A fact. Make of it what you will.

 Via Barry Ritholz:

Wednesday Bible Study: A whole different story

The reign of Manasseh is described in the Book of Kings (2 21), and it starts off the same way, with him taking the throne at age 12 and doing all the abominations, but it ends completely differently. In Kings, God just threatens to do bad shit to Judah, specifically:

¹² Therefore thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Behold, I am bringing such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah, that whosoever heareth of it, both his ears shall tingle.

God said to his prophets,

Because Manasseh has been so wicked, even more wicked than the Amorites,and has made Judah sin with his idols,I will bring so much evil on Jerusalem and Judah that it will make people's ears tingle. [2]

¹³ And I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria, and the plummet of the house of Ahab: and I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it, and turning it upside down.

¹⁴ And I will forsake the remnant of mine inheritance, and deliver them into the hand of their enemies; and they shall become a prey and a spoil to all their enemies;

 

However, he doesn't actually get around to doing it, and Manasseh dies of natural causes, apparently unmolested.  The whole story we get here, about him being carried off to Babylon, and repenting, and coming back to set everything right, is completely absent from Kings. It seems improbable -- why kidnap him instead of just killing him, and why return him just because he repents before the Hebrew God? I suspect this is an interpolation into the history intended to foreshadow the Babylonian exile, but who knows? Anyway, anybody who tries to claim that the Bible is literally true obviously hasn't read it. This is just one of thousands of contradictions.

33 Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem fifty-five years. ² He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, following the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites. ³ He rebuilt the high places his father Hezekiah had demolished; he also erected altars to the Baals and made Asherah poles. He bowed down to all the starry hosts and worshiped them. ⁴ He built altars in the temple of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, “My Name will remain in Jerusalem forever.” ⁵ In both courts of the temple of the Lord, he built altars to all the starry hosts. ⁶ He sacrificed his children in the fire in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, practiced divination and witchcraft, sought omens, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did much evil in the eyes of the Lord, arousing his anger.

⁷ He took the image he had made and put it in God’s temple, of which God had said to David and to his son Solomon, “In this temple and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my Name forever. ⁸ I will not again make the feet of the Israelites leave the land I assigned to your ancestors, if only they will be careful to do everything I commanded them concerning all the laws, decrees and regulations given through Moses.” ⁹ But Manasseh led Judah and the people of Jerusalem astray, so that they did more evil than the nations the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites.

¹⁰ The Lord spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they paid no attention. ¹¹ So the Lord brought against them the army commanders of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh prisoner, put a hook in his nose, bound him with bronze shackles and took him to Babylon. ¹² In his distress he sought the favor of the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his ancestors. ¹³ And when he prayed to him, the Lord was moved by his entreaty and listened to his plea; so he brought him back to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord is God.

¹⁴ Afterward he rebuilt the outer wall of the City of David, west of the Gihon spring in the valley, as far as the entrance of the Fish Gate and encircling the hill of Ophel; he also made it much higher. He stationed military commanders in all the fortified cities in Judah.

¹⁵ He got rid of the foreign gods and removed the image from the temple of the Lord, as well as all the altars he had built on the temple hill and in Jerusalem; and he threw them out of the city. ¹⁶ Then he restored the altar of the Lord and sacrificed fellowship offerings and thank offerings on it, and told Judah to serve the Lord, the God of Israel. ¹⁷ The people, however, continued to sacrifice at the high places, but only to the Lord their God.

¹⁸ The other events of Manasseh’s reign, including his prayer to his God and the words the seers spoke to him in the name of the Lord, the God of Israel, are written in the annals of the kings of Israel.^{[a] 19} His prayer and how God was moved by his entreaty, as well as all his sins and unfaithfulness, and the sites where he built high places and set up Asherah poles and idols before he humbled himself—all these are written in the records of the seers.^{[b] 20} Manasseh rested with his ancestors and was buried in his palace. And Amon his son succeeded him as king.

