J.C. Klotz's Open Salon Blog

Oxford's View: The Christ Icon and the Shroud of Turin

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 08:03:42 -0400

Oxford is as Oxford Does*

Oxford Don Martin Kemp thinks the Shroud of Turan is a painting from the thirteenth or early fourteenth century. Really?

I have recently read the original Paul Vignon book on the Shroud of Turin published in 1902 which was reissued in English in 2002. I got it through Amazon. In 1902, three decades before he published his “Vignon Markings” he compared medieval depictions of Christ and found them inferior to the Shroud image and quite different.

I was originally attracted to Christ to Coke because its author Martin Kemp was the leading art historian backing the DaVinci origination of what he dubbed "La Principessa" an art scandal par excellence when Christie evaluated a 100 million dollar drawing for $17,000 and sold it on consignment. See National Geographic Feb 2012, p. 101

Kudos to Martin Kemp for "La Principessa." Really! Bronx cheer for "Christ to Coke!!"

His opinion is ignorant and a disgrace for an expert. I say "ignorant" because he obviously didn't do his homework on the Shroud. He cites Pantocrator as the seminal Christ icon and ignores or does not know about the well publicized Vignon markings linking it the Shroud image to the Pantocrator. He is dismissive of Ian Wilson’s “Mandylion theory,” and list Wilson’s latest book as “Reading” as well as the entire Shroud.com cite. (Kemp, Martin [2011-10-13]. "Christ to Coke : How Image Becomes Icon" Kindle Edition location 1005). He ignores the Vignon markings even though they are discussed in the Wilson book he lists as “Reading.” (Wilson, supra: Figure 26, Kindle location 2680)

And he sort of grouses about the carbon dating controversy and then swallows it whole hog. His attribution of it to the Medieval/Renaisance times as a painting by an unknown Italian or French artists is – GIVEN THE EVIDENCE – absurd. His conclusion:

“If I were asked to provide an art-historical date for the portrayal of Christ on the Shroud, I would estimate it have been made in the later thirteenth or first half of the fourteenth century in Italy or southern France. This is consistent with the much denigrated carbon dating.” (Kemp: Kindle Locations 954-956).

It is not a painting. If anything, what Barrie Schwortz, President of the Shroud of Turin Education and Research Association, Inc. (STERA, Inc.). has estimated to be more than a quarter of a million hours of Shroud research has demonstrated that it is not a painting. Schwortz, among other things, maintains the STERA web page “http:Shroud.com” which is referenced by Morton in Christ Icon.

However, I have a working theory or an opinion about Mr. Kemp’s astute blindness. One of the bases of his LaPrincipessa opinion is carbon dating that was done on its vellum which dated it to DaVinci’s time. Is it possible that Oxford Don Kemp used Oxford’s very own carbon dating lab to do the dating? If so, is his attack on the Shroud authenticity occasioned by a necessity to, at least indirectly, defend the Oxford carbon dating lab? Or, was another lab hired by La Principessa’s legal contestants?

Perhaps the good Professor could enlighten us on who did is carbon dating? Just asking. Were we in court and he was testifying as an expert on the Shroud, it would be an admissible question on cross-examination. It’s called bias.

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*Apologies to Forest Gump

Did Mitt Romney Launder Money for "Latin American Investors"

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 12:01:05 -0500

Missing the forest for the trees (or counting cavities in the gift horse's mouth.) How many have actually seen the "When Mitt Romney Came to Town" video? http://www.webcasts.com/kingofbain/

Newt, the messenger may be extremely flawed to the extreme, but the message is "spot on." It is brilliant and to the point. Romney was a corporate raider of the worst ilk. Did you know that Bain Capital was financed by unidentified Latin American investors? I didn't. Did you know Romney's wealth is mostly parked off-shore in foreign accounts? I didn't. Those facts are off-handedly cited in the video which concentrates on the horrors inflicted by Romney and Bain Capital that impoverished men, women and children who were paying their dues to the American dream. No wonder Mitt won't release his income tax returns.

