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Martin Roth Christian Commentary

Random War Notes

Hitch-Hike Monkeys
You know the coalition’s winning when even the anti-American Australian Broadcasting Corporation starts insulting war critics.

A French “peace activist” has been detained and faces deportation, after fraudulently claiming to be walking around the world for peace, in order to beg for free food. In fact, he was hitch-hiking.

The ABC’s unexpected headline to this story:

Police nab food-mooching hitchhike-monkey

Forbidden Treasure
I’m a fan of Tim Blair. I’m told he’s now blogging at Blogs of War. Every time I go there I get this message:

Forbidden
You don’t have permission to access / on this server.
Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

Why?

Buy in Gloom, Sell in Boom
A stock market adage tells us to buy on the rumour, sell on the fact. Thus, we should buy military-related stocks in the lead-up to war, and then sell (at a profit) when war actually begins.

Am I right in my suspicion that Christian blogs are now being “sold off”? Christian bloggers had plenty to say – on the morality of war – in the build-up. But now the war has begun, and I think that web surfers probably want news, not ethics.

My website traffic grew substantially this year, thanks especially to these three pages. But since the war began I am noticing a (small) decline in visitor numbers.

What’s the experience of other Christian bloggers?

More Christian Answers on War?
Why aren’t publishers Eerdmans making more of a splash with their new title Warriors of the Lord?

The great religious orders of Christianity - the Benedictines, the Dominicans, the Franciscans, the Jesuits - are well known for their monasteries, their learning, and their missions around the world. But in the Middle Ages and beyond, there was another kind of religious order whose profession it was to bear arms in defence of Christendom. This lavishly illustrated work tells the extraordinary story of the military orders of the Church.

I haven’t seen the book, but it appears to be excellent. It may even contain some more Christian answers on war.

Uncommon Commonsense
War is crowding out even the kind of horror news that would normally be spread over the front pages of the newspapers. The Wall Street Journal notes that editors don’t know how to handle the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) crisis.

Some uncommon commonsense on the disease in The Australian from Peter Curson

Of course, the most important ingredient has been human behaviour. Changes in sexual behaviour, the increasing use of drugs, the pursuit of "pure and natural" foodstuffs, the migration to large cities, holidaying in the Amazon basin, and the increasing number of young children in daycare – all these factors have provided an environment conducive to the spread and emergence of infections.

April 4th, 2003

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