That huge statue of Christ overlooking Rio De Janeiro (where our fellow Cranacher Frank Sonnek lives) was struck by lightning, the moment captured in a remarkable photograph.   Getting struck by a bolt of lightning is the primeval conception of  God’s judgment. In this image, Christ takes that judgment into Himself.   This, my friends, is a photograph of the Gospel.

The government is set to try–finally!–the worst of the terrorists in Guantanamo and will seek the death penalty for six individuals, including the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. See
this.

I’d like to hear whether Senators Clinton and Obama will seek the death penalty against these guys.

Do you really think they will be executed? Or will these trials by military tribunal end up putting America on trial before the world for Guantanamo, the war in Iraq, waterboarding, etc., etc.?

Michelle Malkin  urges conservatives to get “fired up” for the election.  OK, there may not be a conservative-enough presidential candidate.  But she usefully reminds us that the presidency is not the only office at stake in this election.  In order to build up conservatism again, it will be necessary to elect a promising new generation of conservative congressmen, governors, and–perhaps most importantly in rebuilding the conservative infrastructure–local officials.She makes a good point.  We do tend to over-emphasize the presidency at the expense of all of the other offices.  The lesson is that conservatives should not retreat to our attics and not even vote on election day.  There will be plenty of other conservatives to vote for.

The president of the venerable William & Mary College, Gene Nichol, has been forced out of office. He represented, to me, everything that was bad about higher education today (to which my own institution, Patrick Henry College, is a laudable alternative). President Nichol was the one who yanked the cross out of the college chapel, an example of that politically-correct “tolerance” of other religions that is, in fact, intolerance of Christianity. He also allowed on campus the traveling “Sex Worker’s Art Show,” featuring prostitutes and porn stars touting their wares, an example of the academic culture’s current embrace of moral degradation.

The Board of the university is saying that those highly-public controversies were not the reasons they decided to get rid of the president, and that may be, since failure to notice what is wrong about such things is generally accompanied with other kinds of incompetence. Students are complaining about Nichol’s ouster, but alumni, to their great credit, felt ashamed of their school and doubtless exerted their influence.