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In 1738, the Roman Catholic Church issued an official document entitled In Eminenti Apostolatus that banned Catholics from becoming Freemasons, and the Catholic Church has been one of the leading critics of Freemasonry ever since. The 1983 document Quaesitum est is the Vatican's most recent document concerning Catholic membership in Freemasonry. In it, the Church has declared the following:

"The faithful who enroll in Masonic associations are in a state of grave sin and may not receive Holy Communion... the Church’s negative judgment in regard to Masonic association remains unchanged since their principles have always been considered irreconcilable with the doctrine of the Church and therefore membership in them remains forbidden."

All of the Papal Bulls (official Vatican documents which are directly from the Pope) regarding Catholics and Freemasonry are fairly ambiguous and somewhat unclear as to why the Church opposes Freemasonry. Many of these documents simply state that the Church's ban on Freemasonry is still active and that Freemasonry is a mortal sin in the eyes of the Church.

It seems that the Catholic Church's position on Freemasonry is unsubstantiated and that the Church is simply afraid of the power and prestige of such a large secret society. However, to find the reason why the Church bans Catholics from joining a Masonic Lodge one does not need to analyze official Church documents but, rather, look at how the Freemasons themselves describe their society. According to the Freemasons, "Freemasonry is not a religion, nor a substitute for religion. There is no separate 'Masonic deity', and there is no separate proper name for a deity in Freemasonry." One of the requirements for entrance into the Society of Freemasons is the belief in a Supreme being, and this in itself is very open-ended.

By observing this, one could conclude that the Freemasons are not only tolerant of all religions and beliefs but also believe that all religions are true. In many ways, Freemasonry inherently seeks to merge all religions into one. The Freemasons themselves will never declare that this is the goal of their society, but I believe that this is true of the Freemasons.

Of course, the Catholic Church will never accept any sort of compromise of Catholic doctrine. The Vatican will never agree to throwing away certain aspects of Catholic theology just so that Presbyterians and Catholics can be friends. The Catholic Church isn't simply afraid of a secret society. The Church just does not want its members to become soft - to become a cafeteria Catholic who picks and chooses which aspects of the faith he or she will believe and participate in and which aspects he or she will not.

You cannot say that you are a Catholic and choose to go to Mass only when you feel like it. And yet, you cannot say that you are a Catholic if you blindly follow the Vatican like a dog on a leash. The Pope isn't there to boss us around, and babies aren't there for us to kill just because we don't want them.

In many ways, the Pope is a dictator. He is an absolute monarch, the bishop of Rome, the head of state of the Vatican, and the leader of the Roman Catholic Church. The Church as a religious institution and a political entity revolve around his leadership. He does not answer to any man except the Son of Man. He is in charge of all religious, moral, ethical, administrative, and political matters within his jurisdiction. His word is infallible. His presence is celebrated. His death is mourned.

And yet, in many ways, the Pope is our servant, our teacher, our mediator, and our counselor. The pope has guided the Church through schisms, revolts, wars, and sex scandals, has soothed international arguments, taught the people about the love of Christ, and has served to bring his believers closer to the Christian heaven.

But whether the Pope is seen as a dictator or a souped-up priest, one thing remains certain: the Pope holds enormous political power in those old and frail but commanding hands. He is more than a peace-loving figurehead. In fact, Urban II was everything but a pacifist. From the spreading of Christianity under St. Peter to the Crusades of Urban II to John Paul II's work during the Cold war, history has shown that papal authority has made a profound influence on world events. "Vatican diplomacy is so influential and can exert such great power in the diplomatic-political field because it has at its disposal the tremendous machinery of a spiritual organization with ramifications in every country of the planet."

The Vatican is the world's smallest independent sovereign state and, just like any other country, seeks to further its own interests. Unlike most countries these interests, are strictly spiritual goals. And also unlike most countries, the Pope does not command a military (the Swiss Guard is not the Vatican's military). But though the Pope has no direct control over any military force, the Pope has used his position, prestige, and charisma to incite and justify a holy war. The reason why "Vatican diplomacy is so influential" is because the Pope is first and foremost a holy man, and the words of a holy man are immediately assumed to be wise, educated, and sometimes completely infallible and correct. The Pope is the leader of one of the world's largest single organizations, and the advice of a man who can trace his lineage all the way to the 30th Year of our Lord is not to be taken lightly.

