FBI Raids Riverside Nursing Home as California Targets Shlomo Rechnitz

Posted on October 25, 2015 by Luke Ford

Very few people, if any, have a better reputation in Los Angeles Orthodox Judaism than Shlomo Rechnitz, but he’s getting hammered in the Sacramento Bee over the past few months.

It’s hard for me to read anything negative about Shlomo Rechnitz when I know of so many people he’s helped.

Sacramento Bee: California’s largest nursing home owner is facing a new round of government scrutiny as the FBI served search warrants last week at his Riverside facility, and two more of his former top administrators have been charged criminally by the state attorney general’s office.

FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller confirmed Saturday that FBI agents executed search warrants “seeking evidence in relation to alleged criminal activity” at a 99-bed facility in Riverside owned by nursing home magnate Shlomo Rechnitz.

Eimiller said she could not comment on the exact nature of the federal probe because the affidavit in support of the warrants is under seal. However, the FBI spokeswoman said it was her understanding that agents took documents, and that “patients were not removed or even disturbed” during Thursday’s raid at the Alta Vista Healthcare & Wellness Centre.

The latest investigations shine the spotlight again on Rechnitz, a 44-year-old Los Angeles entrepreneur whose facilities have been the focus of multiple local, state and federal probes, along with stepped-up scrutiny by health officials.

His stable of nursing homes in California has expanded rapidly in the last decade, giving him control of about 1 in every 14 skilled nursing beds in the state, according to a Bee investigation. With an estimated 80 homes under his control, Rechnitz has widespread influence on the quality of care being delivered in skilled nursing facilities, which serve some of the state’s most vulnerable residents.

The Bee found that homes he owned for all of last year were tagged with nearly triple as many serious deficiencies per 1,000 beds as the statewide average in 2014, according to the latest figures from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Sallie Hofmeister, a spokeswoman for Rechnitz and his facilities, said Saturday in an email to The Bee: “We are not aware of any basis for the (FBI) investigation, but are cooperating fully with authorities. We cannot comment on the specifics of the discussions with the authorities, but at this time we have no reason to believe the investigation has anything to do with patient care. Alta Vista is proud of the care and treatment it provides to its patients.”

Besides last week’s FBI raid, several Rechnitz employees are facing their own legal challenges.

The former administrator and former top nurse at one of his Orange County nursing homes were charged criminally in August in connection with the alleged abuse last year of two residents – one of two criminal cases filed by the California attorney general in August against employees at facilities owned by Rechnitz.

MORE FROM SAC BEE:

Alameda Healthcare & Wellness Center

3 serious deficiencies

The facility got one of its serious deficiencies after a female resident lost more than 11 pounds in four months, or 13 percent of her body weight, and inspectors observed that she appeared “thin and frail.” The resident had told staff that the food was too dry and requested extra gravy because of her “swallowing disorder” that caused her to choke more easily. Inspectors found that the dietary aide failed to notify the cook, and the resident’s weight fell to 74.1 pounds.

Gridley Healthcare & Wellness Centre

6 serious deficiencies

Decertified effective Oct. 2 and set for closure. Surveyors identified immediate jeopardy to residents four times in five months. In the first survey, investigators said a patient suffered dehydration and died, while another resident with severe chest pain complained it took staff nine hours to get him an ambulance.

Oakhurst Healthcare & Wellness Centre

4 serious deficiencies

Inspectors issued multiple deficiencies after seven residents and one staff member fell ill from a contagious infection. Surveyors found poor hand-washing by staff, improper cleaning methods and unsanitary handling of linens. The director of staff development stated she had provided infection control training, but investigators found the documents had been taken from Wikipedia – “not recognized as a standard resource for professional infection control practice.”

Pacific Rehabilitation & Wellness Center, Eureka

1 serious deficiency

All 57 residents were found to be in immediate jeopardy when inspectors discovered the facility was using seven portable space heaters in resident care areas. The building’s heating system had been malfunctioning during a cold snap, and space heaters were set on high, posing a fire risk. Inspectors found one space heater in the front lobby beneath a table, near a lighted artificial Christmas tree. Another was inside the nurses’ station between two racks of clinical records.

Presidio Health Care Center, Spring Valley

2 serious deficiencies

The facility got two serious deficiencies because of low food supplies. Inspectors found inadequate food stock to meet daily nutritional needs, or for an emergency. Two refrigerators at the facility contained only a plastic bag with a “grey colored substance” (identified by staff as five pounds of hamburger) and five gallons of milk. The third refrigerator was empty.

Roseville Point Health & Wellness Center

1 serious deficiency

A resident with “moderate dementia” and a “history of self-mutilating behavior” was burned in September 2012 after she helped herself to four cups of coffee in the lobby and spilled them into her lap. The coffee, left out for anyone, was later found to be more than 170 degrees. Inspectors determined the facility failed to provide adequate supervision for the disabled resident to prevent the injuries.

South Pasadena Convalescent Hospital

(Renamed Mission Grove Healthcare & Wellness Centre)

2 serious deficiencies

Decertified effective Jan. 5. The facility got a serious deficiency after a 67-year-old female resident collapsed and died during an inspection. Investigators found that a licensed vocational nurse and certified nursing assistant did not know how to properly administer CPR, and 10 staff members did not respond correctly when asked later about CPR guidelines. The facility received a second serious deficiency after seven mentally ill patients were found to be coming and going without proper assessment. One committed suicide in a nearby neighborhood by lighting herself on fire.

Vernon Healthcare Center, Los Angeles

7 serious deficiencies

This facility had more serious violations in 2013 and 2014 than any other owned by Rechnitz. Key concerns were poor supervision, including one resident who used a motorized wheelchair twice found lying on the ground, injured, outside the facility. The administrator told inspectors that residents leave “all the time and just never return to the facility.” She said the nursing home does nothing to check on their welfare, assuming they “had just gone back to the streets.”

Wish-I-Ah Healthcare & Wellness Centre, Auberry

3 serious deficiencies

Decertified effective Nov. 7. Rechnitz permanently closed the facility late last year. Investigators visiting the home in October called immediate jeopardy in three instances and gave Wish-I-Ah its most severe deficiency for an infection that sickened residents and staff. Surveyors also issued a deficiency over the death of a 75-year-old resident from sepsis after improperly handling her wound dressing. They cited unsanitary conditions in the kitchen, bathrooms and ice machine, as well as improper disposal of raw sewage.