Amon King of Judah

²¹ Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem two years. ²² He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, as his father Manasseh had done. Amon worshiped and offered sacrifices to all the idols Manasseh had made. ²³ But unlike his father Manasseh, he did not humble himself before the Lord; Amon increased his guilt.

²⁴ Amon’s officials conspired against him and assassinated him in his palace. ²⁵ Then the people of the land killed all who had plotted against King Amon, and they made Josiah his son king in his place.

Footnotes

1. 2 Chronicles 33:18 That is, Judah, as frequently in 2 Chronicles
2. 2 Chronicles 33:19 One Hebrew manuscript and Septuagint; most Hebrew manuscripts of Hozai

The People's Hospital

That's a new book by Ricardo Nuila, M.D. (Scribner) I'm not going to do a full-scale review, but it's definitely worth a mention. He's a physician at Ben Taub hospital in Houston, which is a charity hospital that takes care of people who are uninsured or underinsured. He tells the stories of many individual patients he has known and weaves them together into a tapestry that reveals the fundamental insanity of the way we pay for, or don't pay for, medical services. 

Of course I talk about that all the time here, but maybe statistics and facts and figures don't make the case for everybody. Tragic stories of real people, courageous and resilient but battered by bad luck and heartless bureaucracy, might do it.

P.S. Jordan Peterson is not a "moderate voice," he's a deranged, delusional, far right maniac.

The profoundest mystery

To me, and everybody who I consider to be in contact with reality, the nature of Donald J. Trump is completely obvious. He is morally depraved and functionally deranged. There are specific labels in the DSM-5 (the manual of psychiatric diagnoses) for his pathologies, of which I am usually skeptical but of which he is absolutely paradigmatic. These are malignant narcissism and sadistic psychopathy. 

In other words, the only person in the universe is himself. He has an insatiable, bottomless need for adoration and obeisance. The interests and feelings of others mean absolutely nothing to him except insofar as he revels in causing them harm and pain. Every event in the world is evaluated solely based on how it affects him. He is totally lacking in conscience or empathy. These personality disorders are so severe that they have psychotic features. He does not distinguish truth from falsehood, rather he continuously and relentlessly lies and says whatever conforms to his childish fantasies and desires. Also, he is fairly stupid and astonishingly ignorant, and profoundly bigoted.

He is a career criminal. When he was a young man, his father gifted him millions of dollars, which he squandered. How it is possible to go bankrupt running a gambling casino I do not know, but he succeeded at that, at least. Whereupon his father bailed him out by an illegal maneuver to evade gift taxes. He has committed numerous frauds for which he has been successfully sued, but for unfathomable reasons he has not been criminally prosecuted for what are manifestly crimes. For the past couple of decades, his main business has been laundering money for Russian gangsters, which at least partly explains his craven affection for the fascist war criminal Vladimir Putin. He is also physically repulsive, wears clownish makeup, has a harsh grating voice, and he is crude and vulgar and violent in his speech. He completely despises people who aren't wealthy, and that goes for the people who come to his rallies and give him money most of all, who as far as he's concerned are nothing but suckers.

This is obvious to all of us, but what we cannot understand is how this malignant, revolting clown has the besotted adulation of millions of people. Yeah, he gives them permission to say the racist and otherwise disgusting stuff they've always wanted to say, but there are plenty of less repulsive and ridiculous politicians who are willing to do that. But they're having none of it. Sadly, I cannot help but conclude that there is some pathology in people who identify with him. But I can't explain it.

Sunday Sermonette: Getting real

We're at the point where the story in Chronicles and the Deuteronomistic history have emerged from the mists of myth into a basis in historical reality. The failed siege of Jerusalem by Sennacherib is established history. The story is also told in Kings, but it's a completely different recounting of very similar events, which is more evidence that this really happened, in other words at least two different people wrote an account of the same events. (The Chronicler is evidently drawing on, or copying from, a lost source.) Historians aren't convinced that a plague was the reason for Sennacherib's defeat, but otherwise yeah, this more or less did happen, as did the Babylonian exile which is to come shortly.

