Podcasts about Syria

Since 2011, Syria has been engaged in a devastating civil war. More than three hundred fifty thousand people have been killed during the conflict. The war has forced more than six million people to flee the country. These Syrians in forced exile have had to endure overcrowded refugee camps, treacherous journeys by sea, and painful family separations.  Academy Award winning director Megan Mylan is known for her films "Lost Boys of Sudan" and "Smile Pinki." Her latest documentary, "Simple as Water," follows several families of Syrian refugees.  The Takeaway spoke with Mylan to find out more about how she created such a compassionate depiction of people whose stories are frequently sensationalized. "Simple as Water" is available to stream now on HBO Max.

Psalms and Wisdom: Psalm 27 Psalm 27 (Listen) The Lord Is My Light and My Salvation Of David. 27   The LORD is my light and my salvation;    whom shall I fear?  The LORD is the stronghold1 of my life;    of whom shall I be afraid? 2   When evildoers assail me    to eat up my flesh,  my adversaries and foes,    it is they who stumble and fall. 3   Though an army encamp against me,    my heart shall not fear;  though war arise against me,    yet2 I will be confident. 4   One thing have I asked of the LORD,    that will I seek after:  that I may dwell in the house of the LORD    all the days of my life,  to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD    and to inquire3 in his temple. 5   For he will hide me in his shelter    in the day of trouble;  he will conceal me under the cover of his tent;    he will lift me high upon a rock. 6   And now my head shall be lifted up    above my enemies all around me,  and I will offer in his tent    sacrifices with shouts of joy;  I will sing and make melody to the LORD. 7   Hear, O LORD, when I cry aloud;    be gracious to me and answer me!8   You have said, “Seek4 my face.”  My heart says to you,    “Your face, LORD, do I seek.”59     Hide not your face from me.  Turn not your servant away in anger,    O you who have been my help.  Cast me not off; forsake me not,    O God of my salvation!10   For my father and my mother have forsaken me,    but the LORD will take me in. 11   Teach me your way, O LORD,    and lead me on a level path    because of my enemies.12   Give me not up to the will of my adversaries;    for false witnesses have risen against me,    and they breathe out violence. 13   I believe that I shall look6 upon the goodness of the LORD    in the land of the living!14   Wait for the LORD;    be strong, and let your heart take courage;    wait for the LORD! Footnotes [1] 27:1 Or refuge [2] 27:3 Or in this [3] 27:4 Or meditate [4] 27:8 The command (seek) is addressed to more than one person [5] 27:8 The meaning of the Hebrew verse is uncertain [6] 27:13 Other Hebrew manuscripts Oh! Had I not believed that I would look (ESV) Pentateuch and History: Genesis 25:19–34 Genesis 25:19–34 (Listen) The Birth of Esau and Jacob 19 These are the generations of Isaac, Abraham's son: Abraham fathered Isaac, 20 and Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the Aramean of Paddan-aram, the sister of Laban the Aramean, to be his wife. 21 And Isaac prayed to the LORD for his wife, because she was barren. And the LORD granted his prayer, and Rebekah his wife conceived. 22 The children struggled together within her, and she said, “If it is thus, why is this happening to me?”1 So she went to inquire of the LORD. 23 And the LORD said to her,   “Two nations are in your womb,    and two peoples from within you2 shall be divided;  the one shall be stronger than the other,    the older shall serve the younger.” 24 When her days to give birth were completed, behold, there were twins in her womb. 25 The first came out red, all his body like a hairy cloak, so they called his name Esau. 26 Afterward his brother came out with his hand holding Esau's heel, so his name was called Jacob.3 Isaac was sixty years old when she bore them. 27 When the boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man, dwelling in tents. 28 Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebekah loved Jacob. Esau Sells His Birthright 29 Once when Jacob was cooking stew, Esau came in from the field, and he was exhausted. 30 And Esau said to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stew, for I am exhausted!” (Therefore his name was called Edom.4) 31 Jacob said, “Sell me your birthright now.” 32 Esau said, “I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?” 33 Jacob said, “Swear to me now.” So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. 34 Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank and rose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright. Footnotes [1] 25:22 Or why do I live? [2] 25:23 Or from birth [3] 25:26 Jacob means He takes by the heel, or He cheats [4] 25:30 Edom sounds like the Hebrew for red (ESV) Chronicles and Prophets: 2 Chronicles 1 2 Chronicles 1 (Listen) Solomon Worships at Gibeon 1 Solomon the son of David established himself in his kingdom, and the LORD his God was with him and made him exceedingly great. 2 Solomon spoke to all Israel, to the commanders of thousands and of hundreds, to the judges, and to all the leaders in all Israel, the heads of fathers' houses. 3 And Solomon, and all the assembly with him, went to the high place that was at Gibeon, for the tent of meeting of God, which Moses the servant of the LORD had made in the wilderness, was there. 4 (But David had brought up the ark of God from Kiriath-jearim to the place that David had prepared for it, for he had pitched a tent for it in Jerusalem.) 5 Moreover, the bronze altar that Bezalel the son of Uri, son of Hur, had made, was there before the tabernacle of the LORD. And Solomon and the assembly sought it1 out. 6 And Solomon went up there to the bronze altar before the LORD, which was at the tent of meeting, and offered a thousand burnt offerings on it. Solomon Prays for Wisdom 7 In that night God appeared to Solomon, and said to him, “Ask what I shall give you.” 8 And Solomon said to God, “You have shown great and steadfast love to David my father, and have made me king in his place. 9 O LORD God, let your word to David my father be now fulfilled, for you have made me king over a people as numerous as the dust of the earth. 10 Give me now wisdom and knowledge to go out and come in before this people, for who can govern this people of yours, which is so great?” 11 God answered Solomon, “Because this was in your heart, and you have not asked for possessions, wealth, honor, or the life of those who hate you, and have not even asked for long life, but have asked for wisdom and knowledge for yourself that you may govern my people over whom I have made you king, 12 wisdom and knowledge are granted to you. I will also give you riches, possessions, and honor, such as none of the kings had who were before you, and none after you shall have the like.” 13 So Solomon came from2 the high place at Gibeon, from before the tent of meeting, to Jerusalem. And he reigned over Israel. Solomon Given Wealth 14 Solomon gathered together chariots and horsemen. He had 1,400 chariots and 12,000 horsemen, whom he stationed in the chariot cities and with the king in Jerusalem. 15 And the king made silver and gold as common in Jerusalem as stone, and he made cedar as plentiful as the sycamore of the Shephelah. 16 And Solomon's import of horses was from Egypt and Kue, and the king's traders would buy them from Kue for a price. 17 They imported a chariot from Egypt for 600 shekels3 of silver, and a horse for 150. Likewise through them these were exported to all the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Syria. Footnotes [1] 1:5 Or him [2] 1:13 Septuagint, Vulgate; Hebrew to [3] 1:17 A shekel was about 2/5 ounce or 11 grams (ESV) Gospels and Epistles: Luke 18:31–19:27 Luke 18:31–19:27 (Listen) Jesus Foretells His Death a Third Time 31 And taking the twelve, he said to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. 32 For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. 33 And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise.” 34 But they understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said. Jesus Heals a Blind Beggar 35 As he drew near to Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging. 36 And hearing a crowd going by, he inquired what this meant. 37 They told him, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.” 38 And he cried out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” 39 And those who were in front rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he cried out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” 40 And Jesus stopped and commanded him to be brought to him. And when he came near, he asked him, 41 “What do you want me to do for you?” He said, “Lord, let me recover my sight.” 42 And Jesus said to him, “Recover your sight; your faith has made you well.” 43 And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him, glorifying God. And all the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God. Jesus and Zacchaeus 19 He entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. 3 And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small in stature. 4 So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way. 5 And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully. 7 And when they saw it, they all grumbled, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” 8 And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.” 9 And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” The Parable of the Ten Minas 11 As they heard these things, he proceeded to tell a parable, because he was near to Jerusalem, and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately. 12 He said therefore, “A nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and then return. 13 Calling ten of his servants,1 he gave them ten minas,2 and said to them, ‘Engage in business until I come.' 14 But his citizens hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, ‘We do not want this man to reign over us.' 15 When he returned, having received the kingdom, he ordered these servants to whom he had given the money to be called to him, that he might know what they had gained by doing business. 16 The first came before him, saying, ‘Lord, your mina has made ten minas more.' 17 And he said to him, ‘Well done, good servant!3 Because you have been faithful in a very little, you shall have authority over ten cities.' 18 And the second came, saying, ‘Lord, your mina has made five minas.' 19 And he said to him, ‘And you are to be over five cities.' 20 Then another came, saying, ‘Lord, here is your mina, which I kept laid away in a handkerchief; 21 for I was afraid of you, because you are a severe man. You take what you did not deposit, and reap what you did not sow.' 22 He said to him, ‘I will condemn you with your own words, you wicked servant! You knew that I was a severe man, taking what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow? 23 Why then did you not put my money in the bank, and at my coming I might have collected it with interest?' 24 And he said to those who stood by, ‘Take the mina from him, and give it to the one who has the ten minas.' 25 And they said to him, ‘Lord, he has ten minas!' 26 ‘I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. 27 But as for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me.'” Footnotes [1] 19:13 Or bondservants; also verse 15 [2] 19:13 A mina was about three months' wages for a laborer [3] 19:17 Or bondservant; also verse 22 (ESV)

Syria is in the throes of conflict. In the northeast, Syrian Kurdish forces are fighting ISIS militants who forced a prison break last week. It's the largest recent ISIS resurgence. The president and his Russian allies are continuing airstrikes in Northwest Idlib province. But Syrian children are determined to pursue their education, video journalist Abddulrazaq Alshani found. Ali Rogin reports. PBS NewsHour is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

Russia's tense stand-off with Ukraine might seem like a straightforward case of one country menacing another, with about a hundred and twenty thousand Russian troops mustering on their neighbour's border. Russia has already occupied the Ukrainian territory of Crimea, and is widely believed to be helping separatists in the country's east. But, as an old saying has it, where you stand depends on where you sit; perspectives can vary widely. Francis Scarr was recently sitting in the rather intimate surrounds of a Russian bathhouse, and found his companions holding a very different view of who was threatening whom. The foreign troops have left, and the fighting is much diminished. Afghanistan is at relative peace, and this has given the opportunity for many refugees to return to their homes. More than two million people have fled Afghanistan over the years, but the many conflicts there have forced more than three million to leave their cities, towns and villages, while remaining within the country. Some of these have now gone back, in the hope of picking up from where they left of, but often to find all that they once owned has been taken away or is lying in ruins. Andrew North went to meet some in the southern Afghan region of Helmand. Turkey seems determined to have influence abroad to a degree - some say - not seen since the days of the Ottoman Empire. The country has already intervened militarily in both Syria and Libya and built semi-permanent military bases in Northern Iraq. Whatever one thinks of Turkey's ambitions though, the country is not usually seen as a seafaring power, yet it seems that some in the country want that to change. They explained why to Tim Whewell, during a recent trip to Istanbul. A writer who visited Scandinavia once said that theirs were the only languages where it was the vowels that were the greatest challenge. While many struggle with a French “je” or the “ch” of Germany's “Bach,” it's the a, o and u of Swedish, for example, which can be tough for foreigners to master. And then there's the intonation: much fun is made of Swede's almost sing-song way of talking. Yet, there is only so much mockery of their language that people will take, particularly when it comes to the pronunciation of their own names. The many different ways in which Mathilde Weilin's name has been pronouced have given her something of an existential crisis. The Turkana region in northern Kenya is a remote and barren place, where some of the oldest pre-human fossils have been found, remains of Homo sapiens' long-distant ancestors. However, life for the present-day people of Turkana is not easy: the land they live off has been hit by environmental damage, with drought more common than ever – the result of climate change, many believe. When Samuel Derbyshire went to study their way of life, he found the legacy of many previous efforts to help Turkana's people, and to show them more reliable means of subsistence. And yet he ended up wondering who it was that should be teaching, and who learning.

Daniel Levin is an attorney, political commentator, and author of Nothing but a Circus: Misadventures Among the Powerful and Proof of Life: Twenty Days on the Hunt for a Missing Person in the Middle East. What We Discuss with Daniel Levin: How the Syrian regime kidnaps westerners and blames the opposition, keeping them in captivity -- often for years -- as bargaining chips. How Daniel became the go-to person for hunting down a missing person in Syria when no government, embassy, or intelligence agency would help. What proof of life means in a kidnapping scenario, and how someone in search of a missing person goes about finding this. How people use leverage to get what they want from one another in a place where no one does a favor without wanting something in return. The nuances of negotiating with criminals. And much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/617 Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course! Miss our episode with FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss? Catch up with episode 165: Chris Voss | Negotiate as If Your Life Depended on It here! Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!

Guest: Kit Klarenberg. Kit Klarenberg returns to the show, again with leaked documents related to information and psychological warfare. We discuss his Grayzone article titled: “Leaked files expose Syria psyops veteran astroturfing BreadTube star to counter Covid restriction critics.” In this case a state-sponsored influence operation was created to undermine critics of coronavirus policies and they're covertly using at least one prominent YouTube personality as their media conduit for elite, establishment, imperial narratives. In a bonus question we talk about strategies for finding genuine media sources and channels.  Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist who explores the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions and he has been published by numerous media outlets including The Grayzone, Cradle, Electronic Intifada, RT and more.  FOLLOW @KitKlarenberg, follow his work on his substack https://substack.com/profile/29599137-kit-klarenberg Around the Empire aroundtheempire.com is listener supported, independent media. SUBSCRIBE/FOLLOW on Rokfin rokfin.com/aroundtheempire, Patreon patreon.com/aroundtheempire, Paypal paypal.me/aroundtheempirepod, YouTube youtube.com/aroundtheempire, Spotify, iTunes, iHeart, Google Podcasts FOLLOW @aroundtheempire and @joanneleon.  Join us on TELEGRAM https://t.me/AroundtheEmpire Find everything on http://aroundtheempire.com  and linktr.ee/aroundtheempire Reference Links: Leaked files expose Syria psyops veteran astroturfing BreadTube star to counter Covid restriction critics, Kit Klarenberg, Grayzone ProDemocracy Pod: Episode 19: Breadtube Exposed with Kit Klarenberg and Caleb Maupin Around the Empire: Ep 210 Information Warfare Networks feat Kit Klarenberg & Mohamed Elmaazi

ISIS fighters have carried out deadly, sophisticated attacks on a prison in northeast Syria since last Thursday. The prison holds hundreds of ISIS members, among them children who were brought to the caliphate by their parents. And, Jan. 26 is officially Australia Day, but to Indigenous communities, it's Invasion Day. In 1972, an Indigenous demonstration in front of the Canberra Parliament building became a major turning point for Indigenous rights in Australia. Plus, Olavo de Carvalho, a self-proclaimed philosopher whose ideas helped fuel a far-right resurgence in Brazil, has died of COVID-19.