SAC BEE SEPT. 19, 2015:

Today, 24 years after the devastating blaze, California’s attorney general is holding others criminally responsible for what ultimately happened to James Populus, who died last year at age 58 after allegedly receiving “grossly negligent” care at a controversial skilled nursing facility operated by the state’s largest nursing home owner: Shlomo Rechnitz of Los Angeles.

California Attorney General Kamala Harris announced last month that her office had filed involuntary manslaughter charges against Verdugo Valley Skilled Nursing & Wellness Centre LLC in suburban Los Angeles. Two registered nurses on staff also were charged with felony abuse.

The charges were in line with a 2012 pledge by Harris that she would aggressively step up criminal prosecutions of nursing home operators and staff, although her promise did not materialize for two more years.

Rechnitz has not been charged individually in the case. Public officials in neighboring South Pasadena continue to press Harris’ office for criminal charges against another nursing home owned until recently by Rechnitz – a facility the local police chief denounced as a “cesspool” and a “community menace” while under Rechnitz’s watch.

On Thursday, at a pivotal court hearing in Pasadena, the stakes of the Verdugo Valley case were evident as eight attorneys pressed into the fourth-floor courtroom wielding overstuffed roller-bags and document boxes stacked on hand carts. New legal issues delayed the preliminary hearing until December, but the case illustrates the complexity of elder-abuse prosecutions – and the ferocity with which the battles are waged.

SAC BEE AUG. 28, 2015:

Sallie Hofmeister, a Rechnitz spokeswoman, said an internal investigation found no basis for the allegations. Nevertheless, she said, the facility has increased training and oversight.

Earlier this month, Rechnitz gave up his ownership stake in a South Pasadena nursing home, where the police chief had complained for months about criminal activity in and around the facility. A new ownership group has stepped in, promising changes. The Montrose facility has had similar problems, according to elder-care advocates.

JUNE 13, 2015:

At the top of the chain: Shlomo Rechnitz, a 43-year-old Los Angeles entrepreneur and philanthropist.

Since 2006, Rechnitz and his primary company, Brius Healthcare Services, have acquired 81 nursing homes up and down the state, many of them through bankruptcy court. His chain has grown so quickly that he now controls about 1 in every 14 nursing home beds in California, giving him an outsized influence on quality of care in the state.

In the past year, multiple alarms have been raised about this relative newcomer to the industry and the care provided in some of his homes. His facilities have become the target of police scrutiny, lawsuits, stiff regulatory fines and state and federal investigations that have uncovered numerous alleged violations.

…Rechnitz’s troubles were compounded this spring, when the South Pasadena facility was hit with 24 state citations and $195,500 in fines from the Department of Public Health. Cargill’s suicide, for instance, resulted in a $20,000 fine and a Class A citation for the facility’s failure to supervise a patient with a history of schizophrenia, anxiety disorder and involuntary psychiatric holds.

Rechnitz agrees that his nursing home operation has been under siege, but he offers an alternative viewpoint. He says problems with regulators began after his management company became embroiled in a legal dispute with the state over delinquent paperwork, and the relationship soured.

“The things that happened are very shocking to me,” said Rechnitz, referring to his newly contentious relationship with regulators.

“All of a sudden, we show up to court one day and there is an emergency motion that refers to us as a quote-unquote serial violator of laws. It questions if we would pass the good character requirement … It basically makes us look like the Charles Manson of the nursing home business.”

The state denies it has singled Rechnitz out or has any ulterior motives.

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NorCal Vs SoCal

Posted on October 25, 2015 by Luke Ford

Comments to Steve Sailer:

* I always feel like saying to the mainstream press, it’s the demographics, stupid. I could have written a better article just using about 5 sentences. Of course, that wouldn’t fill the space, but still.

* In other words, “Keep Portland weird… and white.”

* San Francisco grew up as a port even if LA is now a much bigger one and San Francisco’s moribund. That is why SF was the biggest city on the West Coast until the early 20th century. Prior to Silicon Valley, SF was also the financial capital of the West. Wells Fargo and Bank of America had their headquarters in SF. The nascent Silicon Valley was another world from SF, 50 miles down the peninsula. That owed more to Stanford University being the epicenter of electronic research. The big money in California in the 60′s and 70′s was in real estate development and finance. In fact, the FIRE economy pushed out blue collar workers and industry from San Francisco and its nearby suburbs and now the Tech economy is driving the FIRE industry out. Bank of America, e.g., no longer owns its signature building in downtown SF and is headquartered in Charlotte.

I suspect Nolan Bushnell might be the true father of San Francisco’s current position as a tech capital. Atari made computer technology into a consumer good and both Jobs and Wozniak got their start working for Atari. Once computer technology became cheap enough and user friendly enough for everyday use the money poured into Silicon Valley. In a world were twenty something Yahoo entrepreneurs could make hundreds of millions of dollars and cellphone applications became billion dollar unicorn companies the idea of living in Milpitas when you could afford Pacific Heights didn’t make much sense.

* I do find it interesting now that California’s three most prominent office holders are Bay Area residents: Jerry Brown (Oakland), Feinstein (SF), and Boxer (Marin County). From what I see, the odds on favorite to replace Boxer in the Senate is state AG Kamala Harris (San Francisco), the only “Republican” who was ever said to have a prayer was Condoleezza Rice (Stanford/SV).

And the reason why NorCal is wiping the floor with SoCal is that MIT will always beat Guatemala.

* Steve’s point is that closeted-race-realist limousine liberalism made SF turn into MIT, whereas whatever they had in LA had it turn to Guatemala.

* I wonder what Joel Kotkin thinks of this analysis. He championed immigration at the beginning of his career but I sense he had gradually shifted his opinion without coming out and actually saying so.

* I grew up in San Diego Co. My family was there because of the defense industry, and all of my childhood friends’ fathers worked for GD, GA, M/A comm, SAIC, or the biotech firms, if they weren’t outright Navy or Marines.

The defense industry crowd is what propelled UCSD to bring the second best engineering school in the UC system, above UCLA.

The engineers in those companies were all transplants from the Midwest, with high hopes for their own kids. But something about San Diego killed it for their kids. Their own kids wanted to be surfers and stoners, and culture was anti work and anti intellectual. Masters and PhD holding parents were becoming okay with their kids bumming it at SDSU or surfing.

Then the Berlin Wall collapse defense industry recession hit hard, and LA lost its aero industry, and San Diego survived because of cell phones and what became Qualcomm. But the culture wasn’t there for young twenty somethings who were nerdy because it was still overwhelmingly for stoners and surfers.

