V is for “validation”!

Greetings.

Jewish date:  1 Kislew 5770 (Parashath Toledhoth).

Today’s holidays:  Ro’sh Ḥodhesh (Judaism), Dedication of Churches of Peter and Paul and Saint Day of Rose Philippine Duchesne (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of Adam Weishaupt and Feast of the First Initiation of the Prophet (Thelema).

Worthy causes of the day:  “Tell Congress: Being a Woman is Not a Pre-Existing Condition - The Petition Site”, “Free Press: media reform through education, organizing and advocacy:”, “Take Action: Tell American Funds to become genocide-free | Save Darfur”, and “MoveOn.org Political Action: U.S. Chamber of Commerce: Stop Protecting Rapists”.

Topic 1:  Episode 3 of the new V, “A Bright New Day”.  Theologically the only thing new is Father Jack hearing V-related confessions and feeling very uncomfortable.  Considering he is part of the resistance, I cannot blame him.  He ends up doing grunt-work and leg-work to hunt down people who were at the ill-fated resistance meeting, feeling he needs to do something towards fighting the Vs.

On the bright side, this episode makes a start towards filling in the huge blank spots in the background (the “validation” in the post title).  It is revealed that some of those protesting the Vs are doing so because several thousand humans died in the disturbances which accompanied the arrival of the Vs.  This gives the V leader Anna a public relations disaster to deal with.

Also:  Considering all the revelations they have had already, I am shocked that they have not come out and revealed that the Vs came to Earth to eat humans. Intuition suggests either that the revelation-happy writers had not decided this far into the series what that secret purpose is or that first episode may have been a (rushed) attempt to lull us into making us make bad assumptions so we feel surprised when the assumptions are violated.  What this new secret purpose is is anything but obvious, though the promo for next week’s episode suggests it may involve medical experimentation, which would be an ill-considered ripoff of a Star Trek:  Voyager episode.

Topic 2:  “Gaddafi preaches to Rome beauties”.  This just struck me as a creative form of bait-and-switch.  As it is written:

A group of party girls got more than they bargained for when they were recruited to attend a posh do in Rome on Sunday night.

Instead of canapés and cocktails, the 200 young women found themselves being encouraged to become Muslims.

While an interesting form of attempted proselytism, it runs afoul of the generally accepted virtue of truthfulness.  I will leave it to Muslims to decide whether any rules of Islamic morality were actually violated.

Topic 3:  “Why I Murdered 13 American Soldiers at Fort Hood: Nidal Hassan Explains It All to You”.  This article explains what Nidal Hassan was thinking when he shot his comrades at Fort Hood.  A link to a presentation he gave on Islam is included, complete with references to canonical Islamic source material justifying violence.

Peace and happy new month.

Aaron