Today's guest on Danger Close is retired admiral and New York Times bestselling author James Stavridis.    His 2021 bestselling geopolitical thriller titled 2034: A NOVEL OF THE NEXT WORLD WAR is best described as a cautionary tale of speculative fiction.     During his 37-year military career, Admiral Stavridis earned more than 50 medals, including 28 from foreign nations.   From 2006-2009 he served as Commander of the U.S. Southern Command, and from 2009-2013 he served as the Supreme Allied Commander for the NATO Alliance, overseeing global operations in Afghanistan, Libya, the Balkans, and Syria.    Following his time in the military he served as the Dean of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.     Admiral Stavridis holds a PhD in international relations, is a senior executive at the global investment firm The Carlyle Group, is an author, speaker, contributing TIME Magazine editor, and is the Chief International Security Analyst for NBC News.     In his latest work, The Sailor's Bookshelf: Fifty Books to Know the Sea, Admiral Stavridis examines dozens of books “that illustrate the history, importance, lore, and lifestyle of the oceans and of those who ‘go down to the sea in ships.'”   You can follow him on Twitter @stavridisj and you can learn more about his work at admiralstav.com.     Sponsors: Navy Federal Credit Union: Today's episode is presented by Navy Federal Credit Union. Learn more about them at navyfederal.org Black Rifle Coffee Company: Today's episode is also brought to you by Black Rifle.    Featured Gear: Today's gear segment is brought to you by Paleo Valley, the maker of 100% grass fed and grass finished beef sticks. Enter code DANGERCLOSE15 at checkout for 15% off your order at paleovalley.com. Toyotas of War  The UDT-SEAL Museum  Winfield Watch Company

This week, Alan, Quinta, and Scott were joined by Lawfare managing editor, Jacob Schulz! They talked through some of the week's biggest national security news, including:“The Shawshank Detention.” The Islamic State attempted a violent jail break of thousands of their confederates this week in Syria. And while U.S.-backed Kurdish forces appear to have contained the damage thus far, the outcome remains far from certain. What does this tell us about the state of the U.S. strategy in Syria?“Pure Michigan.” The prosecution of the attempted kidnappers of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has hit a snag, with defense attorneys (and the conservative media) alleging that purported misconduct on the part of the FBI amounts to entrapment. What could a failure here mean for the fight against domestic violent extremism?“Urgent Chinese Secrets, Huh?” The Justice Department has dropped charges in a leading case in the China Initiative, a Trump-era program that targets individuals for improper ties to China but has been criticized for encouraging racial discrimination and chilling legitimate research. Is this the end of the program or something else?For object lessons, Alan drew our attention to the "Just Enough Family" podcast, which features classic tales of things not working out for rich people. Quinta urged Wordle fans to check out its more challenging Bizarro World counterpart, Absurdle. Scott made a passionate plea for reform in relation to one of our country's most systemic procedural injustices: NFL overtime rules. And Jacob endorsed both the ongoing Africa Cup of Nations soccer competition and the optimistically cosmopolitan sci-fi throwback (to 2016), "Arrival." Be sure to visit our show page at www.lawfareblog.com and to follow us on Twitter at @RatlSecurity. And Rational Security listeners can get a committed ad-free feed by becoming a Lawfare material supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Khabat Abbas is an independent journalist and video producer from northeastern Syria, and the winner of the 2021 Kurt Schork News Fixer Award. ”I can see from my experience that there is a gap between the editors, who are kind of elites in their luxury offices, and the amazing journalists who are in the field, who all sympathize with what they are seeing on the ground and want to cover [it], but they have to satisfy the editors. And this is how we end up having little gaps in the ways of covering in general. It's not a matter of like, they shaped it in this way. The problem, I think, it's bigger. How this industry is working, how this industry is deciding what they should cover.” Show notes: @khabat_abas Kurt Schork Awards in International Journalism 40:00 "The Former 'Caliphate Capital' Is Haunted by Fears of an ISIS Comeback" (Washington Post • May 2020) 51:00 "'This Is Ethnic Cleansing': A Dispatch from Kurdish Syria" (New York Review of Books • Oct 2019) 51:00 "For Kurds on the Syrian Front Line There's No Ceasefire" (The Daily Beast • Nov 2019) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On COI #222, Kyle Anzalone and Connor Freeman cover the hawks advocating the killing of Russians, the ongoing Cold War with China, and recent violence in Syria. Connor reviews his latest column discussing the Washington imperial elite's calls for Russian blood during the Ukraine crisis. The Biden administration, the CIA, Senators from both parties, and NATO officials have been promoting policies that will lead to war. Military aid to Kiev is skyrocketing. U.S. lawmakers seek to tie Biden's hands and only continue increasing tensions with Moscow. Kyle details military and political escalations with Beijing. In a move sure to anger the Chinese, Taipei's Vice President is visiting the U.S. soon.  The Seventh Fleet is carrying out war drills with dual aircraft carrier strike groups in the South China Sea and the Philippine Sea. An F-35 recently crash-landed on the USS Carl Vinson's deck during the provocative South China Sea exercise.  In response to a U.S. destroyer's recent FONOP in the region, China's military is demanding an end to these frequent hostile maneuvers. Kyle updates the chaotic situation in Syria. An Islamic State attack on a prison in Kurdish territory reportedly holding ISIS suspects, including child detainees, has left scores dead and thousands displaced. The prison break in Hasakah began with two car bombs. Daesh prisoners overpowered prison guards, killing them and taking their weapons. Backing the Kurds, the U.S. has been committing airstrikes. On top of this, U.S. lawmakers are attempting to put a stop to Arab states' efforts to normalize relations with Damascus. Odysee Rumble  Donate LBRY Credits bTTEiLoteVdMbLS7YqDVSZyjEY1eMgW7CP Donate Bitcoin 36PP4kT28jjUZcL44dXDonFwrVVDHntsrk Donate Bitcoin Cash Qp6gznu4xm97cj7j9vqepqxcfuctq2exvvqu7aamz6 Patreon Subscribe Star YouTube Facebook  Twitter  MeWe Apple Podcast  Amazon Music Google Podcasts Spotify iHeart Radio Support Our Sponsor Visit Paloma Verde and use code PEACE for 25% off our CBD  

On COI #222, Kyle Anzalone and Connor Freeman cover the hawks advocating the killing of Russians, the ongoing Cold War with China, and recent violence in Syria. Connor reviews his latest column discussing the Washington imperial elite's calls for Russian blood during the Ukraine crisis. The Biden administration, the CIA, Senators from both parties, and NATO officials have been promoting policies that will lead to war. Military aid to Kiev is skyrocketing. U.S. lawmakers seek to tie Biden's hands and only continue increasing tensions with Moscow. Kyle details military and political escalations with Beijing. In a move sure to anger the Chinese, Taipei's Vice President is visiting the U.S. soon.  The Seventh Fleet is carrying out war drills with dual aircraft carrier strike groups in the South China Sea and the Philippine Sea. An F-35 recently crash landed on the USS Carl Vinson's deck during the provocative South China Sea exercise.  In response to a U.S. destroyer's recent FONOP in the region, China's military is demanding an end to these frequent hostile maneuvers. Kyle updates the chaotic situation in Syria. An Islamic State attack on a prison in Kurdish territory reportedly holding ISIS suspects, including child detainees, has left scores dead and thousands displaced. The prison break in Hasakah began with two car bombs. Daesh prisoners overpowered prison guards, killing them and taking their weapons. Backing the Kurds, the U.S. has been committing airstrikes. On top of this, U.S. lawmakers are attempting to put a stop to Arab states' efforts to normalize relations with Damascus.

In the olive tree-rich region of Afrin in northwestern Syria, a different type of oil fuels the wartime economy—olive oil. A new Mezze from the Middle East Program. This episode was adapted from our monthly Mezze series, shining a spotlight on under-discussed trends and debates shaping the Middle East. You can read past examples of our Mezzes on the CSIS website.

Since 2011, Syria has been engaged in a devastating civil war. More than three hundred fifty thousand people have been killed during the conflict. The war has forced more than six million people to flee the country. These Syrians in forced exile have had to endure overcrowded refugee camps, treacherous journeys by sea, and painful family separations.  Academy Award winning director Megan Mylan is known for her films "Lost Boys of Sudan" and "Smile Pinki." Her latest documentary, "Simple as Water," follows several families of Syrian refugees.  The Takeaway spoke with Mylan to find out more about how she created such a compassionate depiction of people whose stories are frequently sensationalized. "Simple as Water" is available to stream now on HBO Max.

On today's In the News roundtable, Brian Becker, Esther Iverem and Nicole Roussell discuss the U.S. evacuation of the U.S. embassy in Kiev while stating that war with Russia may be soon, the win for Julian Assange giving him his right to appeal to the U.K. Supreme Court to stop his extradition to the United States, the Senate's maneuvers against protecting voting rights, and the newly exposed U.S. war crimes against the people in Syria. Please make an urgently-needed contribution to The Socialist Program by joining our Patreon community at patreon.com/thesocialistprogram. We rely on the generous support of our listeners to keep bringing you consistent, high-quality shows. All Patreon donors of $5 a month or more are invited to join the monthly Q&A seminar with Brian.

Welcome to The Times of Israel's Daily Briefing, your 15-minute audio update on what's happening in Israel, the Middle East, and the Jewish world, from Sunday through Thursday. Military correspondent Judah Ari Gross and Arab Affairs reporter Aaron Boxerman join host Jessica Steinberg. Boxerman and Gross discuss the ongoing increase of extremist settler violence against Palestinians and whether it's a matter for the Israel Defense Forces or the Israel Police to handle in the West Bank. Gross takes a quick look at why Russia held a joint jet patrol with Syria along the Golan Heights, and how Israel will delicately approach the matter with Russian military officials. We also briefly talk about vegan bacon startup being funded by Natalie Portman and whether meat eaters will ultimately be interested in plant-based meat products. Discussed articles include: 3 Palestinians injured after Jewish extremists attack West Bank village near Nablus Israel said holding talks with Russia over Syria standoff, may limit air campaign Russia said conducting joint patrols of Syrian border airspace, including over Golan Natalie Portman, French firm work to create vegan bacon Subscribe to The Times of Israel Daily Briefing on iTunes, Spotify, PlayerFM, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts. IMAGE: An Israeli soldier stands by as Israeli settlers enter a Palestinian playground in Susiya, a Palestinian hamlet in the West Bank, on Saturday, November 6, 2021 (Credit: Guy Butuvia) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Photo:   Part-donkey, part-wild ass, the kunga is the oldest known hybrid bred by humans The mysterious equines were bred in Syria 4,500 years ago, likely for use in warfare:  equid-drawn four-wheeled war wagons on the battlefield for centuries, as evidenced by the famous "Standard of Ur," a 4,500-year-old Sumerian mosaic  "Indiana" Hoenlein and the 4500 year-old Lost Kunga Warhorse of Mesopotamia. Malcolm Hoenlein @Conf_of_pres @mhoenlein1@ ; ThadMcCotter @ThadMcCotter  @theamgreatness https://www.sciencenews.org/article/kunga-donkey-wild-ass-hybrid-biology

‘No free ride' for COVID-19: WHO's Tedros Misinformation threat to inoculation campaigns Syria: Condemnation for ISIL detention centre attack 

CSIS' Emily Harding discusses her new report Move Over JARVIS, Meet OSCAR, which calls for the Intelligence Community to reap the benefits of artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) capabilities with respect to unclassified cloud capability. In her report, Harding draws from her personal experience as an analyst to identify problems with the Intelligence Community's existing systems for collecting information, and makes actionable recommendations that will break the logjam and allow the intelligence community to revolutionize open-source intelligence. 

In this week's episode, A'ndre and Ryan sit down with former CIA Analyst David McCloskey to talk about his new spy thriller novel, Damascus Station. Set in the backdrop of the early years of the Syrian Civil War, Damascus Station depicts the conflict through the eyes of CIA Case Officer Sam Joseph and Syrian Palace Official Mariam Haddad. Sam recruits Mariam for CIA, but the two fall in love, complicating matters as the U.S. Governments tries to find answers about the whereabouts of a missing CIA agent, believed to be held captive by the Syrian Government. David discusses his writing style and why he chose to depict the Syrian Civil War through a work of fiction, in addition to talking about his portrayal of characters within both the U.S. and Syrian Governments. David also provides us with a broad overview of the Syrian conflict and the incumbent Assad regime, contextualizing the story in his book.

