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[ by Charles Cameron — see for yourselves — with a theological chaser, for what it’s worth ]
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I’ve been amused, educated, annoyed and entertained by political videos this week. Samples of what’s out there:

Ted Cruz endorsed by a Wild Man:

How Donald Trump talks, #1 — edited for emphasis:

How Trump talks, #2 — analyzed for (Fascinatingly efficient) technique:

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And perhaps most bizarre of all, Ted Cruz critiqued by Kathleen Parker:

Cruz had said:

If we awaken and energize the body of Christ– if Christians and people of faith come out and vote our values– we will win and we will turn the country around.

Parker comments:

One observation. I don’t know… this seems to have slipped through the cracks a little bit but Ted Cruz said something that I found rather astonishing. He said, you know, “It’s time for the body of Christ to rise up and support me.” I don’t know anyone who takes their religion seriously who would think that Jesus should rise from the grave and resurrect himself to serve Ted Cruz. I know so many people who were offended by that comment. And you know if you want to talk about grandiosity and messianic self-imagery I think he makes Ted Cruz makes Donald Trump look rather sort of like a gentle little lamb.

For the record, Paul makes it explicit in I Corinthians 12. 27 that the members of the Christian community have become the “body of Christ”:

Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.

Parker exposes an ignorance of basic Christian doctrine, and in her lack of cultural awareness betrays the weak point of a journalism that lacks religious insight — a topic near and dear to me.

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It is clear that the Christ of the gospels anticipated the breaking of his body and spilling of his blood at the crucifixion, breaking bread which he termed “my body” and sharing a cup of wine at the Last Supper, inviting his disciples to eat and drink and thus partake of him, with a poetic precision that entailed their corporately digesting him and incorporating himself and his mission, body and mind, in themselves.

Yet while this is the record given in the three Synoptic gospels at Matt. 26. 26-29, Mark 14. 22-25 and Luke 22. 17-20, and indeed the foundation of the Eucharist, John’s gospel makes no mention of it. In its place, John offers the great prayer of union — this is my personal reading: I can’t speak for others, and I’m a poet first and foremost — which says in high poetry (John 17. 21-24) what the synoptics have expressed in metaphor:

That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.

Thus as Alan Watts puts it:

When there is dismemberment in the beginning there is remembrance at the end — that the fulfillment or consummation of the cosmic game is the discovery of what was covered and the recollection of what was scattered.

Thus the body is broken, blood spilled — but not before body and blood have been shared, ingested, digested — and where his single physical body was, the church — body of the bodies of his followers — remains, to perpetuate his task.

[ by Charles Cameron — slowed down by health issues, but getting there ]
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A quick announcement from Tim Furnish:

The second of my complementary volumes on Islam and Islamic world issues is finally up on Amazon, albeit at this point only in Kindle format. Sects, Lies, and the Caliphate: 10 Years of Observations on Islam is the follow-on to Ten Years’ Captivation with the Mahdi’s Camps, which came out in November 2015. The latter focused entirely on Islamic eschatology and apocalyptic movements (especially ISIS and Iran); the new one, on the other hand, deals with more mundane, but no less important, issues–such as the Islamic roots of ISIS and Muslim terrorism, how Christianity is indeed more peaceful and less problematic than Islam (not to mention being true), and, in the longest section (some 86 pages), on mostly failed US policies toward Islam and the Islamic world over the last decade.

I shall be reviewing both books when time permits, but wanted to let you know both are now available.

Tim’s previous book, Holiest Wars: Islamic Mahdis, their Jihads, and Osama bin Laden (Praeger, 2005) is more scholarly — it’s Tim’s doctoral dissertation-turned-book. These two books bring us up to date on Tim’s thinking since then.

[by Mark Safranski, a.k.a. “zen“]

Our friends at Infinity Journal have released a new special edition, International Relations in Professional Military Education, which is excellent and covers the topic from West Point to Sandhurst to the Scandinavian-Baltic range of NATO states. The authors are thorough in explaining building PME curriculum to inculcate strategic thinking and the role played by incorporating and teaching IR theories.