Did you appreciate that Romney and his friends drained 180 million from a company and drove it into bankruptcy when maybe looting it for only 90 million might have allowed it to survive? Maybe I should have known it, but didn't.

And how many of the personal stories of middle class workers impoverished by Bain Capital did you know? A couple maybe. But to paraphrase Stalin (ugh) about his atrocities: the loss of one job is a tragedy; the loss of a million is a statistic. The video tells the story of several US workers who had paid their dues but were nonetheless impoverished by Bain capital predatory practices.

Incidentally, one of the companies plundered by Bain is in Indiana where a Right to Work law is now being considered.

Bottom line: don’t get angry at Newt or weep for Mitt. Watch the video! This may be the video that saves America (if not the Republican Party) from Romney. It should also be required watching for the Evangelical leaders meeting in Texas this weekend.

Perhaps Mormons are Christians, but Mitt Romney certainly doesn’t act like one. The Gospel of St. Matthew relates the parable of the Last Judgment where the only measure of our love of God is how we treat the least among us. Fear that judgment Mitt. Fear now.

THE SHROUD OF TURIN, RESURRECTION AND JOE KENNEDY

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 11:06:10 -0400

By John C. Klotz

"In 1929 I sold short,
In England I'm presented at court,
But you've got me down hearted,
'Cause I can't get started with you"
"I can’t Get started"
Duke/Gershwin 1936

This piece is written with a sense of irony; tongue in cheek but with a deadly serious intent. For the last 60 years or so controversy has swirled about the Shroud of Turin, the reputed burial shroud of Jesus Christ,

In 1988, carbon dating tests on a corner of it reportedly established that it was a medieval fake. However, in peer reviewed science journal articles since that time, the validity of that conclusion has been pretty much demolished. Among other things, the tiny corner of the Shroud which was taken for tests was atypical of the Shroud fabric and contained threads, some of them cotton, added by a repair using medieval invisible weaving techniques.

But before getting to the evidence of the Shroud’s authenticity, let me explain what relevance Ira Gershwin and Joe Kennedy have to this discussion. The issue is circumstantial evidence. On the basis of two circumstances in the first two lines of the verse quoted above, it is established beyond doubt that Ira Gershwin was twitting Joseph Kennedy, the father of President John F. Kennedy in the song.

Joe Kennedy was famous for having sold short before the stock market 1929 crash, it was one of the sources of his great wealth. Selling short means that in the month prior to the crash he agreed to sell a large number of shares at prices at the then going rate at a future date. It was a bet that the market would go down. I imagine there were other short sellers although the only notorious one was Joe Kennedy. On that fact alone, you might conclude that the verse was about Joe Kennedy,

But there is second fact in the verse. “In England I’m presented at court.” They may have been other less celebrated short sellers in the fall of 1929, but I will make a safe bet that none of them were ever presented at court in England. Kennedy was. After a stint as chairman of the fledging Securities Exchange Commission, President Roosevelt appointed Kennedy as Ambassador to the Court of St. James, the English court.

Only two facts, but if it was a “money or your life bet,” you’d be pretty safe betting that Joe Kennedy was the subject of Gershwin’s verse.

Now let’s turn to the Shroud of Turin. What circumstances lead me to believe that the case is closed and the Shroud is the burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth and quite probably proof of his resurrection. In this case, there are not two circumstances to draw a straight line, but hundreds.

A note on sources. Without footnoting every detail, I am using two primary sources which in turn are an abundant source of additional sources. One is http://shroud.com whose editor and founder is Barrie Schwortz. Barrie is a Jewish photographic expert who signed on as a photographer for a group examining the Shroud in 1978. Starting from an attitude of complete skepticism about the Shroud, and expecting to make quick work of debunking its authenticity, like many experts before and since, Barrie was astounded by what he saw and photographed, and over a period of eighteen years, moved from skeptic to a believer in the challenged antiquity of the cloth.

Another source is Dan Porter’s Shroud Story. http://www.shroudstory.com/book/BookChapterPage1.htm It is a work in progress But it covers the whole breadth of Shroud issues with hyperlinks in for each issue.