(Part 2 of 2)Aurelian had accomplished more in two years than lesser Emperors had in 50. Both The Goths and Germans had been humbled by his ruthless campaigning.His message to those that dwelt beyond the borders was clear: The Roman Empire is omnipotent, know your place or face its might. But in Syria lay Zenobia, the self proclaimed ‘Queen Of The East'. With a force that rivalled Aurelian's, she was not likely to accept re-integration quietly. And that was to say nothing of his political rivals, waiting eagerly for the first sign of weakness to defect…The explosion conclusion to the life of Emperor Aurelian ‘Restorer Of The World'.Join The Anthology on Instagram for extra content related to this episode! (https://www.instagram.com/anthologyofheroes/)Supporting Pictures/Sources/Further Reading/Attributions are available in episode links.Become a Patreon and lend your voice to the show! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

NOTE: Our main Twitter account for Patrick Henningsen @21WIRE has been permanently deplatformed by Twitter's censorship department – please follow our alternative account @21stCenturyWire This week the SUNDAY WIRE broadcasts LIVE on ACR, with host Patrick Henningsen covering all the top stories in US, UK and internationally. In the first hour we'll be joined by a special guest Dr Vernon Coleman to discuss the collapse of the ‘pandemic' narrative, as bureaucratic and ‘public health' officials are all scrambling for the exits as the Covid (allegedly the deadliest pathogen known to man) and vaccine narratives begin to crumble around them. In the second hour we'll revisit the work of British independent reporter who was based in Syria, Tom Duggan, who sadly passed away last week (see some of his on the ground reporting for 21WIRE here and here). In the final Overdrive segment, we'll also be joined by the Sunday Wire's roving correspondent for culture & sport Basil Valentine to weigh-in on the discussion. All this and much more. GET YOUR COPY OF NEW DAWN MAGAZINE'S NEW SPECIAL ISSUE: https://21w.co/ndv15n6  GET 'LUV'IN THE OLD NORMAL' T-SHIRTS HERE: https://21w.co/old-normal JOIN OUR TELEGRAM CHANNEL HERE: https://t.me/My21wire   SUPPORT OUR MEDIA PLATFORM HERE: https://21w.co/support  SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV: https://21wire.tv The Sunday Wire with Patrick Henningsen broadcasts LIVE on Alternate Current Radio SUNDAY 5pm-8pm UK Time, 12pm-3pm EST (US), 9am-12pm PST (US) at: http://alternatecurrentradio.com  http://thesundaywire.com

Soldiers have mutinied at several barracks in Burkina Faso, demanding the sacking of military chiefs and more resources to fight militant Islamists. Hundreds of people came out in support of the troops and torched the ruling party's headquarters. Also in the programme: Fighting continues between Kurdish fighters and Islamic State militants in northern Syria; and exactly two years on from the day Beijing ordered the lockdown of the city of Wuhan, we ask if China is struggling to maintain ‘zero Covid'. (Photo: People hold a Burkina Faso flag as hundreds gather in downtown Ouagadougou to show support for the military. Credit: Reuters).

Turkey spent much of the 20th-century building itself back up from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, striving to once again become the major power at the world's crossroads. Turkey's influence now extends to the battlefields of North Africa, to the slopes of the Caucasus, to the supply chains of Europe, and into the frontlines of Syria. Although there is one more front Turkey is looking to gain influence in, Central Asia. Can Ankara use its cultural connections with its Turkic neighbours across the Caspian to position itself as the balance of power between Russia and China in Central Asia? On the panel this week - Alex Kokcharov (Russia Analyst) - Matthew Bryza (Fmr US Amb) - Hugh Williamson (Human Rights Watch) - Bruce Pannier (Radio Free Liberty) Follow the Red Line on @TheRedLinePod Follow Michael on @MikeHilliardAus For more info please visit www.theredlinepodcast.com

Anarchist Struggle, or Tekoşîna Anarşist in Kurmanji, is an anarchist combat medic collective operating in Rojava since the time of the war against Daesh / Isis, though its roots go back further. For the hour, you'll hear a voice actor sharing the words of a member of TA calling themselves Robin Goldman about the their experiences of Asymmetric Warfare waged by Turkey and its proxies in the TFSA, the culture of TA right now, the medical work they're doing, queerness in Rojava and other topics. You can find TA online on twitter at @TA_Anarsist as well as their website TekosinaAnarsist.NoBlogs.Org. Members of TA suggested that folks interested in queer and trans organizing in Rojava support the group Keskasor, Kurdish for rainbow and based in Diyarbakir, Turkey. It can be emailed at heftreng.keskesor@gmail.com, found on twitter via @Keskasor_lgbti or on instagram at @KeskesorLGBTI, though their social media presence was last updated in 2020. Transcript PDF (Unimposed) Zine (Imposed PDF) Some Formations Related to TA: International Freedom Battalion (IFB) on FB: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Freedom_Battalion International Revolutionary People's Guerrilla Forces (IRPGF) -demobilized: https://archive.org/details/@irpgf The Queer Insurrection and Liberation Army (TIQLA) -demobilized Groups mentioned ala Rojava: Make Rojava Green Again: https://makerojavagreenagain.org/ Internationalist Commune of Rojava: https://internationalistcommune.com/ You can find an interview we did with ICR at our website Jineoloji International: https://jineoloji.org/en/ Rojava Information Center: https://rojavainformationcenter.com/ Heyva Sur A Kurd (Kurdish Red Crescent): https://hskurd.org/en/homeen/ Announcements Zolo Azania Former Black Panther, political prisoner and BLA veteran Zolo Agana Azania is seeking help. Since being released from prison and returning to the streets of Indiana in 2017 after more than 35 years behind bars, he has poured himself into organizing solidarity and support for other former prisoners. He still has not received his 2020 covid relief funds, likely impacted by his housing precarity, and is trying to purchase an inexpensive house to offer him stability in his later years. If you'd like to help, you can cashapp Zolo at $ZoloAzania5 . You can hear an interview with Zolo from 2018 plus his participation in an IDOCWatch panel at our website, linked in the show notes. Eric King's Mail Ban Temporarily Lifted That's right, you can send mail and books to anarchist and anti-fascist prisoner, Eric King! You can find his writings, art and updates on his case at SupportEricKing.Org, you can find his amazon wishlist there as well and you can send him letters via: Eric King #27090-045 FCI Englewood 9595 West Quincy Avenue Littleton, CO 80123 Asheville Continues To Attack The Homeless In a last minute addition to these announcements, according to a leaked email by a local, Asheville-based non-profit serving houseless folks, Asheville's City Council may be considering passing an ordinance based on the failed Ft. Lauderdale, Florida ban on the sharing of food in public spaces, which in the Asheville case appears to be based on a suggestion by Asheville Police Captain Mike Lamb. An article just published on the Asheville Free Press explains the context, what the non-profit group Beloved is suggesting as next steps, which includes applying pressure at the upcoming January 25th City Council meeting. This comes on the heels of a wave of knocks, warrants and arrests of people engaged in protests against homeless sweeps here in freezing temperatures at the end of last year. Keep an ear out and toss support for legal fees to the Blue Ridge Anarchist Black Cross legal defense fund at ­ or you can donate to the final straw's payment methods with a note that it's for legal defense and we'll pass it off. Fire Ant Journal #11 is Out! You can find the latest edition of Fire Ant Journal, featuring writings and art by Thomas Mayer-Falk, Eric King, Pepe and info on Sean Swain, Jennifer Rose and more via Bloomington ABC BAD News #52 is Available! The monthly episode of the A-Radio Network's English podcast includes Črna Luknja with a member of CrimethInc on the fire at their publishing house recently, A-Radio Berlin brings words on the attack by leftist bro's on the queer anarcha-feminist Syrena squat in Warsaw, Elephant In The Room gives a brief round up of the uprising in Kazakhstan and comrades at Free Social Radio 1431 AM in Thessaloniki talk about the eviction of Biologia Squat. Support Here are a few ways you can give back to The Final Straw You can subscribe to our podcast on various platforms, follow and share our materials online as well as give us feedback via links found at TFSR.WTF/Tree To support our transcription work and wider project, you can subscribe to us via Patreon.com/TFSR, buy some merch or find donation methods at TFSR.WTF/Support Find those transcriptions and zines for distro'ing, mailing into prisons, or translating at TFSR.WTF/Zines And you can get us onto radio stations in your area with info at TFSR.WTF/Radio . ... . .. Featured Tracks: Yasin  is a remix by Rizan Said of this song (original version based on an Arab folk song from the Hesekê region featured in the film "Darên bi Tenê" or "The Only Trees") Şervano by Mehmûd Berazî (an article about the song, often sang at funerals)

IS fighters attacked a prison where thousands of jihadists are held. Also, Kiribati imposes its first lockdown, and the robot vacuum cleaner that got away.

A battle is continuing for a third day in northern Syria between Islamic State militants and Kurdish forces guarding a prison where thousands of jihadists are held. The clashes began after IS militants staged an attack on the prison in the city of Hasakeh to secure the release of their fellow combatants. We speak to a journalist who was in the town. Also in the programme: the Roman Catholic Church is beatifying four people, including two priests, who were murdered by right wing death squads during El Salvador's civil war; and we speak to the newly appointed Chilean Environment Minister on balancing prosperity and tackling climate change. (Photo: Syrian Kurdish civilians are forced to flee their homes by clashed between Kurdish-led SDF forces and Islamic State fighters Credit: EPA/Ahmed Mardinli)

The drug-related violence in Mexico is sometimes described as being “like a war.” Certainly the death toll justifies calling it that, with three hundred thousand people killed in the past fifteen years, many of them innocent civilians. About a hundred thousand have simply disappeared, presumed dead, and with their families left to search for them. Will Grant travelled to the northern state of Sonora, and joined locals digging in the ground, both hopeful - and fearful - of what they might find. The long-running civil war in Syria has forced half the country to leave their homes: around six and a half million are internally displaced within Syria, and another six and a half million have fled abroad. Most of those who reached Europe have gone to Germany, many traumatised, having survived bombings, or lost family members in the fighting – some have been tortured. You might expect these people would form tight-knit communities, as victims of similar harsh experiences looking out for each other. However, when Michael Ertl spoke to Syrian refugees in Berlin he found a community divided by mistrust. The streets in Kazakhstan's cities are quiet now, and the Russian soldiers have gone home; the country is returning to some semblance of normality, after anti-government protests which left at least two hundred people dead. However, the country's Defence Minister has been sacked for failing to quell the protests when they started, and the head of Kazakhstan's intelligence agency, the KNB, has been arrested for treason. Meanwhile, Abdujalil Abdurasulov says, thousands of protestors remain in detention, with allegations they have been tortured. Here' a puzzle: what cost nearly a billion pounds, has not been finished, and will not do what it was designed for any time soon? The answer is: a new road in Montenegro. It was supposed to link the country's main port to Montenegro's neighbour, Serbia, encouraging valuable cargo to the country. However, the project is already two year's late, and so far, this road to the sea does not actually reach the sea, but stops way short. Chinese money is involved, along with Montenegrin politicians past and present, and some allege corruption behind what Linda Pressly says is fast becoming another Balkan scandal. If it is true that cats have nine lives, then Mohamed Ibrahim Moalimuu must be running them a close second. A former BBC journalist, Mohamed has been caught up in no fewer than five suicide attacks, all in his home country, Somalia. Number five came last Sunday; he survived, but another suicide attack that same day killed at least eight people – just another weekend in a country torn apart by violence for the past three decades. So what makes someone like Mohamed continue to do work which places them directly in harm's way? Mary Harper has known him for many years, and even she struggles to understand how he keeps going.

Come with us to the Middle East as VOM Radio host, Todd Nettleton, and his wife, Char, share stories from a recent visit to persecuted Christians in the region. Listen as they share updates on Iraqi refugees who fled from ISIS more than five years ago and what the Lord is currently doing in the lives of persecuted Christians – even one who has only been a believer one week! You'll hear about an Iranian woman who, in just two years as a believer, has planted almost 40 churches! She uses every opportunity to pray for others in Jesus' name. When those prayers are answered, they instantly want to know more about the Lord she serves. Learn about Christians in the Middle East sacrificially staying with Muslim family members—in spite of persecution—in the hope of seeing their relatives know Christ. Listen also to hear about a service where former Muslims were baptized into new life in Christ—and the joy radiating from the new believers' faces. As ISIS drove across the Nineveh plains, many Iraqi Christians fled to surrounding countries as refugees. More than five years later, many are still waiting for a new beginning in another country. They are unable to work and their children can't attend school. But the church is welcoming them—both Muslim and Christian refugees. VOM continues to partner with churches to help meet Christian refugees' needs and encourage them in this discouraging season. Learn how you can pray for them and for the church in the Middle East.  Never miss an episode of VOM Radio! Subscribe to the podcast!