For more information on the Papacy, Papal Authority, and Papal Infallibility see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_of_Rome
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/papal_infallibility
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_John_Paul_II

When portraying an actual event, filmmakers usually choose one of two approaches: a dramatic depiction or a documentary. The goals and effects of a dramatic film are very different than those of a documentary, even if both the dramatic film and the documentary are based on the same subject. Documentaries are "a broad category of visual expression that is based on the attempt document reality" and provide an unscripted window into a momunental event, whereas dramatic films represent the director's interpretation of the event and the director's imagination of what-could-have-been.

Up the Yangtze is a 2007 award-winning documentary directed by Chinese-Canadian Yung Chang that follows the path of two young Chinese workers aboard a cruise ship that makes tours of the Yangtze and caters to wealthy western tourists. These tours are labeled "farewell" tours by the cruise company since, with the construction of the Three Gorges Dam, the cruise company is trying to showcase the river's pre-dam beauty. The film also follows the effects of the dam on the two young workers and their families and the workers' desire to put their impoverished Chinese past behind them as they strive to climb out of poverty and experience a clash of cultures.

In the film, young Yu "Cindy" Shui has just been hired by the cruise line as a waiter and dishwasher. For her family, this is a momentous occasion as she lives in a makeshift shack right by the river and will make more money than her parents have ever worked for. The camera follows her as she struggles to begin training and be away from her parents for the first time. The most heartbreaking event of the film is Cindy's boss meets her parents for the first time to congratulate them for raising such a diligent daughter. Her parents are the poorest of the poor, peasants who have been farming the Yangtze valley for generations, and Cindy ends up crying as she is ashamed to show her boss and the camera her roots. Cindy's intense yearning to leave her peasant background is vividly pronounced through her tears and words. The camera follows Cindy and her family to their home, which they have lived in for many years but will soon be destroyed by the Three Gorges Dam. The family has been told that they must relocate within the month, and Cindy's parents are filled with mixed emotions. On one hand, they should be celebrating the dam's construction because government agents have told them that the dam will benefit all of China, including the peasants, and that it represents China's national identity and economic prosperity. On the other hand, Cindy and her family will lose their home and their farmland and will have to adjust to a new enviroment and build a new life.

Still Life is a 2006 award-winning Chinese dramatic film directed by Jia Zhangke that tells the story of a man in search of his lost wife. The film takes place in the city of Fengjie, which is upstream from the site of the Three Gorges Dam. Marked for flooding, the city undergoes a drastic process of self-deconstruction. The protaganist, Han Sanming, is a coal miner from the province of Shanxi and returns to the dying town to look for his wife. Sanming asks a local to drive him to his wife's former address. Instead, the driver brings Sanming to the riverbank, and Sanming realizes that the entire neighborhood has already flooded. He manages to contact his wife's older brother, who informs Sanming that she has been relocated from her submerged home but will return to the town eventually.

Documentaries have certain advantages over dramatic films when it comes to depicting and recording an event of cultural or historical signifcance. While the dramatic approach is more entertaining, more appealing, and will often yield a higher profit for the filmmaker, a documentary depicts the event at a more personal level since it captures the true emotions of real people who are actually experiencing the said event, not the narrow, and often flawed, interpretations of actors performing a script that is primarily written to fill the pocketbooks of the bureaucratic heads of Hollywood film studios. Fortuantely, Still Life is a Chinese dramatic work and is a wonderful movie that does not adulterate the facts. Yet, Up the Yangtze is a more delicate and profound work that more effectively communicates a sense of loss since it is driven by the emotions of real people and not scripted characters.

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Islamism - "the set of ideologies holding that Islam is not only a religion but a political system."

A recent article in popular US magazine "Newsweek" asserts that radical Islam is a fact of life that we must learn to deal with. While well-written and relevantly informing, this article fails to answer a question that many citizens of the western world are wondering. Does radical Islam represent the practice of true Islam or is it a perversion of Islamic doctrine?

The word "Islamism" is a broad, umbrella term that describes a form of Islamic fundamentalism and envelops a range of activities and practitioners from moderate reformers to radical revolutionaries. Some of Islamism's tenants are less strict and focus on simply encouraging the development of Muslim identity. Other Islamist leaders are anti-democratic militants who advocate the restoration of the Muslim Caliphate, which was abolished in 1924 with the institution of the Republic of Turkey after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. Thus, Islamism exists in several forms and spans a wide spectrum of tactics and is not a united movement in the Muslim world

To label radical terrorist attacks as Islamist procedures is only partially correct. Instead, radical Islam represents an increasing dissatisfaction with the current state of Islam. Some Islamists turn to radical methods as they believe that Western society has placed the rest of the world in a subordinate role. (This is true, but many Western countries, including the US, are taking steps to help other countries increase their significance in the global arena and participate in global affairs.) The Muslim world has repeatedly suffered from political and economic stagnation, and radical Islamists believe that this is a result of their subjugation by the Western world. Frustrated by their thwarted attempts to advance their society though conventional means, these men naturally resort to acts of terrorism to further the development of their civilizations.