32 After all that Hezekiah had so faithfully done, Sennacherib king of Assyria came and invaded Judah. He laid siege to the fortified cities, thinking to conquer them for himself. ² When Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come and that he intended to wage war against Jerusalem, ³ he consulted with his officials and military staff about blocking off the water from the springs outside the city, and they helped him. ⁴ They gathered a large group of people who blocked all the springs and the stream that flowed through the land. “Why should the kings^[a] of Assyria come and find plenty of water?” they said. ⁵ Then he worked hard repairing all the broken sections of the wall and building towers on it. He built another wall outside that one and reinforced the terraces^[b] of the City of David. He also made large numbers of weapons and shields.

⁶ He appointed military officers over the people and assembled them before him in the square at the city gate and encouraged them with these words: ⁷ “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or discouraged because of the king of Assyria and the vast army with him, for there is a greater power with us than with him. ⁸ With him is only the arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord our God to help us and to fight our battles.” And the people gained confidence from what Hezekiah the king of Judah said.

⁹ Later, when Sennacherib king of Assyria and all his forces were laying siege to Lachish, he sent his officers to Jerusalem with this message for Hezekiah king of Judah and for all the people of Judah who were there:

¹⁰ “This is what Sennacherib king of Assyria says: On what are you basing your confidence, that you remain in Jerusalem under siege? ¹¹ When Hezekiah says, ‘The Lord our God will save us from the hand of the king of Assyria,’ he is misleading you, to let you die of hunger and thirst. ¹² Did not Hezekiah himself remove this god’s high places and altars, saying to Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You must worship before one altar and burn sacrifices on it’?

¹³ “Do you not know what I and my predecessors have done to all the peoples of the other lands? Were the gods of those nations ever able to deliver their land from my hand? ¹⁴ Who of all the gods of these nations that my predecessors destroyed has been able to save his people from me? How then can your god deliver you from my hand? ¹⁵ Now do not let Hezekiah deceive you and mislead you like this. Do not believe him, for no god of any nation or kingdom has been able to deliver his people from my hand or the hand of my predecessors. How much less will your god deliver you from my hand!”

¹⁶ Sennacherib’s officers spoke further against the Lord God and against his servant Hezekiah. ¹⁷ The king also wrote letters ridiculing the Lord, the God of Israel, and saying this against him: “Just as the gods of the peoples of the other lands did not rescue their people from my hand, so the god of Hezekiah will not rescue his people from my hand.” ¹⁸ Then they called out in Hebrew to the people of Jerusalem who were on the wall, to terrify them and make them afraid in order to capture the city. ¹⁹ They spoke about the God of Jerusalem as they did about the gods of the other peoples of the world—the work of human hands.

²⁰ King Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz cried out in prayer to heaven about this. ²¹ And the Lord sent an angel, who annihilated all the fighting men and the commanders and officers in the camp of the Assyrian king. So he withdrew to his own land in disgrace. And when he went into the temple of his god, some of his sons, his own flesh and blood, cut him down with the sword.

²² So the Lord saved Hezekiah and the people of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib king of Assyria and from the hand of all others. He took care of them^[c] on every side. ²³ Many brought offerings to Jerusalem for the Lord and valuable gifts for Hezekiah king of Judah. From then on he was highly regarded by all the nations.

Hezekiah’s Pride, Success and Death

²⁴ In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. He prayed to the Lord, who answered him and gave him a miraculous sign. ²⁵ But Hezekiah’s heart was proud and he did not respond to the kindness shown him; therefore the Lord’s wrath was on him and on Judah and Jerusalem. ²⁶ Then Hezekiah repented of the pride of his heart, as did the people of Jerusalem; therefore the Lord’s wrath did not come on them during the days of Hezekiah.