Support Pushback at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/aaronmate After defeating the US and its allies' decade-long dirty war, Syria is finding ways to rebuild under US military occupation and crippling sanctions/economic warfare. Author Tim Anderson discusses Syria's post-war recovery under sanctions and occupation; routine Israeli bombings and Russia's failure to stop them; Syria joining China's Belt and Road Initiative; and, in the wake of recent New York Times exposes on deadly US airstrikes that were covered up in Syria, how the US used ISIS as a tool for regime change while claiming to fight it. Guest: Tim Anderson. Writer, academic, and Director of the Sydney-based Centre for Counter Hegemonic Studies. His books include "The Dirty War on Syria" and "Axis of Resistance." Discussed in this segment: Tim Anderson: "Syria: Why the US massacre at Al-Baghouz?" https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/syria:-why-the-us-massacre-at-al-baghouz Aaron Maté: "To keep troops in Syria, US leaders are lying like in Afghanistan" https://mate.substack.com/p/to-keep-troops-in-syria-us-leaders

With family: Genesis 22; Matthew 21 Genesis 22 (Listen) The Sacrifice of Isaac 22 After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” 2 He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” 3 So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. 4 On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. 5 Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy1 will go over there and worship and come again to you.” 6 And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son. And he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together. 7 And Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” 8 Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So they went both of them together. 9 When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. 10 Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. 11 But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” 12 He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” 13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 So Abraham called the name of that place, “The LORD will provide”;2 as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided.”3 15 And the angel of the LORD called to Abraham a second time from heaven 16 and said, “By myself I have sworn, declares the LORD, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17 I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his4 enemies, 18 and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.” 19 So Abraham returned to his young men, and they arose and went together to Beersheba. And Abraham lived at Beersheba. 20 Now after these things it was told to Abraham, “Behold, Milcah also has borne children to your brother Nahor: 21 Uz his firstborn, Buz his brother, Kemuel the father of Aram, 22 Chesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaph, and Bethuel.” 23 (Bethuel fathered Rebekah.) These eight Milcah bore to Nahor, Abraham's brother. 24 Moreover, his concubine, whose name was Reumah, bore Tebah, Gaham, Tahash, and Maacah. Footnotes [1] 22:5 Or young man; also verse 12 [2] 22:14 Or will see [3] 22:14 Or he will be seen [4] 22:17 Or their (ESV) Matthew 21 (Listen) The Triumphal Entry 21 Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord needs them,' and he will send them at once.” 4 This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying, 5   “Say to the daughter of Zion,  ‘Behold, your king is coming to you,    humble, and mounted on a donkey,    on a colt,1 the foal of a beast of burden.'” 6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them. 7 They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them. 8 Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” 10 And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, “Who is this?” 11 And the crowds said, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.” Jesus Cleanses the Temple 12 And Jesus entered the temple2 and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. 13 He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,' but you make it a den of robbers.” 14 And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. 15 But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant, 16 and they said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read,   “‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies    you have prepared praise'?” 17 And leaving them, he went out of the city to Bethany and lodged there. Jesus Curses the Fig Tree 18 In the morning, as he was returning to the city, he became hungry. 19 And seeing a fig tree by the wayside, he went to it and found nothing on it but only leaves. And he said to it, “May no fruit ever come from you again!” And the fig tree withered at once. 20 When the disciples saw it, they marveled, saying, “How did the fig tree wither at once?” 21 And Jesus answered them, “Truly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,' it will happen. 22 And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.” The Authority of Jesus Challenged 23 And when he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came up to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” 24 Jesus answered them, “I also will ask you one question, and if you tell me the answer, then I also will tell you by what authority I do these things. 25 The baptism of John, from where did it come? From heaven or from man?” And they discussed it among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,' he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?' 26 But if we say, ‘From man,' we are afraid of the crowd, for they all hold that John was a prophet.” 27 So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things. The Parable of the Two Sons 28 “What do you think? A man had two sons. And he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.' 29 And he answered, ‘I will not,' but afterward he changed his mind and went. 30 And he went to the other son and said the same. And he answered, ‘I go, sir,' but did not go. 31 Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you. 32 For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. And even when you saw it, you did not afterward change your minds and believe him. The Parable of the Tenants 33 “Hear another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants, and went into another country. 34 When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants3 to the tenants to get his fruit. 35 And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. 36 Again he sent other servants, more than the first. And they did the same to them. 37 Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.' 38 But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.' 39 And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. 40 When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” 41 They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.” 42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:   “‘The stone that the builders rejected    has become the cornerstone;4  this was the Lord's doing,    and it is marvelous in our eyes'? 43 Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. 44 And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.”5 45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them. 46 And although they were seeking to arrest him, they feared the crowds, because they held him to be a prophet. Footnotes [1] 21:5 Or donkey, and on a colt [2] 21:12 Some manuscripts add of God [3] 21:34 Or bondservants; also verses 35, 36 [4] 21:42 Greek the head of the corner [5] 21:44 Some manuscripts omit verse 44 (ESV) In private: Nehemiah 11; Acts 21 Nehemiah 11 (Listen) The Leaders in Jerusalem 11 Now the leaders of the people lived in Jerusalem. And the rest of the people cast lots to bring one out of ten to live in Jerusalem the holy city, while nine out of ten1 remained in the other towns. 2 And the people blessed all the men who willingly offered to live in Jerusalem. 3 These are the chiefs of the province who lived in Jerusalem; but in the towns of Judah everyone lived on his property in their towns: Israel, the priests, the Levites, the temple servants, and the descendants of Solomon's servants. 4 And in Jerusalem lived certain of the sons of Judah and of the sons of Benjamin. Of the sons of Judah: Athaiah the son of Uzziah, son of Zechariah, son of Amariah, son of Shephatiah, son of Mahalalel, of the sons of Perez; 5 and Maaseiah the son of Baruch, son of Col-hozeh, son of Hazaiah, son of Adaiah, son of Joiarib, son of Zechariah, son of the Shilonite. 6 All the sons of Perez who lived in Jerusalem were 468 valiant men. 7 And these are the sons of Benjamin: Sallu the son of Meshullam, son of Joed, son of Pedaiah, son of Kolaiah, son of Maaseiah, son of Ithiel, son of Jeshaiah, 8 and his brothers, men of valor, 928.2 9 Joel the son of Zichri was their overseer; and Judah the son of Hassenuah was second over the city. 10 Of the priests: Jedaiah the son of Joiarib, Jachin, 11 Seraiah the son of Hilkiah, son of Meshullam, son of Zadok, son of Meraioth, son of Ahitub, ruler of the house of God, 12 and their brothers who did the work of the house, 822; and Adaiah the son of Jeroham, son of Pelaliah, son of Amzi, son of Zechariah, son of Pashhur, son of Malchijah, 13 and his brothers, heads of fathers' houses, 242; and Amashsai, the son of Azarel, son of Ahzai, son of Meshillemoth, son of Immer, 14 and their brothers, mighty men of valor, 128; their overseer was Zabdiel the son of Haggedolim. 15 And of the Levites: Shemaiah the son of Hasshub, son of Azrikam, son of Hashabiah, son of Bunni; 16 and Shabbethai and Jozabad, of the chiefs of the Levites, who were over the outside work of the house of God; 17 and Mattaniah the son of Mica, son of Zabdi, son of Asaph, who was the leader of the praise,3 who gave thanks, and Bakbukiah, the second among his brothers; and Abda the son of Shammua, son of Galal, son of Jeduthun. 18 All the Levites in the holy city were 284. 19 The gatekeepers, Akkub, Talmon and their brothers, who kept watch at the gates, were 172. 20 And the rest of Israel, and of the priests and the Levites, were in all the towns of Judah, every one in his inheritance. 21 But the temple servants lived on Ophel; and Ziha and Gishpa were over the temple servants. 22 The overseer of the Levites in Jerusalem was Uzzi the son of Bani, son of Hashabiah, son of Mattaniah, son of Mica, of the sons of Asaph, the singers, over the work of the house of God. 23 For there was a command from the king concerning them, and a fixed provision for the singers, as every day required. 24 And Pethahiah the son of Meshezabel, of the sons of Zerah the son of Judah, was at the king's side4 in all matters concerning the people. Villages Outside Jerusalem 25 And as for the villages, with their fields, some of the people of Judah lived in Kiriath-arba and its villages, and in Dibon and its villages, and in Jekabzeel and its villages, 26 and in Jeshua and in Moladah and Beth-pelet, 27 in Hazar-shual, in Beersheba and its villages, 28 in Ziklag, in Meconah and its villages, 29 in En-rimmon, in Zorah, in Jarmuth, 30 Zanoah, Adullam, and their villages, Lachish and its fields, and Azekah and its villages. So they encamped from Beersheba to the Valley of Hinnom. 31 The people of Benjamin also lived from Geba onward, at Michmash, Aija, Bethel and its villages, 32 Anathoth, Nob, Ananiah, 33 Hazor, Ramah, Gittaim, 34 Hadid, Zeboim, Neballat, 35 Lod, and Ono, the valley of craftsmen. 36 And certain divisions of the Levites in Judah were assigned to Benjamin. Footnotes [1] 11:1 Hebrew nine hands [2] 11:8 Compare Septuagint; Hebrew Jeshaiah, and after him Gabbai, Sallai, 928 [3] 11:17 Compare Septuagint, Vulgate; Hebrew beginning [4] 11:24 Hebrew hand (ESV) Acts 21 (Listen) Paul Goes to Jerusalem 21 And when we had parted from them and set sail, we came by a straight course to Cos, and the next day to Rhodes, and from there to Patara.1 2 And having found a ship crossing to Phoenicia, we went aboard and set sail. 3 When we had come in sight of Cyprus, leaving it on the left we sailed to Syria and landed at Tyre, for there the ship was to unload its cargo. 4 And having sought out the disciples, we stayed there for seven days. And through the Spirit they were telling Paul not to go on to Jerusalem. 5 When our days there were ended, we departed and went on our journey, and they all, with wives and children, accompanied us until we were outside the city. And kneeling down on the beach, we prayed 6 and said farewell to one another. Then we went on board the ship, and they returned home. 7 When we had finished the voyage from Tyre, we arrived at Ptolemais, and we greeted the brothers2 and stayed with them for one day. 8 On the next day we departed and came to Caesarea, and we entered the house of Philip the evangelist, who was one of the seven, and stayed with him. 9 He had four unmarried daughters, who prophesied. 10 While we were staying for many days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. 11 And coming to us, he took Paul's belt and bound his own feet and hands and said, “Thus says the Holy Spirit, ‘This is how the Jews3 at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.'” 12 When we heard this, we and the people there urged him not to go up to Jerusalem. 13 Then Paul answered, “What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be imprisoned but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” 14 And since he would not be persuaded, we ceased and said, “Let the will of the Lord be done.” 15 After these days we got ready and went up to Jerusalem. 16 And some of the disciples from Caesarea went with us, bringing us to the house of Mnason of Cyprus, an early disciple, with whom we should lodge. Paul Visits James 17 When we had come to Jerusalem, the brothers received us gladly. 18 On the following day Paul went in with us to James, and all the elders were present. 19 After greeting them, he related one by one the things that God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry. 20 And when they heard it, they glorified God. And they said to him, “You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed. They are all zealous for the law, 21 and they have been told about you that you teach all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or walk according to our customs. 22 What then is to be done? They will certainly hear that you have come. 23 Do therefore what we tell you. We have four men who are under a vow; 24 take these men and purify yourself along with them and pay their expenses, so that they may shave their heads. Thus all will know that there is nothing in what they have been told about you, but that you yourself also live in observance of the law. 25 But as for the Gentiles who have believed, we have sent a letter with our judgment that they should abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled,4 and from sexual immorality.” 26 Then Paul took the men, and the next day he purified himself along with them and went into the temple, giving notice when the days of purification would be fulfilled and the offering presented for each one of them. Paul Arrested in the Temple 27 When the seven days were almost completed, the Jews from Asia, seeing him in the temple, stirred up the whole crowd and laid hands on him, 28 crying out, “Men of Israel, help! This is the man who is teaching everyone everywhere against the people and the law and this place. Moreover, he even brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled this holy place.” 29 For they had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian with him in the city, and they supposed that Paul had brought him into the temple. 30 Then all the city was stirred up, and the people ran together. They seized Paul and dragged him out of the temple, and at once the gates were shut. 31 And as they were seeking to kill him, word came to the tribune of the cohort that all Jerusalem was in confusion. 32 He at once took soldiers and centurions and ran down to them. And when they saw the tribune and the soldiers, they stopped beating Paul. 33 Then the tribune came up and arrested him and ordered him to be bound with two chains. He inquired who he was and what he had done. 34 Some in the crowd were shouting one thing, some another. And as he could not learn the facts because of the uproar, he ordered him to be brought into the barracks. 35 And when he came to the steps, he was actually carried by the soldiers because of the violence of the crowd, 36 for the mob of the people followed, crying out, “Away with him!” Paul Speaks to the People 37 As Paul was about to be brought into the barracks, he said to the tribune, “May I say something to you?” And he said, “Do you know Greek? 38 Are you not the Egyptian, then, who recently stirred up a revolt and led the four thousand men of the Assassins out into the wilderness?” 39 Paul replied, “I am a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no obscure city. I beg you, permit me to speak to the people.” 40 And when he had given him permission, Paul, standing on the steps, motioned with his hand to the people. And when there was a great hush, he addressed them in the Hebrew language,5 saying: Footnotes [1] 21:1 Some manuscripts add and Myra [2] 21:7 Or brothers and sisters; also verse 17 [3] 21:11 Greek Ioudaioi probably refers here to Jewish religious leaders, and others under their influence, in that time [4] 21:25 Some manuscripts omit and from what has been strangled [5] 21:40 Or the Hebrew dialect (probably Aramaic) (ESV)

Shop https://www.mikeritlandco.com for Performance Dog Food, Treats, Apparel & more! Hollie McKay is a foreign policy expert and war crimes investigator. She was an investigative and international affairs/war journalist for Fox News Digital for over fourteen years where she focused on warfare, terrorism, and crimes against humanity. Hollie also saw an unfathomably important part of US History: America hastily withdrawing troops out of Afghanistan. Hollie McKay went behind the enemy lines, to live amongst them, and see the culture and changes that came as the Taliban rapidly took over the country. Hollie talks me through daily life there, the unstable infrastructure, blown up roads, no water, and many more hardships, but she also brings up some interesting points that the US Media has greatly exaggerated. Hollie has worked on the frontlines of several major war zones and covered humanitarian and diplomatic crises in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Iran, Turkey, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Burma, Russia, Africa, Latin America, and other areas. I hope you enjoy this episode of Mike Drop! Sponsored by @jockofuel and @teamdog.pet. ---------- Table of Timestamps: 0:00 - Intro 2:40 - Adjustment back from Afghanistan 5:43 - Are there Americans in Afghanistan? 11:20 - How is the Infrastructure? 18:33 - Why did the US condone Afghan Corruption? 23:07 - Do we view the Taliban as a legitimate government? 25:30 - What are the next steps in Afghanistan? 31:31 - Afghan Banking 43:33 - Getting Into Afghanistan and the fall of the Government 57:48 - The emotional contrast in the veteran community 1:07:35 - Covid in Afghanistan 1:13:56 - Is their contraband in Afghanistan 1:33:01 - Afghan Airports 1:48:41 - What made you say ‘It's time to go!'? 1:59:50 - Chinese involvement/Mining 2:03:42 - What would President McKay do? 2:08:42 - What misconceptions does the American Society have? 2:14:52 - Was the war worth it? 2:24:28 - Outro ---------- Support Hollie McKay Website: http://HollieSMcKay.substack.com Website: http://holliemckay.com/ Instagram: @HollieSMcKay Twitter: @HollieSMcKay ---------- Support Mike Drop on Patreon: www.patreon.com/mikedrop --- Support our sponsors: Origin Labs | www.originmaine.com/origin-labs | @ORIGIN USA Fueled by TeamDog | www.mikeritlandco.com | @Teamdog.pet --- ALL THINGS MIKE RITLAND: SHOP for Fueled By Team Dog Performance Dog Food, Treats, Apparel, Accessories, and Protection dogs - MikeRitlandCo.com Team Dog Online dog training - TeamDog.pet Support Mike Drop on Patreon - Patreon.com/mikedrop

The political fallout from President Joe Biden's two hour press conference Wednesday has world leaders shaking their heads in disbelief, and US Democrats in depression thinking about the 2022 midterm elections.  Nowhere to be found in defense of Joe Biden are the far-left propagandists in the American news media who viciously attacked and smeared President Donald Trump for four years to tear down the Trump Presidency so that Joe Biden could be elected while sitting in his Delaware basement. Rick Wiles, Doc Burkhart.  Airdate 1/20/22

Former U.S. Senate candidate and retired Marine Lt. Colonel Amy McGrath joins the podcast to discuss the state of democracy in America.