The bay area did attract them. They were attracted to Apple, Oracle, Cisco and a hundred semi conductor manufacturers.

Meanwhile, the nerds hated Hollywood. And after the aero collapse, LA became just a media industry town, and nerds couldn’t compete with glitz and self promotion. Young people in LA were all writing their own screenplay. Nerds wanted to get away.

* Stanford and Harvard have generated a lot more computer billionaires than Cal Tech (strict merit, no AA) and MIT (subdued AA compared to other top schools).

It seems that the Cal Tech policy of filling the class with the highest possible non-verbal IQ does not produce software entrepreneurs like Harvard and Stanford’s “mix of the smartest and richest, together with athletes and leaders with very high IQ.”

* I wonder what the average IQ is in the Bay Area. I suspect that for an area of its size it has by far the smartest population in the US, and probably the world. If the nationwide average is ~100, then the Bay has to be at least, what, 110?

* An aunt of mine and her husband, he with a doctorate, she with a masters, had four children and lived right on the beach in a place called Capistrano Beach, one of the early gated communities.When I say “right on the beach” I mean you stepped out of the house and on to the beach, where the breakers and the pristine sand stretched out for miles in either direction.
Result: beach bum boys, not one of whom graduated from college (well, one did, but only after he realised in his mid-twenties that otherwise his already growing family was going to starve). Another was still surfing nearly full time at age 40. They were not stupid: the graduate was tested with a 150 IQ, and the surfer is a very articulate and very amusing conversationalist.
What was it? The fatal pull of the sun, the sea and the sky I suppose.
I was lucky in at least two ways: It all meant nothing to me, and I grew up in Palo Alto.

* Steve, have you seen the NY Times Mag “Strange Case of Anna Stubblefield” piece yet? It’s insane — like the Frankfurt-School-Sinatra-Has-A-Cold of IQ denialism, ableism, molestation hysteria, real molestation under color of “science,” pseudo-medico-novelty obsession, and crazy PhD’s gone wild; it’s like the Citizen Kane of irreplicability, man.

* I’ve lived in both locations. I think overall SoCal is a nicer place to live, but I admit there are times when I travel to SF that it feels as if I’m entering civilization. But that’s probably largely because it’s an older city with top restaurants, boutiques, etc.

And don’t forget all the surf/skate/clothing/car/motorcycle start-ups in SoCal, especially in OC. There are a lot of e-cig and “vape”start-ups in the area, too. Costa Mesa seems to have a lot of new companies. And of course there’s a huge bio-tech community centered around UCI.

There are so many tech start-ups in Westside LA that the area has been dubbed “Silicon Beach.”

I get the impression that SoCal attracts a lot more wealthy foreigners than NorCal does.

* The 2009 list of where the Forbes 400 went to school:

Harvard 54
Stanford 25
Penn 18
Yale 16
Columbia 16
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (11)
Northwestern University (10)
University of Chicago (10)
Cornell University (9)
University of California, Berkeley (9)
University of Southern California (9)
University of Texas, Austin (9).

* The beach bum problem definitely appears to have been an issue from my youth in Santa Cruz. It’s a fun place to grow up–I had a ball–but the achievement level of the natives is not high. Most of them are very happy, so one might wonder whether achievement is all that. However, way back when it was still quite cheap to live there. Now that all the achievers have figured out how easy is to get down 17, they’ve sent housing prices into the upper atmosphere. It’s not quite so easy to be a bum there as it used to be.

* So called white Conservatives did nothing but ruin Los Angeles, they made it unfit to live in. Even before the flood of illegals in the 90′s, the place was going to pot. Developers and their pet council members ate up chunk after chunk of beautiful land and replaced it with junk tract homes, strip malls and assorted architectural monstrosities.

And when they couldn’t find anything left to ruin in Los Angeles proper they went to outlying areas to ruin them as well with more cookie cutter, soul sucking housing tracts that make people hate their lives, more low income apartments, more strip malls and shopping centers. City planning amounted to stuffing as many houses as possible onto a plot of land even if it is on active fault lines.

Locals who wanted to keep their towns as they are were hit with SLAPP lawsuits to shut them up by fat cat developers or they just sued the cities to get what they wanted.

They so over developed the place that made a water shortage all but inevitable.

In my view the real culprits in the CA drought is a your white developer, businessmen and politicians. Who put money before all else.

Posted in California, Los Angeles, San Francisco | Comments Off on NorCal Vs SoCal

Did You Know Ben Carson Is A Seventh-Day Adventist?

Posted on October 25, 2015 by Luke Ford

Daily Caller: Carson grew up in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and his father was an active minister. Having been baptized twice before the age of 13, he began to take his Adventist faith seriously after he allegedly attempted to stab a friend.

The enigmatic denomination emerged on the religious scene in the 1820s when William Miller, a veteran of the War of 1812, predicted the second coming of Christ. Several of Miller’s predicted dates passed without fulfillment and many of his followers abandoned the tradition. But a few carried on and attributed the faulty predictions to a misinterpretation on Miller’s part — not a flaw in the original idea.

There are two fundamental tenets of the Adventist Church: Saturday, the original seventh day of the week, is the Sabbath, and Christ will return to earth to test and judge mankind.

The religion also interprets the books in the Bible from a literal lens, taking the book of Genesis to reveal scientific truths.

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WP: Donald Trump: No apology for questioning Ben Carson’s Seventh-day Adventist faith

Posted on October 25, 2015 by Luke Ford

As an ex-Seventh-Day Adventist, I’m loving my former religion’s time in the spotlight.

In my experience, ex-Seventh-Day Adventists tend to have a visceral hatred for the SDA church, much like ex-Catholics have for the Catholic church.

I’d like to think that my feelings are more positive than negative, but I might be fooling myself.

Comments at the Washington Post:

* I am not a religious individual, nor do I harbor any ill-will toward those who are religious. I never knew what a 7th Day Adventist was until I moved to Chicago. I have had the experience of working with two large Adventist organizations in the western suburbs and it has been interesting to say the least. They are very much a closed group. In my experience, they highly value children and education. There always seems to be endless infighting and subversion amongst leadership which makes daily interaction uncomfortable and bizarre. They are openly discriminatory with very limited non-discrimination statements that do not protect all citizens. My overall assessment is that Adventists are educated and intelligent. Their externally projected character appears righteous, but the true intent of their actions and decisions is highly questionable and occasionally offensive. I did not know Carson was an Adventist until recently, but after learning that he was, his crazy comments and bizarre demeanor combined with his medical and educational background suddenly made perfect sense. There is much more behind this man’s motivations than he expresses publicly. Be careful and be wary.

