Happy New Year of the Monkey

In Japan, New Year’s greetings are never made before January 1, so I am sending this on the morning of New Year’s Eve in the U.S.—but after the New Year has already begun in Japan.

As is common in this country, I am wishing you all a Happy New Year a day before the new year actually begins, and I pray for your health and happiness throughout 2016.

In the countries of East Asia, including Japan, 2016 is the Year of the Monkey. There is a 12 year cycle in the Asian zodiac, and today ends the Year of the Sheep.

(Of course, the Chinese new year, celebrated not only in China but in other Asian countries with strong Chinese influence, doesn’t begin until February 8—and it will be known as the year of the Fire Monkey.)

If you were born in 1932, 1944, 1956, 1968, or 1980, the coming year is a special one for you—or would be if you lived in East Asia—for it will be your ataridoshi, or lucky year, the year with the same zodiac animal in which you were born.

Those born in the Year of the Monkey are said to be “clever and skillful in grand-scale operations and are smart when making financial deals. They are inventive, original and are able to solve the most difficult problems with ease.”

Or according to another website, “Charming, charismatic and extremely inventive, Monkey people are most noted for their intelligence and clever genius in working out difficult problems for themselves and others.” (There are some negative characteristics also, but I will let you look those up for yourself.)

In this country, of course, it is often an insult to call someone a monkey. Sometimes it is even a racial slur. Just last week the Washington Post published, and then had to pull, a cartoon of Sen. Ted Cruz dressed like an organ grinder in a Santa suit with two monkeys on leashes.

Cruz charged that the cartoon was making fun of his two daughters. Actually, Pulitzer prize-winner Ann Telnaes was making reference to Cruz using his daughters in a political ad that began airing early last week.

In that new campaign ad he is reading “timeless Christmas classics” to his two daughters—classics such as “How ObamaCare Stole Christmas” and “The Grinch Who Lost Her Emails.”

Cruz’s daughter Caroline, 7, loudly reads the following line from the latter: “I know just what I’ll do, I’ll use my own server, and no one will be the wiser!”

It was Cruz using his children for his personal gain—like an organ grinder using dancing monkeys—that Telnaes was depicting. Cruz and other Republicans took it that she was ridiculing Cruz’s children by making them monkeys.

The outcry worked, and the newspaper removed the cartoon in question. But Cruz will likely continue using the ad with his daughter criticizing Hillary Clinton over something that his daughters don’t understand at all.

In East Asia, though, there is no stigma for being born in the year of the Monkey—or the year of the Rat, as were two of my children. There are good and bad characteristics for all twelve of the animals that are signs for each year of the cycle.

So, if you were born in the year of the Monkey, enjoy your special year. And, regardless of the year in which you were born, I do pray that 2016 will be a good one for you.

"2016"

Talk about a contrast! Last week I went to see the movie “2016: Obama’s America” on the same day the Democratic National Convention began. Both the movie and the convention centered on President Obama, but the evaluation of the same man was greatly different, to say the least.

“2016” is a documentary, or an infomercial, produced by Dinesh D’Souza, a conservative political commentator and author who (since 2010) is president of The King’s College in New York City. Born in Mumbai, India, D’Souza (b. 1961) came to the U.S. as an exchange student and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Dartmouth College in 1983. In the 1980s he was for a time a policy advisor for President Reagan.

D’Souza is the author of numerous books, his most recent being Obama’s America: Unmaking the American Dream (2012). That book is said to reveal “how President Obama's recent actions prove his anti-colonialist roots and predicts how much worse America will be if President Obama wins a second term.” D’Souza’s movie is based on his book.

“2016” is already the highest grossing conservative documentary of all time, and has just surpassed “An Inconvenient Truth” and is now in sixth place on the list of all documentaries. Widespread publicity helped to boost attendance.

For example, Sean Hannity strongly and repeatedly recommends it. (That was one main reason I was disinclined to go see it.) Hannity begins each segment of his radio broadcasts with a statement of his intention to make Obama a one-term President. He evidently thinks “2016” will help achieve that goal.

On the last day of the Democratic National Convention that climaxed with President Obama’s acceptance speech, I happened to see that day’s issue of USAToday. I was amazed to find a full page ad for “2016” in section A.

Last month I received an e-mail from a retired Baptist minister whom I have known since we moved to Liberty in 2005. He wrote that he and his wife “just got home from seeing the movie: ‘2016: Obama’s America.’ It makes no difference what your political views are the move is a MUST to see.”

One of my Thinking Friends also recommended the movie. When I told him I was disinclined to see it, he wrote back, “D’Souza has a similar background [to] Obama and this makes it even more effective. I felt he was fair to Obama and seemed to stay with facts and not cheap shots like both sides have been doing.”

Even though I was prejudiced against the movie, because of my friends’ recommendations and urging I decided to go see it at the local theater here in Liberty. When I left the theater, though, I was more convinced than ever that it was a piece of well-produced propaganda. There were some factual errors, but mostly my complaint is that the movie is filled with grossly misleading half-truths, deceptive insinuations, and highly speculative assertions.

If people are opposed to the President and his ideas or policies, so be it. People have a right to their own opinions. But I urge people to base their support for or rejection of political leaders on accurate knowledge of the facts, rational analysis of the issues, and clear-headed appraisal of those leaders’ political positions.
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[For a good review and factual analysis, see “‘2016: Obama’s America’ Fact-Check” here.]