With family: Genesis 21; Matthew 20 Genesis 21 (Listen) The Birth of Isaac 21 The LORD visited Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did to Sarah as he had promised. 2 And Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the time of which God had spoken to him. 3 Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore him, Isaac.1 4 And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. 5 Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. 6 And Sarah said, “God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh over me.” 7 And she said, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.” God Protects Hagar and Ishmael 8 And the child grew and was weaned. And Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. 9 But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, laughing.2 10 So she said to Abraham, “Cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac.” 11 And the thing was very displeasing to Abraham on account of his son. 12 But God said to Abraham, “Be not displeased because of the boy and because of your slave woman. Whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for through Isaac shall your offspring be named. 13 And I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also, because he is your offspring.” 14 So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba. 15 When the water in the skin was gone, she put the child under one of the bushes. 16 Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot, for she said, “Let me not look on the death of the child.” And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. 17 And God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. 18 Up! Lift up the boy, and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make him into a great nation.” 19 Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. And she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink. 20 And God was with the boy, and he grew up. He lived in the wilderness and became an expert with the bow. 21 He lived in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt. A Treaty with Abimelech 22 At that time Abimelech and Phicol the commander of his army said to Abraham, “God is with you in all that you do. 23 Now therefore swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me or with my descendants or with my posterity, but as I have dealt kindly with you, so you will deal with me and with the land where you have sojourned.” 24 And Abraham said, “I will swear.” 25 When Abraham reproved Abimelech about a well of water that Abimelech's servants had seized, 26 Abimelech said, “I do not know who has done this thing; you did not tell me, and I have not heard of it until today.” 27 So Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them to Abimelech, and the two men made a covenant. 28 Abraham set seven ewe lambs of the flock apart. 29 And Abimelech said to Abraham, “What is the meaning of these seven ewe lambs that you have set apart?” 30 He said, “These seven ewe lambs you will take from my hand, that this3 may be a witness for me that I dug this well.” 31 Therefore that place was called Beersheba,4 because there both of them swore an oath. 32 So they made a covenant at Beersheba. Then Abimelech and Phicol the commander of his army rose up and returned to the land of the Philistines. 33 Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba and called there on the name of the LORD, the Everlasting God. 34 And Abraham sojourned many days in the land of the Philistines. Footnotes [1] 21:3 Isaac means he laughs [2] 21:9 Possibly laughing in mockery [3] 21:30 Or you [4] 21:31 Beersheba means well of seven or well of the oath (ESV) Matthew 20 (Listen) Laborers in the Vineyard 20 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. 2 After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius1 a day, he sent them into his vineyard. 3 And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, 4 and to them he said, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.' 5 So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. 6 And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?' 7 They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.' He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.' 8 And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.' 9 And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. 10 Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. 11 And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, 12 saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.' 13 But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? 14 Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. 15 Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?'2 16 So the last will be first, and the first last.” Jesus Foretells His Death a Third Time 17 And as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside, and on the way he said to them, 18 “See, we are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death 19 and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day.” A Mother's Request 20 Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came up to him with her sons, and kneeling before him she asked him for something. 21 And he said to her, “What do you want?” She said to him, “Say that these two sons of mine are to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.” 22 Jesus answered, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink?” They said to him, “We are able.” 23 He said to them, “You will drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.” 24 And when the ten heard it, they were indignant at the two brothers. 25 But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. 26 It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant,3 27 and whoever would be first among you must be your slave,4 28 even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Jesus Heals Two Blind Men 29 And as they went out of Jericho, a great crowd followed him. 30 And behold, there were two blind men sitting by the roadside, and when they heard that Jesus was passing by, they cried out, “Lord,5 have mercy on us, Son of David!” 31 The crowd rebuked them, telling them to be silent, but they cried out all the more, “Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!” 32 And stopping, Jesus called them and said, “What do you want me to do for you?” 33 They said to him, “Lord, let our eyes be opened.” 34 And Jesus in pity touched their eyes, and immediately they recovered their sight and followed him. Footnotes [1] 20:2 A denarius was a day's wage for a laborer [2] 20:15 Or is your eye bad because I am good? [3] 20:26 Greek diakonos [4] 20:27 Or bondservant, or servant (for the contextual rendering of the Greek word doulos, see Preface) [5] 20:30 Some manuscripts omit Lord (ESV) In private: Nehemiah 10; Acts 20 Nehemiah 10 (Listen) The People Who Sealed the Covenant 10 “On the seals are the names of1 Nehemiah the governor, the son of Hacaliah, Zedekiah, 2 Seraiah, Azariah, Jeremiah, 3 Pashhur, Amariah, Malchijah, 4 Hattush, Shebaniah, Malluch, 5 Harim, Meremoth, Obadiah, 6 Daniel, Ginnethon, Baruch, 7 Meshullam, Abijah, Mijamin, 8 Maaziah, Bilgai, Shemaiah; these are the priests. 9 And the Levites: Jeshua the son of Azaniah, Binnui of the sons of Henadad, Kadmiel; 10 and their brothers, Shebaniah, Hodiah, Kelita, Pelaiah, Hanan, 11 Mica, Rehob, Hashabiah, 12 Zaccur, Sherebiah, Shebaniah, 13 Hodiah, Bani, Beninu. 14 The chiefs of the people: Parosh, Pahath-moab, Elam, Zattu, Bani, 15 Bunni, Azgad, Bebai, 16 Adonijah, Bigvai, Adin, 17 Ater, Hezekiah, Azzur, 18 Hodiah, Hashum, Bezai, 19 Hariph, Anathoth, Nebai, 20 Magpiash, Meshullam, Hezir, 21 Meshezabel, Zadok, Jaddua, 22 Pelatiah, Hanan, Anaiah, 23 Hoshea, Hananiah, Hasshub, 24 Hallohesh, Pilha, Shobek, 25 Rehum, Hashabnah, Maaseiah, 26 Ahiah, Hanan, Anan, 27 Malluch, Harim, Baanah. The Obligations of the Covenant 28 “The rest of the people, the priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, the temple servants, and all who have separated themselves from the peoples of the lands to the Law of God, their wives, their sons, their daughters, all who have knowledge and understanding, 29 join with their brothers, their nobles, and enter into a curse and an oath to walk in God's Law that was given by Moses the servant of God, and to observe and do all the commandments of the LORD our Lord and his rules and his statutes. 30 We will not give our daughters to the peoples of the land or take their daughters for our sons. 31 And if the peoples of the land bring in goods or any grain on the Sabbath day to sell, we will not buy from them on the Sabbath or on a holy day. And we will forego the crops of the seventh year and the exaction of every debt. 32 “We also take on ourselves the obligation to give yearly a third part of a shekel2 for the service of the house of our God: 33 for the showbread, the regular grain offering, the regular burnt offering, the Sabbaths, the new moons, the appointed feasts, the holy things, and the sin offerings to make atonement for Israel, and for all the work of the house of our God. 34 We, the priests, the Levites, and the people, have likewise cast lots for the wood offering, to bring it into the house of our God, according to our fathers' houses, at times appointed, year by year, to burn on the altar of the LORD our God, as it is written in the Law. 35 We obligate ourselves to bring the firstfruits of our ground and the firstfruits of all fruit of every tree, year by year, to the house of the LORD; 36 also to bring to the house of our God, to the priests who minister in the house of our God, the firstborn of our sons and of our cattle, as it is written in the Law, and the firstborn of our herds and of our flocks; 37 and to bring the first of our dough, and our contributions, the fruit of every tree, the wine and the oil, to the priests, to the chambers of the house of our God; and to bring to the Levites the tithes from our ground, for it is the Levites who collect the tithes in all our towns where we labor. 38 And the priest, the son of Aaron, shall be with the Levites when the Levites receive the tithes. And the Levites shall bring up the tithe of the tithes to the house of our God, to the chambers of the storehouse. 39 For the people of Israel and the sons of Levi shall bring the contribution of grain, wine, and oil to the chambers, where the vessels of the sanctuary are, as well as the priests who minister, and the gatekeepers and the singers. We will not neglect the house of our God.” Footnotes [1] 10:1 Hebrew lacks the names of [2] 10:32 A shekel was about 2/5 ounce or 11 grams (ESV) Acts 20 (Listen) Paul in Macedonia and Greece 20 After the uproar ceased, Paul sent for the disciples, and after encouraging them, he said farewell and departed for Macedonia. 2 When he had gone through those regions and had given them much encouragement, he came to Greece. 3 There he spent three months, and when a plot was made against him by the Jews1 as he was about to set sail for Syria, he decided to return through Macedonia. 4 Sopater the Berean, son of Pyrrhus, accompanied him; and of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus and Secundus; and Gaius of Derbe, and Timothy; and the Asians, Tychicus and Trophimus. 5 These went on ahead and were waiting for us at Troas, 6 but we sailed away from Philippi after the days of Unleavened Bread, and in five days we came to them at Troas, where we stayed for seven days. Eutychus Raised from the Dead 7 On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight. 8 There were many lamps in the upper room where we were gathered. 9 And a young man named Eutychus, sitting at the window, sank into a deep sleep as Paul talked still longer. And being overcome by sleep, he fell down from the third story and was taken up dead. 10 But Paul went down and bent over him, and taking him in his arms, said, “Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him.” 11 And when Paul had gone up and had broken bread and eaten, he conversed with them a long while, until daybreak, and so departed. 12 And they took the youth away alive, and were not a little comforted. 13 But going ahead to the ship, we set sail for Assos, intending to take Paul aboard there, for so he had arranged, intending himself to go by land. 14 And when he met us at Assos, we took him on board and went to Mitylene. 15 And sailing from there we came the following day opposite Chios; the next day we touched at Samos; and2 the day after that we went to Miletus. 16 For Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus, so that he might not have to spend time in Asia, for he was hastening to be at Jerusalem, if possible, on the day of Pentecost. Paul Speaks to the Ephesian Elders 17 Now from Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him. 18 And when they came to him, he said to them: “You yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia, 19 serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews; 20 how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house, 21 testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.3 22 And now, behold, I am going to Jerusalem, constrained by4 the Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, 23 except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me. 24 But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. 25 And now, behold, I know that none of you among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom will see my face again. 26 Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, 27 for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. 28 Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God,5 which he obtained with his own blood.6 29 I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; 30 and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. 31 Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears. 32 And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. 33 I coveted no one's silver or gold or apparel. 34 You yourselves know that these hands ministered to my necessities and to those who were with me. 35 In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.'” 36 And when he had said these things, he knelt down and prayed with them all. 37 And there was much weeping on the part of all; they embraced Paul and kissed him, 38 being sorrowful most of all because of the word he had spoken, that they would not see his face again. And they accompanied him to the ship. Footnotes [1] 20:3 Greek Ioudaioi probably refers here to Jewish religious leaders, and others under their influence, in that time; also verse 19 [2] 20:15 Some manuscripts add after remaining at Trogyllium [3] 20:21 Some manuscripts omit Christ [4] 20:22 Or bound in [5] 20:28 Some manuscripts of the Lord [6] 20:28 Or with the blood of his Own (ESV)

Imagine walking down a street in a European capital and meeting your torturer. For many Syrian refugees fleeing war and human rights abuses, Europe was meant to be a sanctuary. So it was a shock when people began bumping into their torturers out shopping or in a cafe. In fact many of those involved in the Syrian government's notorious interrogation facilities are hiding in plain sight in European cities having used the refugee wave as a “ratline” out of the country. More and more are now being investigated, arrested and put on trial in European courts. But with President Assad firmly in control in Syria the long arm of the state is reaching those willing to testify. For Crossing Continents, Chloe Hadjimatheou and Michael Ertl look at how the Syrian war is continuing to play out in Europe. Presented and produced by Chloe Hadjimatheou and Michael Ertl Editor, Bridget Harney

'This Saint, who was from Melitine in Armenia, was the son of pious parents named Paul and Dionysia. He was born about 377. Since his mother had been barren, he was named Euthymius which means "good cheer" or "joy" for this is what his parents experienced at his birth. He studied under Eutroius, the Bishop of Melitene, by whom he was ordained and entrusted with the care of the monasteries of Melitene. Then, after he had come to Palestine about the year 406, he became the leader of a multitude of monks. Through him, a great tribe of Arabs was turned to piety, when he healed the ailing son of their leader Aspebetos. Aspebetos was baptized with all his people; he took the Christian name of Peter, and was later consecrated Bishop for his tribe, being called the "Bishop of the Tents." Saint Euthymius also fought against the Nestorians, Eutychians, and Manichaeans. When Eudocia, the widow of Saint Theodosius the Younger, had made her dwelling in Palestine, and had fallen into the heresy of the Monophysites which was championed in Palestine by a certain Theodosius, she sent envoys to Saint Symeon the Stylite in Syria (see Sept.1), asking him his opinion of Eutyches and the Council of Chalcedon which had condemned him; Saint Symeon, praising the holiness and Orthodoxy of Saint Euthymius near whom she dwelt, sent her to him to be delivered from her error (the holy Empress Eudocia is commemorated Aug. 13). He became the divine oracle of the Church, or rather, "the vessel of divine utterance," as a certain historian writes. He was the instructor and elder of Saint Sabbas the Sanctified. Having lived for ninety-six years, he reposed in 473, on January 20.' (Great Horologion)

Imagine walking down a street in a European capital and meeting your torturer. For many Syrian refugees fleeing war and human rights abuses, Europe was meant to be a sanctuary. So it was a shock when people began bumping into their torturers out shopping or in a cafe. In fact many of those involved in the Syrian government's notorious interrogation facilities are hiding in plain sight in European cities having used the refugee wave as a “ratline” out of the country. More and more are now being investigated, arrested and put on trial in European courts. But with President Assad firmly in control in Syria the long arm of the state is reaching those willing to testify. For Assignment, Chloe Hadjimatheou and Michael Ertl look at how the Syrian war is continuing to play out in Europe. Presented and produced by Chloe Hadjimatheou and Michael Ertl Editor: Bridget Harney (Image: A woman shows a picture of her Syrian relatives outside the Higher Regional Court in Koblenz, Germany, 13 January 2022. Credit: EPA/Sascha Steinbach)

Writing a novel is hard enough, why would a writer choose to write one in verse? We continue our conversation with Jasmine Warga, author of Other Words for Home. She also tackles the topic of Own Voices in her choice to write about a family of Syrian refugees.