* “I mean, Negro, I don’t know about. I just don’t know about.”

* Trump knows exactly what he is doing. Any fool can look up SDA on the internet–even Trump. He knows what they believe, and once the Evangelicals know, Carson is finished.
Just try to tell an Evangelical that there is no Hell. Good grief, each one of them has lists of people that they know are destined for the lake of eternal fire, and they love the idea.

* This will be a problem for Carson when people get to know more about him and his religion. He’s already had an appearance before the Southern Baptists cancelled because of his religion.

Southern Baptist Pastors’ Conference Cancels Ben Carson as Speaker for Political, Theological Reasons

* Carson also said he’s not supporting a Muslim as president, so I think it’s fine that Trump said he doesn’t know about Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) faith. Even though SDA Claims about Ellen White’s Visions and Dreams as given to her by God, Her “I was shown” visions were even copied! White is found guilty of copying extensively from other authors ( White copied “The Great Controversy” 1886, from “The History of Protestantism” 1876, not only the words, but the pictures, and claimed it was a revelation of God). Most people just know the SDA worship on Saturdays, not Sundays, but did not know according to White, the papacy is the seven-headed beast from the sea in Revelation who is accompanying by a lamb-like beast from the earth. The latter causes the world to worship the former and has an image made of it. White proclaimed that the second beast is the United States (The Great Controversy, 387–8), and that it will force people to worship the papacy by enforcing Sunday worship rather than Saturday worship. Thus SDA see themselves as the “remnant”, the one and only group that has the “truth” and all other Christian churches are anti-Christ or under “strong delusion”.

* Keep them fighting, media boys. Create the news. Divide and conquer. It works every time.

* Gotta love how all these GOP guys try to convince people that one flavor of mindless superstition is better than all the other flavors of mindless superstition.

* We can NOT have a Seventh Day Adventist for a president.

* “Donald Trump: No apology for …” fill in you own blanks. When did “dog bites man” become headline news?

* Suppose for a moment that Trump is elected POTUS (shudder). Suppose he makes remarks in advance of a State visit by Angela Merkel:

“Angela Merkel is coming to visit me next week at the Trump White House. I look forward to seeing her, although, to be honest, she is nothing to look at – and by that I mean that she may have once been great looking, but years of worry about the economy in Germany, which is, quite frankly, very, very bad, have taken a toll on her face. And that body! She should be wearing pant suits, like Hillary, because there’s nothing worse than an old woman dressing like a young one, like my wife – have you seen her? She is an amazing woman, my wife. She is as classy as me, and she looks almost as good now as when I married her. Anyway, so Angela Merkel is coming to ask me for my advice, because she read my books and she knows how amazing I am in business and how I’ve grown the economy in the US just since taking office last week. Looking forward to helping her out.”

* There are:
1. Roman and Eastern Catholic Christians–who trace back to the original Christianity.
2. Eastern Orthodox Christians–who trace back to the original Christianity & Councils.
3. European Reformation Christianity–a 16th century set of re-definitions of Roman Catholic Christianity
4. Later European, esp English, new forms of Christianity:eg Methodism,Presbyterianism
5. Uniquely American forms of Christianity–Colinial era:e.g. Baptists
6. Pre and Post Civil War unique forms of Christianity with founders alleged to be Prophet(esses), or founder’s dicovery of New Scriptures etc:Adventist,JWs,Mormons etc
7. Many 19th-20th century American Liberal(Social Gospel) or Evangelical(biblical fundamentalist) Christianity.

Trump is Presbyterian. Carson is 7th Day Adventist. Fiorina is Episcopalian. Rubio is Roman Catholic. Hillarious is Methodist. . . . . Their Religion does matter! Imagine if one of them were a Shi’a Muslim–intent on an apocalyptic holy war to eliminate all Sunni Muslims and non-Muslims. That would matter, wouldn’t it?

BTW Carson is a devout biblicist–he believes every word in the TORAH, the GOSPELS, and the Apostolic Letters are infallible truth! He may know his anatomy of the human brain, but not Christianity, or any other world religion.

* I used to enjoy the “Spy vs. Spy” cartoons in Mad Magazine when I was a kid. Now I get to enjoy “Bigot vs. Bigot” in the GOP primary. It’s not as enjoyable.

LINK: “Let the colored people work chiefly for those of their own race. …The best thing will be to provide the colored people who accept the truth, with places of worship of their own, in which they can carry on their services by themselves… Schools and sanitariums for colored people should be established.”

“Let white and colored people be labored for in separate, distinct lines.”

MORE WP COMMENTS:

* So now the republicans are arguing about which religion is the best one? This should be interesting.

* Trump sure doesn’t act like the Presbyterian Christians I know. On the other hand, my recent experiences with dogmatic Seventh Day Adventists make me question their ability to play nice with others.

* It’s good to know that Trump and Carson both need the help of the nutty religious right to win the GOP nomination.

It will be fun listening and watching both of these cons trying to out religion one another with their nutty ideas and beliefs when it comes to their lack of experience in governing.

* Dr. Carson really sells his religion as one of his high points for electability. So why can’t we talk about it?

* 7DAs do have their own prophet, and have some interesting views on the rest of Christianity. DEFINITELY not mainstream by any standard. Trump is the most effective politician we are likely to see in our lifetimes. His choice of words in this case is perfect. Millions will now have a look at this faith, and will have to wonder: With all that religious life in America has t offer, what compelled Dr. Carson to choose this one? He’s been born again in it, twice.
If republicans think that the Clintons won’t make an issue of it, they’re dreaming. Trump wins again. Evan Tom Bevan at RCP has to really amp up the propaganda to make Trump look extreme here, the link I followed from RCP said Trump paints Carson’s faith as extreme. “I don’t know”, he said. Trump’s on solid ground here. 70% of republican voters now see him as most electable. I wonder if Hillary will survive to face him. Can anyone ask for more than a Trump/Sanders battle? Sanders wrote that women have a subconscious desire to be gang raped. Will Trump mention that? How many times? How about until everyone’s heard it.

* Does Trump still say he’d date his daughter if he could? (She has such a great body.) He has two daughters, but, I guess, the other one doesn’t have such a great body.