The best proof of the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin is the Shroud itself. There are not dozens of physical facts about the shroud that demonstrate its authenticity, but hundreds. In sum, the Shroud is the burial cloth of a man who was crucified after receiving a merciless beating. There are many wounds that were inflicted by the beating, and they are consistent with the whips used by the Romans at the time of Christ. In addition there are other wounds consistent with a “crown” of thorns being pressed into his head. There is a wound in the side of chest consistent with the account of his side being pierced by a lance at the scene of the crucifixion. There are wounds consistent with nails having been driven through his wrists. This is only a very abbreviated partial list of coincidences between the image on the Shroud and the Gospel accounts of the crucifixion.

I am particularly intrigued by the fact that the nail holes were in the wrist. The skeptics claim that the Shroud is a medieval fake. However, until modern times’ all the known paintings of the crucifixion showed Christ hanging on the Cross with nails driven through the palms of his hands.

I attended Christian Brothers Academy in Syracuse New York from 1950 to 1954. There were four years of religion classes. I can’t remember in which year it occurred, but I do remember one of my teachers noting that all the paintings of the crucifixion were erroneous because they showed nails driven through the palm of the hand and that was an impossibility because the palm lacked the substance to support the weight of the crucified body. It may have been a surprise to some that the nails were driven into the crucified man’s wrists, but to me it was an old story. And because the artistic tradition is so at odds with wrist nails, it is a compelling circumstance indicating that the image on the Shroud long pre-dated medieval times. Pollen and limestone dust indicate a Jerusalem origin for the Shroud. Then too, there are blood stains and other indicia of secretions that are compatible with what would be expected of a shroud that covered the body of a recently tortured and executed man.

But the stains are not the image on the Shroud which remains inexplicable. A History Channel special: “The Real Face of Jesus” explored among other things the question of what produced the image while using the image to create a face of Jesus, the crucified man. It’s speculation as to what created the image is off-the-chart, concluding that it was essentially created by some scanning process.

The image, the stains, and other physical evidence contained in and on the Shroud when compared to Gospel accounts circumstantially prove that the Shroud of Turin was in fact the burial shroud of Jesus of Nazareth. It is a reasonable supposition that solving the problem of the creation of the image will lead to another conclusion: that it is proof of the Resurrection.

For nearly two thousand years the Shroud has been among us, in one place or another. The proofs of its authenticity through science could not have been made until advances in science in the last two or three decades.

I do not believe in the supernatural. I do believe in an eternal self-consciousness of all existence that is by my definition both natural and God. What we call supernatural is simply what we, with our limited knowledge, can not explain.

For those two millennia the Shroud has been among us, waiting perhaps for our human knowledge and science to unlock its truths. I believe that science has now allowed us to prove its authenticity. If I can demonstrate from two lines in verse by Ira Gershwin that he was referencing Joe Kennedy, given the scores if not hundreds of coincidence between the Shroud and the Gospels, there ought to be no real doubt about the authenticity of the Shroud. Only one other artifact comes close to matching the uniqueness of the Shroud and that is the face cloth which covered Christ’s face which is now in Oviedo, Spain. Its blood stains match those of the Shroud and the two cloths are both mentioned in the Gospel.

Science has emerged in our times as both Christ and Anti-Christ. It has unleashed unprecedented destructive power and while one branch seeks to preserve the environment, other, better financed branches, cooperate in promoting the industries that destroy it. If we are to avoid – or win – the environmental Armageddon that now engulfs us, science will have to lead the way.

But in the authentication of the Shroud, and in the efforts to decipher the process by which the image was created, science is doing something more. It is bringing new meaning and new vitality to the Christian message.

At Mass, Catholics sometimes chant:

Christ has died,

Christ is risen,

Christ will come again.

Perhaps when the mystery of the Shroud image is decoded, we shall chant:

“Christ has come again.”

Is McCrystal the new MacArthur?