On COI #218, Kyle Anzalone and Connor Freeman update the Iran talks, the new Cold War with China, and the genocidal war in Yemen. Connor discusses the ongoing indirect negotiations in Vienna to restore the JCPOA. There are troubling signs that the Biden administration may be preparing for the talks to fail. House Republicans are demanding President Biden's team immediately end the talks. Whatever happens, a decision is coming soon, and Biden's team plans to continue scapegoating Trump. Although there are still positive statements coming from the EU foreign policy chief, the Chinese, and the Iranians themselves. Connor covers China's growing Middle East influence. Beijing and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are working toward building a free trade area and a strategic partnership. China is the GCC's top trading partner and the region forms a centerpiece in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). China recently invited Syria to join the BRI as well. Additionally, last year's Tehran-Beijing comprehensive cooperation agreement is now entering its implementation stage. Kyle and Connor talk about the U.S. military carrying out massive military exercises with Japan. Tokyo also sailed warships near Chinese-controlled islands twice in the last ten months. The U.S. just wrapped up war drills in the South China Sea including with an aircraft carrier strike group. Washington sent an Ohio class nuclear submarine to Guam, it carries dozens of nuclear warheads and 20 Trident ballistic missiles. Kyle reports on the war in Yemen where the Saudis announced they will be increasing the bombings of the long battered country. Massive strikes, killing civilians, are being carried out including in the capital city. The Houthis have retaliated, they conducted a high-profile drone attack on Abu Dhabi that destroyed three oil tankers and killed three people. The UAE wants the U.S. to redeclare the Houthis a terrorist group. Such a move would make it even more difficult for aid to enter the blockaded and starving country. Most of Yemen's civilians live in the northern territory held by the Houthis, the threat of U.S. sanctions would designedly deter most any humanitarian assistance. Odysee Rumble  Donate LBRY Credits bTTEiLoteVdMbLS7YqDVSZyjEY1eMgW7CP Donate Bitcoin 36PP4kT28jjUZcL44dXDonFwrVVDHntsrk Donate Bitcoin Cash Qp6gznu4xm97cj7j9vqepqxcfuctq2exvvqu7aamz6 Patreon Subscribe Star YouTube Facebook  Twitter  MeWe Apple Podcast  Amazon Music Google Podcasts Spotify iHeart Radio Support Our Sponsor Visit Paloma Verde and use code PEACE for 25% off our CBD

On COI #218, Kyle Anzalone and Connor Freeman update the Iran talks, the new Cold War with China, and the genocidal war in Yemen. Connor discusses the ongoing indirect negotiations in Vienna to restore the JCPOA. There are troubling signs that the Biden administration may be preparing for the talks to fail. House Republicans are demanding President Biden's team immediately end the talks. Whatever happens, a decision is coming soon, and Biden's team plans to continue scapegoating Trump. Although there are still positive statements coming from the EU foreign policy chief, the Chinese, and the Iranians themselves. Connor covers China's growing Middle East influence. Beijing and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are working toward building a free trade area and a strategic partnership. China is the GCC's top trading partner and the region forms a centerpiece in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). China recently invited Syria to join the BRI as well. Additionally, last year's Tehran-Beijing comprehensive cooperation agreement is now entering its implementation stage. Kyle and Connor talk about the U.S. military carrying out massive military exercises with Japan. Tokyo also sailed warships near Chinese controlled islands twice in the last ten months. The U.S. just wrapped up war drills in the South China Sea including with an air craft carrier strike group. Washington sent an Ohio class nuclear submarine to Guam, it carries dozens of nuclear warheads and 20 Trident ballistic missiles. Kyle reports on the war in Yemen where the Saudis announced they will be increasing the bombings of the long battered country. Massive strikes, killing civilians, are being carried out including in the capital city. The Houthis have retaliated, they conducted a high profile drone attack on Abu Dhabi that destroyed three oil tankers and killed three people. The UAE wants the U.S. to redeclare the Houthis a terrorist group. Such a move would make it even more difficult for aid to enter the blockaded and starving country. Most of Yemen's civilians live in the northern territory held by the Houthis, the threat of U.S. sanctions would designedly deter most any humanitarian assistance.

Rama Youssef was 12 years old when she left Syria, escaping violence caused by the beginning of the Syrian Civil War. But life didn't get easier for Rama when   she arrived in the United States. Conflict followed her from a young age and she had to learn how to overcome fear and trauma to create a new life. A content warning: this episode contains descriptions of war and violence that may be sensitive to some listeners. Many Roads to Here is a production of The Immigrant Story. This episode was produced by Emily Denny. Audio editing was done by Richard March, assisted by Gregg Palmer. Our executive producer is Sankar Raman. For more episodes, https://theimmigrantstory.org/category/episode/ or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Many Roads to Here are expanding. We're looking for radio producers, especially those from immigrant communities and communities of color, to join our team. We're all-volunteer for now, but we've got dreams. Please email mrh@theimmigrantstory.org for more information. For more stories, visit theimmigrantstory.org/manyroads, listen live at prp.fm, or stream us wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is made possible by a generous contribution by Oregon Cultural Trust.

With family: Genesis 19; Matthew 18 Genesis 19 (Listen) God Rescues Lot 19 The two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed himself with his face to the earth 2 and said, “My lords, please turn aside to your servant's house and spend the night and wash your feet. Then you may rise up early and go on your way.” They said, “No; we will spend the night in the town square.” 3 But he pressed them strongly; so they turned aside to him and entered his house. And he made them a feast and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. 4 But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house. 5 And they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may know them.” 6 Lot went out to the men at the entrance, shut the door after him, 7 and said, “I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. 8 Behold, I have two daughters who have not known any man. Let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please. Only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.” 9 But they said, “Stand back!” And they said, “This fellow came to sojourn, and he has become the judge! Now we will deal worse with you than with them.” Then they pressed hard against the man Lot, and drew near to break the door down. 10 But the men reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them and shut the door. 11 And they struck with blindness the men who were at the entrance of the house, both small and great, so that they wore themselves out groping for the door. 12 Then the men said to Lot, “Have you anyone else here? Sons-in-law, sons, daughters, or anyone you have in the city, bring them out of the place. 13 For we are about to destroy this place, because the outcry against its people has become great before the LORD, and the LORD has sent us to destroy it.” 14 So Lot went out and said to his sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters, “Up! Get out of this place, for the LORD is about to destroy the city.” But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be jesting. 15 As morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city.” 16 But he lingered. So the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the LORD being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city. 17 And as they brought them out, one said, “Escape for your life. Do not look back or stop anywhere in the valley. Escape to the hills, lest you be swept away.” 18 And Lot said to them, “Oh, no, my lords. 19 Behold, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have shown me great kindness in saving my life. But I cannot escape to the hills, lest the disaster overtake me and I die. 20 Behold, this city is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one. Let me escape there—is it not a little one?—and my life will be saved!” 21 He said to him, “Behold, I grant you this favor also, that I will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken. 22 Escape there quickly, for I can do nothing till you arrive there.” Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.1 God Destroys Sodom 23 The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar. 24 Then the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the LORD out of heaven. 25 And he overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. 26 But Lot's wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt. 27 And Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the LORD. 28 And he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the valley, and he looked and, behold, the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace. 29 So it was that, when God destroyed the cities of the valley, God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had lived. Lot and His Daughters 30 Now Lot went up out of Zoar and lived in the hills with his two daughters, for he was afraid to live in Zoar. So he lived in a cave with his two daughters. 31 And the firstborn said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is not a man on earth to come in to us after the manner of all the earth. 32 Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve offspring from our father.” 33 So they made their father drink wine that night. And the firstborn went in and lay with her father. He did not know when she lay down or when she arose. 34 The next day, the firstborn said to the younger, “Behold, I lay last night with my father. Let us make him drink wine tonight also. Then you go in and lie with him, that we may preserve offspring from our father.” 35 So they made their father drink wine that night also. And the younger arose and lay with him, and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose. 36 Thus both the daughters of Lot became pregnant by their father. 37 The firstborn bore a son and called his name Moab.2 He is the father of the Moabites to this day. 38 The younger also bore a son and called his name Ben-ammi.3 He is the father of the Ammonites to this day. Footnotes [1] 19:22 Zoar means little [2] 19:37 Moab sounds like the Hebrew for from father [3] 19:38 Ben-ammi means son of my people (ESV) Matthew 18 (Listen) Who Is the Greatest? 18 At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” 2 And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them 3 and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, 6 but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin,1 it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. Temptations to Sin 7 “Woe to the world for temptations to sin!2 For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes! 8 And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. 9 And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell3 of fire. The Parable of the Lost Sheep 10 “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.4 12 What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? 13 And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. 14 So it is not the will of my5 Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish. If Your Brother Sins Against You 15 “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. 16 But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. 18 Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed6 in heaven. 19 Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant 21 Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” 22 Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times. 23 “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants.7 24 When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents.8 25 And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. 26 So the servant9 fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.' 27 And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. 28 But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii,10 and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.' 29 So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.' 30 He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. 31 When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. 32 Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33 And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?' 34 And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers,11 until he should pay all his debt. 35 So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.” Footnotes [1] 18:6 Greek causes . . . to stumble; also verses 8, 9 [2] 18:7 Greek stumbling blocks [3] 18:9 Greek Gehenna [4] 18:10 Some manuscripts add verse 11: For the Son of Man came to save the lost [5] 18:14 Some manuscripts your [6] 18:18 Or shall have been bound . . . shall have been loosed [7] 18:23 Or bondservants; also verses 28, 31 [8] 18:24 A talent was a monetary unit worth about twenty years' wages for a laborer [9] 18:26 Or bondservant; also verses 27, 28, 29, 32, 33 [10] 18:28 A denarius was a day's wage for a laborer [11] 18:34 Greek torturers (ESV) In private: Nehemiah 8; Acts 18 Nehemiah 8 (Listen) Ezra Reads the Law 8 And all the people gathered as one man into the square before the Water Gate. And they told Ezra the scribe to bring the Book of the Law of Moses that the LORD had commanded Israel. 2 So Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could understand what they heard, on the first day of the seventh month. 3 And he read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand. And the ears of all the people were attentive to the Book of the Law. 4 And Ezra the scribe stood on a wooden platform that they had made for the purpose. And beside him stood Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Uriah, Hilkiah, and Maaseiah on his right hand, and Pedaiah, Mishael, Malchijah, Hashum, Hashbaddanah, Zechariah, and Meshullam on his left hand. 5 And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was above all the people, and as he opened it all the people stood. 6 And Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God, and all the people answered, “Amen, Amen,” lifting up their hands. And they bowed their heads and worshiped the LORD with their faces to the ground. 7 Also Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiah, the Levites,1 helped the people to understand the Law, while the people remained in their places. 8 They read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly,2 and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading. This Day Is Holy 9 And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, “This day is holy to the LORD your God; do not mourn or weep.” For all the people wept as they heard the words of the Law. 10 Then he said to them, “Go your way. Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.” 11 So the Levites calmed all the people, saying, “Be quiet, for this day is holy; do not be grieved.” 12 And all the people went their way to eat and drink and to send portions and to make great rejoicing, because they had understood the words that were declared to them. Feast of Booths Celebrated 13 On the second day the heads of fathers' houses of all the people, with the priests and the Levites, came together to Ezra the scribe in order to study the words of the Law. 14 And they found it written in the Law that the LORD had commanded by Moses that the people of Israel should dwell in booths3 during the feast of the seventh month, 15 and that they should proclaim it and publish it in all their towns and in Jerusalem, “Go out to the hills and bring branches of olive, wild olive, myrtle, palm, and other leafy trees to make booths, as it is written.” 16 So the people went out and brought them and made booths for themselves, each on his roof, and in their courts and in the courts of the house of God, and in the square at the Water Gate and in the square at the Gate of Ephraim. 17 And all the assembly of those who had returned from the captivity made booths and lived in the booths, for from the days of Jeshua the son of Nun to that day the people of Israel had not done so. And there was very great rejoicing. 18 And day by day, from the first day to the last day, he read from the Book of the Law of God. They kept the feast seven days, and on the eighth day there was a solemn assembly, according to the rule. Footnotes [1] 8:7 Vulgate; Hebrew and the Levites [2] 8:8 Or with interpretation, or paragraph by paragraph [3] 8:14 Or temporary shelters (ESV) Acts 18 (Listen) Paul in Corinth 18 After this Paul1 left Athens and went to Corinth. 2 And he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. And he went to see them, 3 and because he was of the same trade he stayed with them and worked, for they were tentmakers by trade. 4 And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks. 5 When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with the word, testifying to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus. 6 And when they opposed and reviled him, he shook out his garments and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.” 7 And he left there and went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshiper of God. His house was next door to the synagogue. 8 Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord, together with his entire household. And many of the Corinthians hearing Paul believed and were baptized. 9 And the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, “Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, 10 for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people.” 11 And he stayed a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them. 12 But when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews2 made a united attack on Paul and brought him before the tribunal, 13 saying, “This man is persuading people to worship God contrary to the law.” 14 But when Paul was about to open his mouth, Gallio said to the Jews, “If it were a matter of wrongdoing or vicious crime, O Jews, I would have reason to accept your complaint. 15 But since it is a matter of questions about words and names and your own law, see to it yourselves. I refuse to be a judge of these things.” 16 And he drove them from the tribunal. 17 And they all seized Sosthenes, the ruler of the synagogue, and beat him in front of the tribunal. But Gallio paid no attention to any of this. Paul Returns to Antioch 18 After this, Paul stayed many days longer and then took leave of the brothers3 and set sail for Syria, and with him Priscilla and Aquila. At Cenchreae he had cut his hair, for he was under a vow. 19 And they came to Ephesus, and he left them there, but he himself went into the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews. 20 When they asked him to stay for a longer period, he declined. 21 But on taking leave of them he said, “I will return to you if God wills,” and he set sail from Ephesus. 22 When he had landed at Caesarea, he went up and greeted the church, and then went down to Antioch. 23 After spending some time there, he departed and went from one place to the next through the region of Galatia and Phrygia, strengthening all the disciples. Apollos Speaks Boldly in Ephesus 24 Now a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures. 25 He had been instructed in the way of the Lord. And being fervent in spirit,4 he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John. 26 He began to speak boldly in the synagogue, but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately. 27 And when he wished to cross to Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him. When he arrived, he greatly helped those who through grace had believed, 28 for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, showing by the Scriptures that the Christ was Jesus. Footnotes [1] 18:1 Greek he [2] 18:12 Greek Ioudaioi probably refers here to Jewish religious leaders, and others under their influence, in that time; also verses 14 (twice), 28 [3] 18:18 Or brothers and sisters; also verse 27 [4] 18:25 Or in the Spirit (ESV)