* I’ll have to say that probably the only thing i liked about Trump’s campaign was his disinterest in getting into ‘religiosity’ competitions. So I’m sorry that he decided he had to throw that out – even though Carson deserves whatever he gets.

Nevertheless, from a cynical viewpoint – he’s probably doing a smart thing bringing up subtly that the Seventh Day Adventists aren’t large denomination and therefore others might find their beliefs different than their own. AND he was careful to not actually ‘say’ anything about the religion – so he can’t be accused of dissing them.

He’s a sharp operator – I’ll say that. Not someone I’d ever want for president – but very shrewd with the innuendo.

* It is the well practised dog whistle.
However Carson invited this he went further down that road with Moslems.
Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.

* As a Seventh-Day Adventist, many of us knew this day would come. Carson views is outside of many of the tenets held sacred By SDAs:

1) On Religious liberty: SDAs have been in the forefront for maintaining the separation between Church and State. We believe that the greatest danger to Christianity is when the state become one with Religion particularly the Christian Religion.

2) The matter of free will: We believe that God in all his dealings with man, allow him to exercise free will. Therefore it is wrong to impose Christian Tenets or doctrines with the power of the State or with coercion by family or friends. Carson views on the role the STATE on Gay marriage is not a SDA viewpoint.

3) The provision of health Care: Jesus in all his interactions placed the health of the individual as primary, before addressing their Spiritual needs he would perform miracles: hence very early in SDA history, health became important to us: (See Kellogs, Post and Loma Linda) If the ACA allows for increase access to healthcare it is something to be praised, If they are flaws, then work to fix it or ameliorate it. It is from that perspective that Dr Carson approach to both Medicare and ACA is more in keeping with the Historical AMA, rather than SDAs.

4) Views on borders: In Christ there is no East nor West, The Bible addresses the favorable treatment of strangers (foreigners) 10X more often than it speaks of homosexuality. Mary and Joseph fled to Egypt with Christ as a child, The gospel is to be spread in all nations. On this basis we are particularly happy when walls and barriers to free movement between people are removed.
4b) The Sabbath has 3 components, 2 of which is rest and work, one cannot keep the Sabbath if you have not worked. The gift of work originated in Eden. Therefore barriers to work where-ever you are is not in keeping with Gods plan.

These positions may not be politically feasible in any modern day country, and would be the opposite of Republican Dogma.

* Tone2, the Bible does not mean just open the gates and let anyone come into the country and let the government support them and give them other peoples hard earned possessions. I do not know many Seventh Day Adventist that believe we should have open borders.

* 1) Open Gates; an entire book in the bible is based off that concept, The book of Ruth. Naomi and family was an economic refugee to Ruth’s country (something we are against) when Naomi and Ruth return to Judea Ruth would be by our definition an economic refugee, Naomi has no resources to sponsor her either, and would not be granted a visa she would have been here illegally.

When Ruth enters Boaz field she is essentially relying on the welfare system (spelt out in Leviticus) which says that a farmer cannot return and glean the crop that he misses in the first pass, it was to be left to widows and orphan. (imagine interfering with private property)
It is instructive that Ruth who is the foreigner here is in the birthline of Christ.
2) In acts of the Apostles the early Christian Church ( they had all things in common) the story of Annanias and his wife is a story about the treatment of private property in the early Christian Church. As Peter points out that it was theirs to dispose of as they see fit, but they were sharing with the other believers but lied about the extent of their sharing. A concept drawn from (Numbers 10:32)
3) You ignore that all is required to work. treating the stranger among you like yourself is allowing them to work.
4) Read again the Story of the Good Samaritan, You will notice that while all the other characters are listed by religious persuasion the Samaritan is listed by nationality, and he is not an Israelite.
Christianity is a difficult concept and in practice totally alien to our current practices and beliefs.

* SDA is the Wahhabi version of Christianity, believing in the literal Bible, including all the nutty stuff. Christian Taliban now occupies the White House, let me out of here.

* I’m a Presbyterian too! Hypocrisy is our central creed, so we welcome Mr. Trump!

* Since Carson’s whole campaign is wrapped in a cocoon of religiosity that is largely his way or the highway and he cares not a whit about separation of church and state, his beliefs and his religion should be fully exposed.

* I was wondering if someone was going to bring up Carson’s Seventh Day Adventist’s faith. People who are unfamiliar with the quirks of this sect would be in for a surprise. Not only because of their Sabbath, but SDA are generally vegetarians, against eating meat. They are also pacifists who have a history of conscientious objection to war, refusing to serve. How would that reconcile with being commander in chief? These questions have not been put to Carson by the other candidates or the media. Will it be examined now?

* Ben Carson is like Richard “Tricky Dick” Nixon, who was brought up a Quaker. He does not let the pacifism of his religion keep him from beating the drums of war:

“In February [2015], Carson said America must step up its leadership in the effort to combat Islamic State. At CPAC, Carson said he would order the military to destroy the group and would not ‘tie (the military’s) hands'” (Desjardins, 2015, Islamic State, para. 2).

* The Seventh Day Adventists are extremely Anti-Catholic and Anti-Pork. Two things that should give Iowans grave concern.

* It is right that Seventh-day Adventist Church is much different from mainstream Christianity. Adventist leaders and their members use the writings of Ellen G. White to interpret the Scriptures. Ellen G. White proclaimed that: 1) the papacy is the seven-headed beast from the sea in Revelation 13:1–10, who changed the day of worship from Saturday to Sunday, making this change a mark of its authority. 2) Accompanying this beast is a lamb-like beast from the earth. The latter causes the world to worship the former and has an image made of it. She proclaimed the second beast is the United States (The Great Controversy, 387–8), and that it will force people to worship the papacy by “enforcing some observance which shall be an act of homage to the papacy”. This observance, she says, is Sunday worship rather than Saturday worship. Thus, Seventh-day Adventist Church worship on Saturdays, not Sundays, and view themselves as “the Remnant Church” alone especially called by God in 1844, over all other churches, which they called Babylon.

Posted in Adventist, Blacks, Donald Trump | Comments Off on WP: Donald Trump: No apology for questioning Ben Carson’s Seventh-day Adventist faith

Just For Today

Posted on October 25, 2015 by Luke Ford

From Al-Anon:

Just for today, I will try to live through this day only,
and not tackle my whole life problem
at once. I can do something for twelve hours
that would appall me if I felt that I had to
keep it up for a lifetime.

Just for today, I will be happy. This assumes to
be true what Abraham Lincoln said, that
“most folks are as happy as they make up
their minds to be.”