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 07:06:18 -0400

It is probably the most blatant act of insubordination since Douglas MacArthur tried to hide is own incompetence behind insubordinate attacks on Harry truman during the Korean War. Gen. Stanley McCrystal has bashed his Commander-in-Chief in an interview with Rolling Stone and now has apoligized with an "Oops" But neither Douglas MacArthur or Stanley MacCrystal were naive babes in the media world. MacArthur was, and McCrystal is, cold and calculating to his core.

Becasue most Americans tend to idealize MacArthus, a few unpleasnt facts about his career ought to be stated. He wasn't always insubordinate. When Herbert Hoover wanted to clear the Washington Mall of pesky World War One bonus marches demanding a bonus for their service, MacArthur, ably assisted by his field commander George Patton, did the job. It was a disgrace that probably played a role in FDR's election.

His performance in the Phillpines at the beginning of WWII wasn't eactly stellar either. One key to the Japanese success at Pearl harbor was that the Army commander General Short, had clumped all the Air Corps planes together on the apron to protect against sabotage. They were thus sitting ducks for the Japanese fighters and dive bombers. Yet, when the Japanese later attacked the Phillipines, there were MacArthur's planes conveniently clumped together waiting to be destroyed. He had no air support left for the campaign that followed and, after he was whisked away to Australia, the remnants of the American forces surrendered.

But the killer was his North Korean invasion. Yes, the Inchon invasion behnd the North Korean troops that invaded South Korea was a brilliant - if obvious - move. But then the question was where would the UN forces under MacArthur's command stop. At the 38th parallel where the invasion started? At North Korea's defensible narrow waste including its capital Pyongang? No, MacArthur without Truman's blessing, pushed ahead to the Yalu River, grossly over-exetnding his Army and perhaps ignoring the thousands of Chinese troops massed on the other side.

The result was the greatest American defeat since the opening days of WWII or the early days of the Battle of the Bulge.

We were forced into a head long retreat while MacArthus litterally and publicly called for open war with China and blamed Truman for his defeat at the Yalu.

Truman fired him and it was years before Truman's reputation recovered from sacking the great MacArthur.

Now McCrystal seems to be playing the MacArthur role. Obama gave the Army all that he could reasonable do and now McCrystal seems to be blaming Obama for the failure of p0licies that were adopted.

McCrystal has a fragile relationship with the truth, however. He was a part of the cover-up of NFL football star Pat Tillman's death by friendly fire in Afghanistan at the beginning of the Afghan incursion. Obama is now paying the price of ignoring McCrystal's prior prevarications and if he leaves him in command will pay the future price also - as will we all. He needs a commander who will speak the truth to him and given McCrystal's track record, how can he ever be sure?

Robert Gates has, in fact, been an exceptional Secretary of Defense. Now he has to be point man in resolving an exceptional problem.

There are many cites concerning the McCrystal and the Pat Tillamn story. For starters try

http://www.mediaite.com/online/author-accuses-mcchrystal-of-lying-about-tillman-death/

Understanding Gay rights – a remembrance

Sat, 5 Jun 2010 09:06:11 -0400

The Internet reported today that a majority of heterosexual males now support gay rights, something I have instinctively supported since October, 1960. That is when I first confronted the issue of gay rights and why I have no choice but to support equality for gays. It is directly related to the civil rights movement in the early sixties.

First, a prologue. In 1959, I attended the ABA convention in Miami Florida which had a student component. Being somewhat penurious I traveled by bus. It required a couple of changes. One of them was in the Carolinas. While waiting for the bus I met a black woman at the station and struck-up a conversation with her. She was waiting for a bus back to Brooklyn and trusted me, as an obvious Northerner, with her sentiments. Speaking of her fellow blacks she said: “I can’t stand these people. They put-up with this stuff. I can’t wait to get back to Brooklyn.”

The following year I was on active duty with the Army attending Tank Platoon Leader training at Fort Knox, Kentucky. We had two room private quarters in a converted barracks befitting our rank as officers, even very junior ones. I had a roommate, I’ll just call “Jim.” He was a Mississippi National Guard officer from Mississippi’s Dixie Division.