Psalms and Wisdom: Psalm 17 Psalm 17 (Listen) In the Shadow of Your Wings A Prayer of David. 17   Hear a just cause, O LORD; attend to my cry!    Give ear to my prayer from lips free of deceit!2   From your presence let my vindication come!    Let your eyes behold the right! 3   You have tried my heart, you have visited me by night,    you have tested me, and you will find nothing;    I have purposed that my mouth will not transgress.4   With regard to the works of man, by the word of your lips    I have avoided the ways of the violent.5   My steps have held fast to your paths;    my feet have not slipped. 6   I call upon you, for you will answer me, O God;    incline your ear to me; hear my words.7   Wondrously show1 your steadfast love,    O Savior of those who seek refuge    from their adversaries at your right hand. 8   Keep me as the apple of your eye;    hide me in the shadow of your wings,9   from the wicked who do me violence,    my deadly enemies who surround me. 10   They close their hearts to pity;    with their mouths they speak arrogantly.11   They have now surrounded our steps;    they set their eyes to cast us to the ground.12   He is like a lion eager to tear,    as a young lion lurking in ambush. 13   Arise, O LORD! Confront him, subdue him!    Deliver my soul from the wicked by your sword,14   from men by your hand, O LORD,    from men of the world whose portion is in this life.2  You fill their womb with treasure;3    they are satisfied with children,    and they leave their abundance to their infants. 15   As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness;    when I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness. Footnotes [1] 17:7 Or Distinguish me by [2] 17:14 Or from men whose portion in life is of the world [3] 17:14 Or As for your treasured ones, you fill their womb (ESV) Pentateuch and History: Genesis 18:1–15 Genesis 18:1–15 (Listen) 18 And the LORD appeared to him by the oaks1 of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day. 2 He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth 3 and said, “O Lord,2 if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant. 4 Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree, 5 while I bring a morsel of bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on—since you have come to your servant.” So they said, “Do as you have said.” 6 And Abraham went quickly into the tent to Sarah and said, “Quick! Three seahs3 of fine flour! Knead it, and make cakes.” 7 And Abraham ran to the herd and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to a young man, who prepared it quickly. 8 Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared, and set it before them. And he stood by them under the tree while they ate. 9 They said to him, “Where is Sarah your wife?” And he said, “She is in the tent.” 10 The LORD said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son.” And Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him. 11 Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in years. The way of women had ceased to be with Sarah. 12 So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “After I am worn out, and my lord is old, shall I have pleasure?” 13 The LORD said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?' 14 Is anything too hard4 for the LORD? At the appointed time I will return to you, about this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son.” 15 But Sarah denied it,5 saying, “I did not laugh,” for she was afraid. He said, “No, but you did laugh.” Footnotes [1] 18:1 Or terebinths [2] 18:3 Or My lord [3] 18:6 A seah was about 7 quarts or 7.3 liters [4] 18:14 Or wonderful [5] 18:15 Or acted falsely (ESV) Chronicles and Prophets: 1 Chronicles 18–20 1 Chronicles 18–20 (Listen) David Defeats His Enemies 18 After this David defeated the Philistines and subdued them, and he took Gath and its villages out of the hand of the Philistines. 2 And he defeated Moab, and the Moabites became servants to David and brought tribute. 3 David also defeated Hadadezer king of Zobah-Hamath, as he went to set up his monument1 at the river Euphrates. 4 And David took from him 1,000 chariots, 7,000 horsemen, and 20,000 foot soldiers. And David hamstrung all the chariot horses, but left enough for 100 chariots. 5 And when the Syrians of Damascus came to help Hadadezer king of Zobah, David struck down 22,000 men of the Syrians. 6 Then David put garrisons2 in Syria of Damascus, and the Syrians became servants to David and brought tribute. And the LORD gave victory to David3 wherever he went. 7 And David took the shields of gold that were carried by the servants of Hadadezer and brought them to Jerusalem. 8 And from Tibhath and from Cun, cities of Hadadezer, David took a large amount of bronze. With it Solomon made the bronze sea and the pillars and the vessels of bronze. 9 When Tou king of Hamath heard that David had defeated the whole army of Hadadezer, king of Zobah, 10 he sent his son Hadoram to King David, to ask about his health and to bless him because he had fought against Hadadezer and defeated him; for Hadadezer had often been at war with Tou. And he sent all sorts of articles of gold, of silver, and of bronze. 11 These also King David dedicated to the LORD, together with the silver and gold that he had carried off from all the nations, from Edom, Moab, the Ammonites, the Philistines, and Amalek. 12 And Abishai, the son of Zeruiah, killed 18,000 Edomites in the Valley of Salt. 13 Then he put garrisons in Edom, and all the Edomites became David's servants. And the LORD gave victory to David wherever he went. David's Administration 14 So David reigned over all Israel, and he administered justice and equity to all his people. 15 And Joab the son of Zeruiah was over the army; and Jehoshaphat the son of Ahilud was recorder; 16 and Zadok the son of Ahitub and Ahimelech the son of Abiathar were priests; and Shavsha was secretary; 17 and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was over the Cherethites and the Pelethites; and David's sons were the chief officials in the service of the king. The Ammonites Disgrace David's Men 19 Now after this Nahash the king of the Ammonites died, and his son reigned in his place. 2 And David said, “I will deal kindly with Hanun the son of Nahash, for his father dealt kindly with me.” So David sent messengers to console him concerning his father. And David's servants came to the land of the Ammonites to Hanun to console him. 3 But the princes of the Ammonites said to Hanun, “Do you think, because David has sent comforters to you, that he is honoring your father? Have not his servants come to you to search and to overthrow and to spy out the land?” 4 So Hanun took David's servants and shaved them and cut off their garments in the middle, at their hips, and sent them away; 5 and they departed. When David was told concerning the men, he sent messengers to meet them, for the men were greatly ashamed. And the king said, “Remain at Jericho until your beards have grown and then return.” 6 When the Ammonites saw that they had become a stench to David, Hanun and the Ammonites sent 1,000 talents4 of silver to hire chariots and horsemen from Mesopotamia, from Aram-maacah, and from Zobah. 7 They hired 32,000 chariots and the king of Maacah with his army, who came and encamped before Medeba. And the Ammonites were mustered from their cities and came to battle. 8 When David heard of it, he sent Joab and all the army of the mighty men. 9 And the Ammonites came out and drew up in battle array at the entrance of the city, and the kings who had come were by themselves in the open country. Ammonites and Syrians Defeated 10 When Joab saw that the battle was set against him both in front and in the rear, he chose some of the best men of Israel and arrayed them against the Syrians. 11 The rest of his men he put in the charge of Abishai his brother, and they were arrayed against the Ammonites. 12 And he said, “If the Syrians are too strong for me, then you shall help me, but if the Ammonites are too strong for you, then I will help you. 13 Be strong, and let us use our strength for our people and for the cities of our God, and may the LORD do what seems good to him.” 14 So Joab and the people who were with him drew near before the Syrians for battle, and they fled before him. 15 And when the Ammonites saw that the Syrians fled, they likewise fled before Abishai, Joab's brother, and entered the city. Then Joab came to Jerusalem. 16 But when the Syrians saw that they had been defeated by Israel, they sent messengers and brought out the Syrians who were beyond the Euphrates,5 with Shophach the commander of the army of Hadadezer at their head. 17 And when it was told to David, he gathered all Israel together and crossed the Jordan and came to them and drew up his forces against them. And when David set the battle in array against the Syrians, they fought with him. 18 And the Syrians fled before Israel, and David killed of the Syrians the men of 7,000 chariots and 40,000 foot soldiers, and put to death also Shophach the commander of their army. 19 And when the servants of Hadadezer saw that they had been defeated by Israel, they made peace with David and became subject to him. So the Syrians were not willing to save the Ammonites anymore. The Capture of Rabbah 20 In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, Joab led out the army and ravaged the country of the Ammonites and came and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem. And Joab struck down Rabbah and overthrew it. 2 And David took the crown of their king from his head. He found that it weighed a talent6 of gold, and in it was a precious stone. And it was placed on David's head. And he brought out the spoil of the city, a very great amount. 3 And he brought out the people who were in it and set them to labor7 with saws and iron picks and axes.8 And thus David did to all the cities of the Ammonites. Then David and all the people returned to Jerusalem. Philistine Giants Killed 4 And after this there arose war with the Philistines at Gezer. Then Sibbecai the Hushathite struck down Sippai, who was one of the descendants of the giants, and the Philistines were subdued. 5 And there was again war with the Philistines, and Elhanan the son of Jair struck down Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver's beam. 6 And there was again war at Gath, where there was a man of great stature, who had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, twenty-four in number, and he also was descended from the giants. 7 And when he taunted Israel, Jonathan the son of Shimea, David's brother, struck him down. 8 These were descended from the giants in Gath, and they fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants. Footnotes [1] 18:3 Hebrew hand [2] 18:6 Septuagint, Vulgate, 2 Samuel 8:6 (compare Syriac); Hebrew lacks garrisons [3] 18:6 Hebrew the Lord saved David; also verse 13 [4] 19:6 A talent was about 75 pounds or 34 kilograms [5] 19:16 Hebrew the River [6] 20:2 A talent was about 75 pounds or 34 kilograms [7] 20:3 Compare 2 Samuel 12:31; Hebrew he sawed [8] 20:3 Compare 2 Samuel 12:31; Hebrew saws (ESV) Gospels and Epistles: Luke 11:1–36 Luke 11:1–36 (Listen) The Lord's Prayer 11 Now Jesus1 was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” 2 And he said to them, “When you pray, say:   “Father, hallowed be your name.  Your kingdom come.3   Give us each day our daily bread,24   and forgive us our sins,    for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us.  And lead us not into temptation.” 5 And he said to them, “Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, 6 for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him'; 7 and he will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything'? 8 I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence3 he will rise and give him whatever he needs. 9 And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 11 What father among you, if his son asks for4 a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; 12 or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” Jesus and Beelzebul 14 Now he was casting out a demon that was mute. When the demon had gone out, the mute man spoke, and the people marveled. 15 But some of them said, “He casts out demons by Beelzebul, the prince of demons,” 16 while others, to test him, kept seeking from him a sign from heaven. 17 But he, knowing their thoughts, said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and a divided household falls. 18 And if Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say that I cast out demons by Beelzebul. 19 And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. 20 But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. 21 When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are safe; 22 but when one stronger than he attacks him and overcomes him, he takes away his armor in which he trusted and divides his spoil. 23 Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. Return of an Unclean Spirit 24 “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and finding none it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.' 25 And when it comes, it finds the house swept and put in order. 26 Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there. And the last state of that person is worse than the first.” True Blessedness 27 As he said these things, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed!” 28 But he said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” The Sign of Jonah 29 When the crowds were increasing, he began to say, “This generation is an evil generation. It seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. 30 For as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be to this generation. 31 The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here. 32 The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. The Light in You 33 “No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar or under a basket, but on a stand, so that those who enter may see the light. 34 Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light, but when it is bad, your body is full of darkness. 35 Therefore be careful lest the light in you be darkness. 36 If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright, as when a lamp with its rays gives you light.” Footnotes [1] 11:1 Greek he [2] 11:3 Or our bread for tomorrow [3] 11:8 Or persistence [4] 11:11 Some manuscripts insert bread, will give him a stone; or if he asks for (ESV)

Four years ago, Azmat Khan, an investigative reporter for The Times Magazine, told us the story of Basim Razzo, whose entire family was killed in a U.S.-led airstrike in Iraq. His story helped reveal how American air wars were resulting in a staggering number of civilian deaths.Analyzing thousands of pages of U.S. military reports and investigating in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, Azmat was able to gain a better understanding of why this was happening.Azmat Khan, an investigative reporter for The Times Magazine.Sign up here to get The Daily in your inbox each morning. And for an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. Background reading: The promise was a war waged by all-seeing drones and precision bombs. But Pentagon documents show flawed intelligence, faulty targeting, years of civilian deaths — and scant accountability.A trove of internal documents, combined with extensive reporting across the Middle East, reveals the tragic, disastrous failures of the U.S. military's long-distance approach to warfare.For more information on today's episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Horemheb and Hatti. In the days of King Ay (and Tutankhamun before him) conflicts in Canaan and Syria remained a constant issue. In recent years, scholars have uncovered more information about these events and people. Horemheb, the Overseer of the Overseers of the Troops (aka the General of Generals) seems to have dealt, and fought, with Hittite forces. The records are fragmentary, but the clues are intriguing...Episode details:Date: c.1334 BCE (debated).Kings: Tutankhamun and Ay (debated).Episode logo: Foreigners praising the cartouche of Ay, from a piece of gold foil discovered in the Valley of the Kings. Image edited for clarity.Music: Ancient rendition of "The Eve of the War," adapted by Luke Chaos https://twitter.com/Luke_Chaos.Music: "War Song of Horus and Sekhmet," by Jeffrey Goodman www.jeffreygoodmanmusic.com.Additional music interludes by Luke Chaos https://twitter.com/Luke_Chaos.References and additional information at www.egyptianhistorypodcast.com. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