Just for today, I will try to strengthen my mind.
I will study. I will learn something useful.
I will not be a mental loafer. I will read
something that requires effort, thought and
concentration.

Just for today, I will adjust myself to what is,
and not try to adjust everything to my own
desires. I will take my “luck” as it comes,
and fit myself to it.

Just for today, I will exercise my soul in three
ways: I will do somebody a good turn, and
not get found out. I will do at least two
things I don’t want to–just for exercise.
I will not show anyone that my feelings are
hurt; they may be hurt, but today I will not
show it

Just for today, I will be agreeable. I will look
as well as I can, dress becomingly, talk low,
act courteously, criticize not one bit, not
find fault with anything and not try to improve
or regulate anybody except myself.

Posted in Addiction | Comments Off on Just For Today

Can California Be Saved?

Posted on October 25, 2015 by Luke Ford

Comment: “Victor Davis Hanson strikes me as someone who is stuck in a political no man’s land, somewhere between straight cuckservatism and soft nationalism. This is why his writings about his native and home state are such a maddening mix of hints of truth and utter bullshit.”

Victor Davis Hanson writes for NR:

Crime is back up in California. Los Angeles reported a 20.6 percent increase in violent crimes over the first half of 2015 and nearly an 11 percent increase in property crimes. Last year, cash-strapped California taxpayers voted for Proposition 47, which so far has let thousands of convicted criminals go free from prison and back onto the streets. Now the state may have to relearn what lawbreakers often do when let out of jail early.

The state may be entering the fifth year of a catastrophic drought, but California has not started building any of the new reservoirs that were planned but long ago canceled under the unfinished California Water Project. Water may remain scarce, but legislators — many of whom have their daily water needs met by the ancient reservoirs and canals that their grandparents built — don’t seem overly bothered. They prefer to designate transgender restrooms, ban plastic bags at grocery stores, and prohibit pet dogs from chasing bears and bobcats. Never has a region been so naturally rich but so poorly run by its latest generation of custodians.

California endures some of the highest gasoline taxes, sales taxes, and income taxes in the nation. Yet its roads and public schools rate near the very bottom of U.S. rankings. Traffic accidents in California increased by 13 percent over a three-year period — the result of terrible roads and worse drivers. Almost half of all accidents in Los Angeles are hit-and-runs where the drivers leave the scene.

California has lots of petroleum and natural gas. It used to be a pacesetter in building nuclear and hydroelectric plants. Yet because of inept governance, the state’s electricity and gasoline prices are among the highest in the nation. Why is California choosing the path of Detroit — growing government that it cannot pay for, shorting the middle classes, hiking taxes but providing shoddy services and infrastructure in return, and obsessing over minor bumper-sticker issues while ignoring existential crises? The cause is political.

California is a one-party state, without any serious audit of authorities in power. The California State Assembly currently includes 52 Democrats and 28 Republicans. The California State Senate has 26 Democrats and 14 Republicans. Both of its U.S. senators are Bay-area progressives. California’s House delegation is overwhelmingly liberal and Democratic. The party in power can do as it pleases without being held accountable at the polls. But what turned a once bipartisan and purple state bright blue? A perfect storm of events.

Higher taxes and increased regulations have driven out lots of small-business owners. In the last few years, hundreds of thousands of disgruntled middle-of-the-road voters voted with their feet and left for no-tax Nevada, Texas, or Florida. The state devolved into a pyramid of the coastal wealthy and interior poor — the dual constituencies of the new progressive movement. A third of America’s welfare recipients reside in California. Nearly a quarter of Californians live below the poverty line.

Yet nowhere in America are there more billionaires. California’s long, thin coastal corridor has become a tony La-La land unto itself. Some of the highest housing prices in the nation and richest communities are clustered along the Pacific coastline, from the wine country and Silicon Valley to Malibu and Hollywood, dotted by marquee coastal universities and zillionaire tech corporations.

Posted in Blacks, California | Comments Off on Can California Be Saved?

Everyone is conservative about what he knows best

Posted on October 25, 2015 by Luke Ford

LINK: Robert Conquest’s Three Laws of Politics:

  1. Everyone is conservative about what he knows best.
  2. Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.
  3. The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.

John Derbyshire adds this:

Of the Second Law, Conquest gave the Church of England and Amnesty International as examples. Of the Third, he noted that a bureaucracy sometimes actually is controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies — e.g. the postwar British secret service.

John Moore thinks the third law is almost right; it should read “assume that it is controlled by a cabal of the enemies of the stated purpose of that bureaucracy.”

Francis W. Porretto notes that Cyril Northcote Parkinson studied the same phenomenon of bureaucratic behavior:

Parkinson promulgated a number of laws of bureaucracy that serve to explain a huge percentage of its characteristics. They’ve exhibited remarkable predictive power within their domain. The first of these is the best known:

Parkinson’s First Law: Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.

Parkinson inferred this effect from two central principles governing the behavior of bureaucrats:

  1. Officials want to multiply subordinates, not rivals.
  2. Officials make work for one another.

Like most generalizations, these are not always true…but the incentives that apply specifically to tax-funded government bureaucracies make them true much more often than not. They make a striking contrast with the almost exactly opposite behavior observable in private enterprise.
[…]
That young bureaucrat will profit from deliberate ineffectiveness to the extent that he can get himself viewed as an asset by his superiors and a non-threat by his peers. His superiors want him to produce justifications for the enlargement of their domains. His peers simply ask that he not tread on their provinces.

Miltion Friedman noted that bureaucratic resource allocation involves spending other people’s money on other people, so there are no compelling reasons to control either cost or quality — but a bureaucrat will learn, given time, how to “spend on others” in such a fashion that the primary benefit flows to himself.

To do this, bureaucrats must manage perceptions, so that their work seems both necessary and successful:

Von Clausewitz and others have termed war “a continuation of politics by other means,” but when viewed from the perspective of the State Department official, war is the declaration that his organization has failed of its purpose. He sees it as bad public relations for his entire function. Thus, even when the nation’s interests would be overwhelmingly better served by war than by the continuation of diplomacy, the State Department man will prefer diplomacy. It’s in his demesne, and enhances his prestige by enhancing the prestige of his trade.

It’s not too much to say that averting war regardless of its desirability or justifiability is near the top of every State Department functionary’s list of priorities. In this pursuit, the State Department will often find itself opposing even peacetime operations of the military designed to improve its effectiveness, such as the acquisition of new weapons or the enlargement of its ranks.