A few samples:

Who Are We Teaching – Future Second Lieutenants or Strategic Leaders? Education for Strategic Thinking and Action – Scott A. Silverstone & Renee Ramsey 

….For some, the notion of strategic thinking and action at junior officer levels is a controversial claim. The word “strategy” is often treated as though it begins and ends at the highest levels of policy making. The president, supported by senior civilian and military advisors, develops national-level political objectives, the conceptual ways to achieve these objectives, and then mobilizes and deploys the resources necessary for executing the strategy. Approached from this perspective, young Army officers are merely the instruments of strategy. They receive and execute orders that someone much higher in the chain of command has developed with, hopefully, a carefully calculated understanding of how these tactical operations will contribute to national strategic ends. What business does a Platoon Leader, or even a Company Commander at the grade of Captain have in thinking and acting “strategically”? In fact, it is not hard to find Battalion Commanders who bluntly assert that they do not want their junior leaders thinking strategically; they simply want them to execute their operational tasks with skill and determination.

Silverstone and MAJ Ramsey deserve credit for tackling straight on “Big Army’s” increasing aversion to strategy being taught even in places like Leavenworth, much less to the undergraduate cadets they have as students at West Point. Strategy is not a “level” that should wait until an officer gets a slot at a War College, but is a fundamental domain for the military officer, the foundation for which should begin early in their career and not begin just shy of retirement.

IR, or No IR? The Potential Contribution of IR Subjects to Professional Military Education at the Latvian National Defence Academy – Toms Rostoks

….IR studies can provide added value to Latvian cadets in several ways. First, IR studies are especially relevant in small countries that are heavily affected by the international environment. This is not to claim that IR studies are not relevant in medium-sized countries and for the great powers. Quite to the contrary. The great powers have the capacity to use military means either on their own, or with allies, and therefore domestic discussions on their role in the international system are inevitable. The great powers have the ability to shape their regional environment and can exert influence beyond their regional setting. The behaviour of small countries, in turn, is shaped by great power politics. For Latvia, IR issues have become an inalienable part of any discussion on its security and development. Latvia’s security depends on Russia’s domestic politics and foreign policy aims, and EU and NATO policies towards Russia. Latvia’s economic development is also seen in terms of relations between Russia and the West. Thus, IR studies can help cadets to make sense of Latvia’s regional and global international environment. IR studies can help cadets to grasp the basic images of international politics such as realism and liberalism and explain differences between Russia’s foreign policy and EU and NATO policies.

Small nations tend to have interesting histories because they must navigate geopolitics with very little margin for error and Latvia is a prime example.  Winning independence originally during the Russian Revolution, Latvia had to contest with German Freikorps and Bolshevik Red Guards only to lose independence entirely in 1940, passing from Stalin’s control to Nazi occupation and back again, regaining independence during the Soviet collapse in 1991. Rostock alludes to the challenges in transitioning from a former Soviet Republic with a Red Army doctrinal military legacy to a NATO state and the ancillary benefits of teaching IR in PME.

Read the rest of Infinity Journal’s Special IR PME Edition here – registration required but always free!

[ by Charles Cameron — how quickly language changes — with a Swiftian nibble chaser]
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From the story update to a 2013 CSM piece, upper panel — oh! how true of so much in the modern mainstream media — with my more succinct 2016 phrasing below:

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It’s good to know the editors at CSM are protecting their readers from a too-literal — perhaps one might say, fundamentalist — reading of their text.

The headline of the story in question reads:

Why do people want to eat babies? Scientists explain.

The subhead:

Admit it: When presented with a baby, you’ve experienced a fleeting desire to eat it. Now science has an explanation.

And better yet, the lead — some would say, lede:

If you’re like most normal people, you’ve briefly considered eating a baby or two.

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Jonathan Swift might have thought the editors too politcally correct for the necessities of the day, noting —

A young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout.

[ by Charles Cameron — for Adam Elkus ]
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A case study in the heliotrope:

Do we gain as much in science as we lose in poetry, when we switch explanatory frameworks?

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F Scott Fitzgerald:

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.

How about holding two explanatory frameworks in mind?

Adam, I think you’re doing something of the sort with qualitative & quantitative approaches, right? And I quote…

The work merges my longstanding interests in intellectual history and qualitative research approaches to studying strategy and decision-making and my technical interests in simulation, modeling, cognitive science, and machine intelligence programming.