²⁷ Hezekiah had very great wealth and honor, and he made treasuries for his silver and gold and for his precious stones, spices, shields and all kinds of valuables. ²⁸ He also made buildings to store the harvest of grain, new wine and olive oil; and he made stalls for various kinds of cattle, and pens for the flocks. ²⁹ He built villages and acquired great numbers of flocks and herds, for God had given him very great riches.

³⁰ It was Hezekiah who blocked the upper outlet of the Gihon spring and channeled the water down to the west side of the City of David. He succeeded in everything he undertook. ³¹ But when envoys were sent by the rulers of Babylon to ask him about the miraculous sign that had occurred in the land, God left him to test him and to know everything that was in his heart.

³² The other events of Hezekiah’s reign and his acts of devotion are written in the vision of the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel. ³³ Hezekiah rested with his ancestors and was buried on the hill where the tombs of David’s descendants are. All Judah and the people of Jerusalem honored him when he died. And Manasseh his son succeeded him as king.

Footnotes

1. 2 Chronicles 32:4 Hebrew; Septuagint and Syriac king
2. 2 Chronicles 32:5 Or the Millo
3. 2 Chronicles 32:22 Hebrew; Septuagint and Vulgate He gave them rest

Real journalism, for a change

A continual irritant to the community of people who can think straight is the pervasive journalistic norm that when prominent entities -- be they individual politicians, corporate executives or general billionaires, well-paid bloviators or even clearly partisan institutions -- say stuff, it has to be treated respectfully, and when said stuff is objectively false the journalist cannot say so, and even when some other prominent entity steps forward to speak the truth the journalist is not allowed to speak, said journalist cannot adjudicate between them. Some of you are old enough to remember when the New York Times "public editor" asked readers whether "the Times should be a "Truth Vigilante," implying that it was a bizarre idea that the newspaper's reporters should tell readers who is and is not telling the truth. (Really. "Truth vigilante.")

 

I’m looking for reader input on whether and when New York Times news reporters should challenge “facts” that are asserted by newsmakers they write about.. . . [I get] mail from some readers who, fed up with the distortions and evasions that are common in public life, look to The Times to set the record straight. They worry less about reporters imposing their judgment on what is false and what is true. Is that the prevailing view? And if so, how can The Times do this in a way that is objective and fair? Is it possible to be objective and fair when the reporter is choosing to correct one fact over another?

Literally, he was asking how it is possible to be "objective and fair" by telling the truth when somebody is lying. That does not seem to me a difficult problem. "Objective and fair" means telling the truth. If somebody is lying it's perfectly objective and fair to say so. But the New York Times reporters and editors find that idea baffling. 

 

So credit where it's due to CNN, and business reporters Marshall Cohen and Oliver Darcy,  for reporting on the judge's ruling in the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit against Faux News:

Incriminating texts and emails have shown how Fox executives, hosts and producers didn’t believe the claims the network was peddling about Dominion. These revelations drove a dagger through the idea that Fox News is anything but a partisan GOP operation focused on ratings — not journalism.

The lawsuit is seen as one of the most consequential defamation cases in recent memory. Fox has argued that a loss will eviscerate press freedoms, and many scholars agree that the bar should remain high to prove defamation. Other analysts have said holding Fox accountable for knowingly airing lies won’t pose a threat to objective journalists who would never do that in the first place.

The case has elicited a mountain of evidence exposing Fox News as a right-wing profit machine lacking the most basic journalistic ethics — and willing to promote unhinged election conspiracy theories to preserve its lucrative business.

Fox Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch conceded in his sworn deposition that several of his top hosts endorsed election lies on the air that he knew were false. And after the 2020 election, its most prominent stars and top executives privately trashed the conspiracy theories that were being spread on-air, according to internal text messages and emails revealed in court filings. .

 

Our problem is that their reporters still have White House press passes, Democratic politicians continue to appear on their programs, and  with the exception of what you have just read, other news organizations continue to treat them with collegial respect. This must stop.

I'll return anon with remarks about their Dear Leader.

Update: After I wrote this I happened to come across this from John Quiggin: The meta-view from meta-nowhere

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