We were young men who shared mutual interests in “girls” and football among other things and we had, at firs, a good natured, bandying about North-South relations, but once he remarked to me: “the trouble with you guys up North is you don’t know how to treat [Ns]. That’s why you’re in trouble." I demurred, and began to recount my encounter at the bus station in the Carolinas. “Well, I met this black lady…” The word “lady” had barely escaped my mouth when, when he interrupted: “You can’t call her a “lady.” She was a [N]. Only white women are ladies. [N] females are women.” I was not deterred, and continued, “well this black lady said…” He barely heard me out and we changed the subject of the conversation. Later, towards the end of our training period, we shared some drinks at the Officer’s Club.

“John,” he said, “I just can’t get used to this.” “What do you by this?” I asked. “All this luxury,” he said. I looked around. It was a nice cocktail lounge: smoked glass behind the bar with gold spider webs etched into it. There was a piano nearby, painted, as I recall, with gold colored paint. I shrugged. “It’s nice, but not so different from a lot places.”

But something was eating at him. “Down in Mississippi, there are two kinds of people we can’t stand: Commies and Queers. We don’t let them live.” He must have seen me blanch, for he continued, “I don’t mean we kill him. I mean we drive them out. They can’t get a job or place to live. We drive them out, drive them out.” There came to my mind the vision of a homosexual man, living in an attic somewhere with a linoleum floor. He can’t work, and can’t find a decent place to live. “That’s too bad,” I said. We changed the subject.

Jim’s comment to me had laid bare the essence of discrimination: the “other” who threatened the integrity of the tribe.

In the years that followed, I was a supporter, largely silent, of a homosexual rights that Jim so aptly summarized and the necessity for those rights. Everybody has a right to earn a living and a place to live. At the same time, some of the fiercest struggles erupted over the struggle for civil rights for blacks (not yet identified as “African-Americans.”) In September 1962, I was duty officer for the Fifth Region Air Defense Command the night that James Meredith integrated University of Mississippi. The teletype kept ringing that night as we (and very other command in the US Army) received moment by moment updates of the ensuing riots from Army Intelligence. I couldn’t help but wonder where Jim was.

In 1964, I was married, practicing law in Syracuse with my wife Rene who in April gave birth to our first child, my daughter Lisa. In meantime, people much braver than I, were trying to register voters in Mississippi. Three of them disappeared in the vicinity of Greenville. Those “commies” weren’t driven out. Those “commies” were murdered.

In 1972, I was a candidate for State Senator in New York. I had handily won a Democratic Primary (“McGovern giveth,” afriend noted). I was slated for an indorsement interview with a committee of the Americans for Democratic Action, the “ADA.” Prior to the interview, I was pulled aside by a friend. “You should know that the chairman of the committee is really committed to gay rights.” Sure enough, during the interview, he confronted me. “I note that you didn’t return our questionnaire on gay rights. Why not?”

“Well,” I replied, “I had no troubling answering the question about equal employment and equal housing, but then I can to a question about supporting the teaching homosexual techniques equally with heterosexual techniques in high school, I decided that I wasn’t going to answer that questionnaire.”

The committee chair smiled: “You’re right. That was a stupid question.”

I was endorsed by the ADA (and many others) but lost the general election (“McGovern taketh away,” as my friend noted.) The issue that killed me was abortion. I was a pre-Roe v. Wade Catholic supporter of choice. I was denounced by flyers distributed the Sunday before the election at all the churches in the district. Although I received more votes against my incumbent opponent than anyone before or since and carried the Bronx part of the Yonkers-Bronx district, I did poorly in the Irish sections of both Bronx and Yonkers. I lost.

In the years since, as someone who was deeply involved in reform politics in NYC, the words of Jim have come back to me time and time again as I have confronted issues of civil rights for all Americans: every one has a right to live. To my fellow heterosexual males, who have now seen the right, all I can say is: “Welcome aboard.”

Http://johnklotz.blogspot.com