Posted in Conservatives, John Derbyshire | Comments Off on Everyone is conservative about what he knows best

NYT: Baltimore Struggles To Heal

Posted on October 25, 2015 by Luke Ford

I lived in Baltimore during the summer of 1980. Almost every day, I spent hours in the local public library. A naive Seventh-Day Adventist, I asked to join in various black basketball games in the playground outside and was told to get lost.

Once, I opened the door for a black teen and he cursed me out. I was shocked. I asked him why he cursed me. He said, “Because I hate what your people did to my people.”

Comments to Steve Sailer:

* I was recently in Baltimore – and the Fell’s Point neighborhood – and spent some time with a friend who is a resident. He said that while his upper middle class neighborhood was not having to deal with murders, the amount of property crimes and break-ins were way up since the riots. He also confirmed – though discussions with a police officer who is an in-law – that the police are extremely concerned about liability/criminal charges in regard to their everyday duties. He basically said that it’s a big mess there & his comments echo those of the Fell’s Point proprietors in the NYT article.

* Struggles to Heal

I don’t think a “police encounter” — “deadly” or not — is the reason Baltimore might be ‘struggling to heal’. And yes, I can just see those hardcore underclass ghetto Blacks in Baltimore using their Obamaphones to comfort each other in their ‘struggle to heal’. The NYT is so infantile.

* “One woman complained about “blatantly open drug deals and prostitution” in her neighborhood, saying she no longer felt safe, “even during the day.” A man said that when he walks outside “at 10:30 at night, and I don’t see a single police person, it freaks me out.” …”

Hilarious. In my neck of the woods you can watch the citizen/cop review meetings on channel 8. Resident’s in these meetings complain when 3 cop cars come to their area to address a situation.

Cops are great to blame. Rule of thumb – if you live in an area where cops are not needed – you good. You live in an area where half your community hates cops for the simple reason that they are doing their job – move. Blame gentrification if you need to keep your lib cred up.

* I can’t really say I feel bad for anyone in Baltimore. All the gentrifiers only moved in because of the heavy police presence. If your city needs heavy-handed cops to be constantly patrolling and busting heads for you to feel safe, you picked the wrong city to live in. Truly nice places to live don’t need cops for much. Gentrified Baltimore was an artificially nice place to live, hence why it became a not-nice place to live so quickly once the cops realized the elites don’t want them to do their jobs.

* Feminists sometimes complain that society responds to male violence with a “boys will be boys attitude”, that it gives men a free pass. Sometimes this is tied in to what they call “rape culture”.

Feminists are delusional, of course, but Ta-Nehisi Coates seems to advocate an extreme version of “boys will be boys”, although he would never phrase it as such. His idea seems to be that society shouldn’t take black male violence seriously, since that means putting lots of black men in prison, which in turn destroys black society. Men who go to prison can’t get decent jobs, they can’t support families, women don’t want to marry them. This means more illegitimacy, more boys growing up without fathers, which perpetuates the cycle.

Coates seems to be saying, let young black men run amok during their youth, but don’t leave them stuck with criminal records. Eventually they will age out of crime and get jobs and raise families. In the long run black society will be better off that way. Some people will get mugged, some women will get raped, but in the long run that is less important than having as many men as possible become functioning members of society.

From a reactionary point of view, there’s actually something to be said for this. Law and order is vital to society, but arguably there is one thing even more important, and that is men. Men who will work, who will marry their women and raise their children. Family is more fundamental than law or justice.

This is the wisdom implicit in “boys will by boys”: that society depends upon men, that imposing excessive rules upon them in their youth only serves to stigmatize them, and they will age out of it and ultimately carry society on their back. (Feminists hate every part of this, and they actively want to stigmatize men.)

The problem is that when crime gets to the level it is in Baltimore, it destroys the economy. What businessman wants to start a small business in Baltimore nowadays? So even when black men age out of crime, there will be no good jobs for them. Who wants to hire men who have never been expected to follow any rules at all?

Still, I find it interesting that the core of Coates worldview can be interpreted in this ultra-reactionary and anti-feminist way.

* Wake up. It’s still a few decades too early to “gentrify” Baltimore, Memphis, St Louis etc. The cycle is not complete in these locations and gentrifiers will continue to take big losses.

They have been attempting to gentrify Baltimore for thirty years starting with the downtown core. Talk about a House of Pain.

You need a genuine mega trend to turn the tide in these hellholes. SanFran embraced tech and put the city on a new trajectory.

In lieu of an external mega trend there is the internal destructive trend. But it takes generations. In Detroit the cycle is almost complete. It’s probably only 10 years away from total implosion and rebirth as a largely non-black successful community.

* Why are no journalists getting interviews with “Black Lives Matter” leader George Soros?

Normally, when a large group of people shut down the Hollywood freeway, or shut down a community leadership group headed by the Mayor of the City of Los Angeles, a local journalist would seek an interview with the leader of this group, to get a better understanding of his intentions. Yet, as far as I can tell, George Soros is nowhere to be found. He’s invested over $9 million dollars to fly these activists around the country to demonstrate. You’d think he’d want a share of the credit of what his demonstrations have wrought?

He’s one of the most effective leader of black politics since Al Sharpton. I couldn’t see Al Sharpton avoiding the press. Why is Mr. Soros so shy? Why is the LA and NY Times so shy about getting an interview with him to find out where he’s taking his black constituency next?

I’ve always noted that american blacks have been thirsty for leadership since the death of Dr. Martin Luthur King, and now we have this new leader for the black civil rights movement, who doesn’t seem to want any of the limelight. Can’t the LA or NY Times at least find out why he’s so shy? Just seems strange in this internet age that reporters are so reticent to take the chance of possibly violating Mr. Soros’ privacy. I know they mean well, but they can at least keep the reader abreast of when he might decide to take the stage.

I, for one, am interested in what Mr. Soros has to say!

* For time out of mind I have been imploring Steve to watch and maybe binge on The Wire. Plenty of important things revolve around what’s good or bad for the departments “clearance rate.” Plus, the guy who keeps the clearance rate ever in mind is the most likable fatso in the history of TV. BTW, I remember a while back some commenter belittling the show for depicting drug dealing thugs as micro-economists keen to gauge which way the market is going. Well that was the comment that made me decide to watch the series, and as it turns out, that was quite bogus to impute to a show which does not make the black gangsters out to be any smarter than they generally are, and rather does a top-notch job depicting how simple-minded men are occasionally effective.

