partner Solicitation Characteristics as an Expression of Male Sexual Orientation.” That is, once sexually violated by men, boys often grow up to retaliate against men, even if they "sleep with the enemy."

The Advocate reports 21 percent of its upscale, largely white, male respondents were sex abuse victims by age 15. Since a large number of boys are victimized between age 15 and 18, this brings the angry boy victim population into the millions. In fact, with roughly a 17 percent boy sex abuse population, the estimates of boy victims are between 6 and 8 million, some might say, walking time bombs.

Read the whole piece here.

Movie Review: Angels and Demons

By Selwyn Duke

This weekend I saw Angels & Demons, the controversial film directed by Ron Howard and based on Dan Brown’s book by the same name. The movie is a sequel to the equally controversial The Da Vinci Code, also directed by Howard and written by Brown.

The film is as fanciful as it is controversial. As it begins, we learn that the pope has just died, and a Conclave — an assembly of cardinals who will elect a new pope — is soon to commence in Vatican City. Unbeknownst to the crowds and media gathered in St. Peter’s Square, however, a great evil lurks among them. The four preferiti, the cardinals most likely to assume the papacy, have been abducted by the shadowy Illuminati and are to be systematically murdered, one every hour starting at 8 p.m. Even more ominously, the conspirators have also stolen a canister of antimatter from the CERN particle physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland, and have hidden it in Vatican City along with the preferiti. And, once the mechanical canister’s battery runs down — which is expected to occur at 12 midnight — the antimatter will cease being held in suspension, come into contact with matter, and detonate, creating a five-megaton blast that will destroy the holy city. The clock is ticking.

Read the rest here.

Guest Commentary: War is Hell

By Bruce Walker

Sherman was right:  War is Hell.  The current war against the Judeo-Christian world waged by al-Qaida and other radical Moslems is no different.  War is Hell and Hell is full of torments.  Our role, as children of a Loving God, is to make that Hell and those torments as quick, as slight, and as limited as possible.  But it is not our power to end pain, to make peace, or to stop torture. 

Critics Rebuke Pope Benedict XVI

By Selwyn Duke

Pope Benedict XVI gave a speech at Israel’s Yad Veshem Holocaust Memorial this past Monday, during which he paid tribute to the Jewish victims of Nazi genocide. His words were not well-received by all, however, as some Israeli critics expected an apology from Benedict and felt that he was “restrained” in his remarks. Most notably, speaker of the Knesset, Reuven Rivlin, said, “[I was] hoping to hear an apology and a request for forgiveness from those who caused our tragedy, and among them, the Germans and the church. But to my sadness, I did not hear any such thing." Reuters tells us that the speaker also “referred to Benedict as ‘a German who joined the Hitler Youth and ... Hitler's army.’”

The Israeli speaker's remarks are ironic since he is falling victim (assuming he’s sincere) to a technique that none other than Adolf Hitler’s propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, spoke of when he infamously said, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” In fact, Rivlin is in the grip of at least a couple of big lies, ones that, lamentably, are widely embraced.

Read the rest here.

Allen Keyes Arrested Protesting Obama at Notre Dame

As some of you know, Dr. Alan Keyes was arrested at Notre Dame University this past weekend while protesting against abortion and the choice to invite Barack Obama to be the school's graduation commencement speaker. Now, as a private entity, Notre Dame has every right keep whomever it wishes off its grounds, and it does have a rule dictating that all protests must be student organized and administration approved. Nevertheless, if the folks at the university really had respect for the pro-life position and cared about Truth, I would think that they might have granted this protest a special dispensation. After all, they certainly gave themselves a special dispensation from the spirit governing Catholic duty when they invited Barack Obama.

Modern Children: Making Eddie Haskell Look Nice

By Selwyn Duke

Today's kids are ruder than ever, and the "experts" suspect it may be a by-product of self-esteem training and modern parenting methods.

If you ever curse someone with the old standby, "I hope he has kids who are just like he is," chances are greater than ever that you'll get your wish. It just seems like succeeding generations now exhibit the "carbon-copy syndrome," where if you keep copying an original, the copies will have more and more flaws as time wears on (to you young'uns I'll say, don't worry, I put a great onus on my generation as well).

Read the rest here.