America's Obsession with Illusion Richard Gale and Gary Null PhD Progressive Radio Network, January 14, 2022 “He who despises his own life is soon master of others” – English proverb For the vast majority of Americans, the past year has been the most challenging in their lives – certainly for young adults. However, not everyone has been suffering equally. The nation's health or illness is not uniform. Much of our suffering is dependent upon the institutionalization and negligence of previous injustices, the loss of social equanimity, economic heedlessness, and our leaders' unmitigated greed and pursuit of power. Nor is everyone adversely affected by the shifts underway in the imaginations of the political and ideological universes. The transnational class of corporate and banking elites, for example, has little motivation to respect or contribute to national boundaries and interests. They perceive themselves as global actors. For the generals and captains of neoliberal globalization, the puppet masters of financial markets, the Covid-19 pandemic only caused annoying disruptions in the quality of their lives. For the remainder, it has been cataclysmic. As we begin 2022 should we not pause and reflect carefully about what we want and don't want as individuals and a nation to secure a sustainable future? A deep and collective introspection into the shared moral principles is called for. It is no longer what we say or profess that has any truth or significance. Rather what we actualize in our daily lives and as a society is going to determine whether the future will be better future or worse. Only our actions can realistically convey the deeper values in the American psyche. Therefore we need to ask ourselves more difficult questions to discover the real moral poverty that defines us as a civilization. Where were the large demonstrations against the trillion-dollar bailout of Wall Street and foreign banks when barely a penny was spent for the average citizen? Where were the demonstrations against home foreclosures and the loss of small family farms?  Debt drenched student aid? Exploitive payday loans and exorbitant credit card fees? There was no outrage against Obama's broken promises on universal healthcare, a platform that helped bring him to the White House. The single-minded attention on the pandemic has cancelled out 2.5 million homeless American children and 46 million adults and children who go hungry daily. Where was a collective voice condemning the hundreds of billion tax dollars to increase the power of the military and intelligence complexes as American cities further collapsed into ghettos? Where were the marches against corporations off-shoring jobs? Why no vocal outrage against the invasions of Libya and Syria, or the US' ongoing support of rogue dictatorships, such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE for crimes against humanity in Yemen? Where are the protests against corporations exploiting slave labor in poor countries such as Bangladesh and Indonesia?  There were no noteworthy protests for any of these issues. And yet these are true existential threats to our very democracy. Bertrand Russell wrote, “one should care about the world they do not see.” Should we not be planning ahead for the future of our children, grandchildren and ourselves instead of being incapacitated by fear? The national popular disinterest in these and other crises foreshadows something on the horizon that does not bode well for most Americans. It is a simple principle to understand; yet so subtle it will likely go unnoticed until everyone is individually and collectively affected. It is the utter lack of balance within the nation's body politick, and across the media that spoon feeds us virtual images of a faux theatrical play, the illusory icons on our minds' monitor screens, that shape our perceptions of reality. This is how control is exerted over our thoughts, speech and actions. In fact, it is only after people exercise their thoughts independently, with the certain belief that they have actual self-control over their lives, that they can arrive at the realization that their perceptions may be largely distorted. Throughout America's history there has been a system of three federal branches to assure there is a platform for checks and balances as well as a structure to contain the tensions between them. That system now is being rapidly challenged and eroded. Now the middle of the road Democrats officially control the White House and both legislative bodies. We will see what awaits us. There is also what is commonly referred to as the “fourth estate,” the powers of the press and news media that control the framing of the political narrative and partisan issues. In the past, the media was expected to hold the government accountable by exposing its conflicts of interest that endanger the public, its misdemeanors, and systemic corruption. This too is in decay as the media has been fully captured by corporate interests and now aligns itself politically and ideologically with the new political elite determined to reshape democracy and launch a new reset that will dramatically infringe on individual rights and liberties. Finally, there is the growing influence of a fourth branch of government, the corpocracy and its private interests. We might also include the US intelligence community that increasingly operates independently from executive and legislative oversight. Together we can witness this loose cabal of seemingly independent entities, working simultaneously in consortium and in opposition to each other, propelling us towards a future tsunami of greater polarization and immense social disruption. Earlier generations were not threatened by the telecommunication and technological giants, such as Google, Facebook and Amazon. Clinton's Communications Decency Act of 1996, despite its well-meaning intentions to protect free speech, was otherwise destructively naïve. At that time it was sensible; however, that was before the advent of the social media that now dominates our lives and shapes political discourse. Silicon Valley has become a force far more powerful than the lobbyists on K Street to ensure that corporate Democrats are raised to a position of absolute power. Yet the problem would be equally threatening if it were the corporate and radicalized GOP in power. The centrist Democratic left, lulled in a passivity that “it can't happen here,” is every bit as dangerous and delusional as the Republican far-right's paranoia over conspiracies squatting behind every nook and cranny. A moderate centrist right no longer exists as it has now exited reality like a herd of lemmings to follow Trump phenomena over a phantasmagoric cliff. The more important question to contemplate is how this will impact yourself and average citizens. What happens elsewhere around the world can no longer be viewed in isolation. Globalization is perhaps the most holistic phenomena within the matrix of financial capital movements and post-modern social restructuring. China has the means to socially control most of its population, especially in urban areas. On the other hand, China would be unable to succeed in this endeavor without the direct assistance, trade and technological development of Silicon Valley and the private innovators of intelligence and surveillance applied science. China has already launched social scoring, a nefarious means to reward and penalize public activity. If a person protests the lack of personal freedom, democratic values and free speech, his or her social score decreases. And through digital networks, authorities can monitor and identify every Chinese citizen's movements. All of this technology is ready for launch in the US and other developed nations. However, rather than social scoring, it is block chain, the digital database that gathers any information it is programmed for. Block chain has already been employed for almost a decade. At this moment the federal government and individual states are blindly over-reacting to Covid's health threats, the climate and environment, and the collapse of social cohesion. These threats are eliciting government mandates, such as vaccination. A Biden federal vaccine mandate would overrule individual state laws. The fact that this is being publicly stated should quell many conspiratorial theories. It is part of a more comprehensive and long-term agenda for expanding government social control under the pretense and propaganda of keeping Americans safe under the banner of national security. New laws are under construction that would redefine hate speech. Censorship of free speech for criticizing official narratives and policies to tackle the pandemic are being enforced. Any criticism towards the failures of the Covid-19 vaccines is redefined as threats to public health. People raising such critiques may eventually find their names on domestic terrorist lists. This scenario is not beyond the imagination. Wikileaks revealed that environmental, animal protection, and human rights groups have been labeled as domestic terrorist organizations. Guilt by association laws, for example buried in Obama's National Defense Authorization Act, are in place. Expanding a law's scope is far easier than erasing it from the books. Consequently, it is not unlikely that these laws may eventually widen to include charges of subversion based solely on the emails you read, the videos you watch or the broadcasts you listen to. This would inevitably lead to the death toll for any residue of integrity in journalism. Silicon Valley's collusion with the government has canceled the voices of some of our best investigative journalists, such as Chris Hedges, Sharyl Attkinsson, Glenn Greenwald, Max Blumenthal and Craig Murray. These are only a few of many examples. The new unstated law is that original investigation must support the official narrative, otherwise it will be prohibited from accessible public view. We may recall that under the second Bush administration, the justice department created “free speech zones,” fenced off or confined areas where demonstrators were only permitted to exercise their Constitutional rights of free protest and expression. Today we are only several small amendments away before the right to assemble being banned altogether. Faced with growing condemnation by many nations, the US' hegemony on the world geopolitical arena has waned considerably. Biden's administration and its return to neocon foreign against Russia and China and neoliberal market policies will likely make every effort to regain the dominance it lost during the past four years. What has vanished in the US' former full spectrum dominance over the geopolitical landscape is now being inverted to strengthen federal hegemonic reign over the American population. Finally, we need to awaken to modern technologies' remarkable sophistication and its certain threats to the health of our societies, and even to our definition of being human. Sadly, this is an industry each of us has been complicit in advancing. Coining a term by one of the planet's most important and forgotten 20th century prophetic voices, the Trappist monk Father Thomas Merton, we are facing a great Unspeakable, a spiritual crisis contributing to the existential vacuity of modern American culture. Few are aware that in his 1964 collection of meditations, Seeds of Destruction, Merton predicted that the civil rights movement would confront a catastrophic impasse and may find itself without leadership. Four years later, Martin Luther King Jr, who Merton had a deep correspondence with, was assassinated. Merton would die suddenly later that same year under very mysterious circumstances in Thailand. Another way to describe the Unspeakable is criminal Sovereignty, with a capital S, to convey its almost numinous qualities. If alive today, Merton would look upon both the extreme right and left as mere expressions of the meaninglessness of American life manifesting as a turbulent ocean of afflictive emotions and thoughts. Instead of technology serving the needs of humanity, Americans are being increasingly conditioned to willingly bow as slaves to technology. The public, Somerset Maugham warned, “are easily disillusioned then they are angry or it was the illusion they loved.” The Unspeakable's unspoken mantra is: technology must progress regardless of how many people fall destitute, jobless, debt ridden and physically ill with only suicide as a recourse to escape. “American democracy today,” Merton observed over 55 years ago, “is just cheap pressed wood fiber, cardboard and spray paint.” Consequently, the elite sitting in the global control tower view the Great Reset's technological regime as preferable to democracy's kabuki theater. Advanced surveillance, artificial intelligence, intelligent robotics, transhumanism, a 5G internet of everything, genetic engineering, and weather modification should be our guiding avatars. The solutions, he would argue, can no longer be found in civil discourse or the rights of human beings gathering in assembly. For the ruling elite, the masses are blind sheep wandering in search of a shepherd. This is what author Ronald Wright called the “progress trap” – progress' unending efforts to feed technology's hunger to devour natural and human capital, interest free. And the mainstream press and news media, in its' malady of cognitive dissonance, serves as its unreflective cheerleader for our march towards civilizational collapse. Merton was keenly aware of technology's dangers to social stability. In a 1967 letter he took aim at the “universal myth that technology infallibly makes everything in every way better for everybody. It does not.” However, Merton was by no means a Luddite. “Technology could indeed make a better world for millions of human beings,” he wrote. Yet there remained the nightmare of technology transforming the world into a “more collectivist, cybernated mass culture.” Decades before the first desktop, Merton foresaw a complete fragmentation of the nation's moral and spiritual fabric when people will begin basing all of their political and ethical decisions on computers. Prophetically he wrote to a friend, “just wait until they start philosophizing with computers!” That was 1967. He even foresaw technology becoming a means to elevate the slaves of technology's false self, to satisfy narcissistic appetites for admiration and status. In other words, the woke social media. “The greatest need of our time,” Merton wrote in his Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, “is to clean out the enormous mass of mental and emotional rubbish that clutters our minds and makes all political and social life a mass illness. Without this housecleaning we cannot begin to see. Unless we see we cannot think. The purification must begin with the mass media.” For this reason we urgently need to penetrate the illusions of propaganda and popular falsehoods, across the entire political spectrum as well the self-appointed pontificating Pharisees who are ushering a new socio-economic era where endless technological innovation has precedence over human lives. Despite its newness, it has also been clearly predictable. No doubt, if Orwell were penning his great novel today, the emergence of this new American era we are witnessing would not be fiction.

Photo:  Interior of an ancient harem. CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor CBS Audio Network @Batchelorshow David McCloskey. #UNBOUND. The complete, forty-minute interview. December 2021. Damascus Station: A Novel, by David McCloskey.  Hardcover – October 5, 2021 https://www.amazon.com/Damascus-Station-Novel-David-McCloskey/dp/0393881040/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2T10VHP3CVOPA&keywords=Damascus+Station&qid=1642295489&s=books&sprefix=damascus+station%2Cstripbooks%2C101&sr=1-1 "Damascus Station is the best spy novel I have ever read." ―General David Petraeus, former director of the CIA A CIA officer and his recruit arrive in war-ravaged Damascus to hunt for a killer in this page-turner that offers the "most authentic depiction of modern-day tradecraft in print." (Navy SEAL sniper and New York Times bestselling author Jack Carr). The CIA case officer Sam Joseph is dispatched to Paris to recruit a Syrian Palace official, Mariam Haddad. The two fall into a forbidden relationship, which supercharges Haddad's recruitment and creates unspeakable danger when they enter Damascus to find the man responsible for the disappearance of an American spy. But the cat-and-mouse chase for the killer soon leads to a trail of high-profile assassinations and the discovery of a dark secret at the heart of the Syrian regime, bringing the pair under the all-seeing eyes of Assad's spy catcher, Ali Hassan, and his brother Rustum, the head of the feared Republican Guard. Set against the backdrop of a Syria pulsing with fear and rebellion, Damascus Station is a gripping thriller that offers a textured portrayal of espionage, love, loyalty, and betrayal in one of the most difficult CIA assignments on the planet.   ..

Synopsis: In the mid-11th century BC, the Hittite kingdoms of northern Syria are joined by others– in the Philistine pentapolis, the Amuq plain and the region of Classical Cilicia – with ties to the former Mycenaean Greeks.  The Phoenician cities of the Levantine coast begin […] The post Episode C9 – Horse to Horse, Army to Army first appeared on THE ANCIENT WORLD.

The trial of Anwar Raslan was the world's first criminal case over state-led torture in Syria. Also: terrified Afghan teachers still hiding from Taliban and Be My Baby singer Ronnie Spector dies aged seventy-eight.