* Any place that has a sizable black population always has a cloud of uncertainty hanging over it. All it takes is one unexpected police encounter with some black youth that goes south and the entire place can get Fergusoned. Even when the police can keep an invisible cordon around the white areas it’s the still white areas that have to pay the taxes for the damage the miscreants inflict on each other. When the proactive policing ends then there goes the balancing act. One can never predict if or when such an incident will occur and there goes whatever one has put into their home. It’s actually a very simple formula: blacks=trouble; the further away one lives from trouble the better off they are.

* It is all part of code speak. Take for instance this:

“…it has also been a reminder that black leadership, exemplified by Ms. Rawlings-Blake, is not a guarantee that government can manage toxic collisions of race and policing any better than white leadership has in places like Ferguson, Mo.”

What an utterly clever way to say that blacks always have trouble with the law and still manage to sound like you are on the side of the Black Lives Matter narrative.

* Nobody chooses to raise daughters in places which basically trivialises rape. Look at the flight out of the cities in the sixties.

* You’re assuming stable, two parent families as traditionally formed by whites are also the natural condition for blacks. They’re not. It’s the difference between r and K reproduction modes. Blacks have higher fertility, but shorter and more violent lives. Fathers staying with one woman and helping raise fewer children with higher investment in each child is not part of black nature.

* “Red Light District” is not what was created in “The Wire.” “Red Light District” means legalized prostitution and sex-related activities. What was created in “The Wire” was a special neighborhood where legalized, open-air drug dealing was permitted in order to take such activities away from other areas, which then benefited by the subsequent reduction in street-corner drug dealing and associated violence. BTW the white mayor of Baltimore who goes on to become governor was clearly patterned after Martin O’Malley, even though the fictional one on “The Wire” was Italian-American, rather than Irish-American. Great series. Great writing (established crime fiction writers such as Richard Price, George Pellacanos, Dennis Lehane) and great acting. My favorite TV series (better than “The Sopranos” imo).

* 270 murders in a developed-world city of 620,000 is absolutely dumbfounding. By way of comparison, that’s only about 10,000 more residents than Vancouver, BC (a city with significant crime/homelessness issues of its own).

Vancouver has 13 murders so far this year, which is higher than normal.

But 270? That’s apocalyptic. I really don’t think Americans are sufficiently shocked when they see numbers like those, or have the context into which those numbers should be placed. Because if they did, they’d be fairly disgusted.

* That’s a murder rate of over 40 per 100,000 for Baltimore. That’s a South African level of murder rate.

* Baltimore’s population is much different than Vancouver’s. The vast majority of those 270 are blacks killed by other blacks. Of course the anticop agitators and rioters knew this. Blacks really don’t like or care about other blacks.

* I had a friend in Baltimore whose home was broken into three times, with no serious investigation by the police. Once, his wife walked in on the intruders, who, thanks be to God, ran out instead of raping and killing her. Among the things stolen were products with GPS that could be tracked. We located the home in which they were being used. The police refused to act. My friend moved his family to a small town across the country shortly thereafter.

* This is as good of a place as any to float a theory I came up with a few days ago.

To set it up, you’ll have to read VDH’s latest:

Before I get to my theory, I’ll note that Victor Davis Hanson strikes me as someone who is stuck in a political no man’s land, somewhere between straight cuckservatism and soft nationalism. This is why his writings about his native and home state are such a maddening mix of hints of truth and utter bullshit.

Now to my theory.

No, California is not going to become Detroit. This is what happens when people misdiagnose problems. Detroit isn’t Detroity because of one party political rule and liberalism. Detroit became Detroit because it’s a bell curve city, full of blacks and run by blacks. If anything, the black population of California is declining in both terms of percentage and raw numbers, and the few that remain are quickly being shipped out of their heretofore ghettos in Oakland, Los Angeles and elsewhere. Both are crucial factors, because if you’re going to have blacks, if you can keep them detached and spread out, this severely hurts their race-based political power. Because they are not tightly ghettoized and geographically compartmentalized, their networks of churches and preachers cannot materialize. And, as we all know, black preachers are the big chiefs in black political life. This may be one of the reasons why the Democrat Party wants to do AFFH, to spread out blacks in order to weaken real black political power, so that one day, the Democrat Party won’t need to be the black party, and can leave behind all the political problems that they currently face from being the black party. Sure, wherever blacks are scattered, they’ll still vote Democrat almost 100%, but that will be the extent of their contribution to the party. No black preachers to hang around Democrat functions.

Posted in Baltimore, Blacks, George Soros | Comments Off on NYT: Baltimore Struggles To Heal

12-Step Wisdom

Posted on October 25, 2015 by Luke Ford

* Many of my visions turned out to be hallucinations.

* Going from invisible to invincible.

* You can’t save your ass and your face at the same time.

* Suit up, show up and speak up.

* Wherever you go, you take your reality with you. (Neil Strauss)

Posted in Addiction | Comments Off on 12-Step Wisdom

Who Cares About The World?

Posted on October 25, 2015 by Luke Ford

Growing up as a Seventh-Day Adventist on Seventh-Day Adventist college campuses in Australia and California, I often encountered the attitude, “Who cares about the world?” The more traditional the Adventist, the more likely he was to have this attitude.

Traditional Adventists saw themselves as God’s Chosen People, the true Israel, the remnant saints, and they saw the wider world as the enemy that wanted to persecute them, was fated to persecute them, until the Messiah arrives.

I found this attitude narrow because I cared about the world and I wanted to make a difference in the world.

I discovered Dennis Prager on the radio in 1988, when I was 22, and I fell in love with his presentation of Judaism as a step-by-step system for making this world better.

When I began my RCC conversion to Orthodox Judaism in 2001, I had a meeting with its Beit Din (Jewish law court) chaired by Rabbi Avrohom Union. When I explained to the rabbis why I grew disenchanted with Adventism, Rabbi Union said I had much of my father in me, and that many of the things I disliked about Adventism were very much present in Judaism.

He was right. The more traditional you go in Judaism, the more you get the attitude, “Who cares about the world?”

Traditional Jews see themselves as God’s Chosen People, and they see the wider world as the enemy that wanted to persecute them, is fated to persecute them, until the Messiah arrives.

Now I realize that the stronger your in-group identity, the less concern you have for out-groups, and the more likely you are to see them as the enemy.

Posted in Adventist, Judaism, Personal | Comments Off on Who Cares About The World?