Radical Islamists are able to justify their actions in a number of ways, from various secular socioeconomic reasons that aim to propel Muslim society into prominence to arguments that try to defend the use of violence by claiming divine inspiration. These "revelations from God" often adulterate otherwise peaceful doctrine into belligerent beliefs that have no basis in Islamic canon and only exist to provide justification and gather support for the radical Islamist and his terrorist actions.

The Jihad is Islam's most misunderstood concept . In Arabic, the word jihād is a noun meaning "struggle" and in Islam refers to both the internal personal struggle to improve one's self and society against the temptations of Satan and to the defense of Islam. The Jihad as a defense of Islam is often incorrectly interpreted as "holy war" by both Western society and radical Islamists, and radical Islamists have used the Jihad as a justification for their actions, from the wars of the Umayyad dynasty in the 7th and 8th centuries to modern-day acts of terrorism. The Jihad as a defense of Islam originally did not entail the use of military force but, rather, the use of missionaries and apologetics to protect the faith from internal and external corruption.

All Abrahamic faiths, including Islam, are religions of peace, and all Abrahamic faiths, including Judaism and Christianity, have used warfare in circumstances that place doubt and ambiguity on their militant actions and motives. Muhammad led many bloody battles but so did King David of Israel and Pope Urban II. Thus, radical Islam is, indeed, a perversion of the original intent of the Islamic concept of Jihad, but it is important to understand that religious institutions are established by man and run by man and that Islam is not the only religion that has been tainted by perversions of doctrine and scripture.

• "Substances which will promote illogical thinking and impulsiveness to the point where the recipient would be discredited in public."
  
• "Substances which increase the efficiency of experimentation and perception."
  
• "Materials which will prevent or counteract the intoxicating effect of alcohol."
  
• "Materials which will promote the intoxicating effect of alcohol."
  
• "Materials which will produce the signs and symptoms of recognized diseases in a reversible way so that they may be used for malingering, etc. "
  
• "Materials which will render the induction of hypnosis easier or otherwise enhance its usefulness."
  
• "Substances which will enhance the ability of individuals to withstand privation, torture and coercion during interrogation and so-called 'brain-washing'."
  
• "Materials and physical methods which will produce amnesia for events preceding and during their use."
  
• "Physical methods of producing shock and confusion over extended periods of time and capable of surreptitious use."
  
• "Substances which produce physical disablement such as paralysis of the legs, acute anemia, etc."
  
• "Substances which will produce "pure" euphoria with no subsequent let-down."
  
• "Substances which alter personality structure in such a way that the tendency of the recipient to become dependent upon another person is enhanced."
  
• "A material which will cause mental confusion of such a type that the individual under its influence will find it difficult to maintain a fabrication under questioning.
  Substances which will lower the ambition and general working efficiency of men when administered in undetectable amounts."
  
• "Substances which promote weakness or distortion of the eyesight or hearing faculties, preferably without permanent effects."
  
• "A knockout pill which can surreptitiously be administered in drinks, food, cigarettes, as an aerosol, etc., which will be safe to use, provide a maximum of amnesia, and be suitable for use by agent types on an ad hoc basis."
  
• "A material which can be surreptitiously administered by the above routes and which in very small amounts will make it impossible for a man to perform any physical activity whatsoever."

One of the ultimate goals involved the creation of a Manchurian Candidate - an unwitting agent for the CIA - that would have participated in actions of espionage, sabotage, and assassination against governments whose interests conflicted with those of the US.

The very nature of MK-ULTRA required the circumvention of legal issues involving informed consent. Supreme Court Justice William Brennan declared that the need to preserve military discipline should not protect the government from liability and punishment for serious violations of constitutional rights. The project was also in violation of the Nuremberg Code, which came into existence as a response to the Nazi medical experiments done on concentration camp prisoners, as the US had agreed to follow the code after World War II.

Although the CIA insists that the project experiments have been abandoned, many insist that CIA mind-control research continued and that the Agency's acknowledgement of MK-ULTRA was simply the cover-up for a larger, more momentous, and more heavily-guarded government program.

It is important that governments remain as truthful as they can possibly be with their citizens. Some secrets must be kept in order to ensure the security of the people, but a government whose programs break the civil rights guaranteed by its constitution fails to provide adequate and effective protection of its citizens.

At least two test subjects died as a result of the CIA experiments.

Most information regarding the absolute specifics Project MK-ULTRA remains highly classified to this day.