No, not Madonna in another Bustier
Just a girl wearing the pants in the family in Sudan. Against Sharia Law apparently. So she was busted by the fashion police for the brazen immorality and subject to 40 lashes with something sharper than a wet noodle. Plus she showed too much....head hair! OMG! Scarves must be worn close to the ears at all times with no free flowing locks tempting the men-because it's women's fault, not men's that they can't keep their libidos zipped.
http://news.aol.com/article/sudanese-journalist-lubna-ahmed-al/601369?icid=mainmaindl1link3http%3A%2F%2Fnews.aol.com%2Farticle%2Fsudanese-journalist-lubna-ahmed-al%2F601369
Lest you start to feel superior, like- we would NEVER do that here thank God- I remind you that the forty lashes here come in subtler ways but exist in more insipid and venal forms when they are deemed too tempting. You don't even have to dress immodestly to apparently arouse the suspicions and other matters. The email attack, the frivolous slander, the blacklisting and blackballing and branding of people who don't tote the precise theological party line at the moment into oblivion. Its a modern stoning of sorts.
So don't feel superior to the religious zealots of Sudan- you do likewise here, some of you Right/WRONG wing-nuts. You know who you are.
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
Not so Funny
"If absence makes the heart grow fonder people must really love our Church"-this is the Beliefnet joke of the day.
Like all humor it touches on and scalps the truth a bit.
How does the church make itself more relevant than just another social service organization doling dollars to the needy (not that this is a bad mission, but works without Faith and Love is deader than a doorknob)
For starters, I suggest it stop persecuting itself.
Secondly, I suggest that it stop taking it's stupid pills, they have outlived their usefulness, the dumbing down intelligence-insulting, tiresome reductio ad absurdum of everything not toting the mindless party line is temptation undoes about two thousand years of what the Spirit is doing in the world.
Thirdly, I suggest that it stop confusing Love with Temptation because it is driving Jesus out of his church.
Lastly, stick to the original message- It was a good one. Rather timeless. God is Love.
Get it? God is Love. God isn't a budget, God isn't a building, God isn't a code of cannon law. God is Love. God is Love. God is Love. God is Love. (Anti-Emm we are not in Kansas anymore.)
Like all humor it touches on and scalps the truth a bit.
How does the church make itself more relevant than just another social service organization doling dollars to the needy (not that this is a bad mission, but works without Faith and Love is deader than a doorknob)
For starters, I suggest it stop persecuting itself.
Secondly, I suggest that it stop taking it's stupid pills, they have outlived their usefulness, the dumbing down intelligence-insulting, tiresome reductio ad absurdum of everything not toting the mindless party line is temptation undoes about two thousand years of what the Spirit is doing in the world.
Thirdly, I suggest that it stop confusing Love with Temptation because it is driving Jesus out of his church.
Lastly, stick to the original message- It was a good one. Rather timeless. God is Love.
Get it? God is Love. God isn't a budget, God isn't a building, God isn't a code of cannon law. God is Love. God is Love. God is Love. God is Love. (Anti-Emm we are not in Kansas anymore.)
Friday, July 31, 2009
Gone Fishin. August Recess
I leave you with this awesome thought:
Permalink: http://www.zenit.org/article-26597?l=english
Elijah's Power Food, and Ours
Biblical Reflection for 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time B
By Father Thomas Rosica, CSB
TORONTO, JULY 30, 2009 (Zenit.org).-
I have always loved reading the Elijah cycle in the Book of Kings. The first book, Chapter 18, portrays Elijah as an invincible prophet who fearlessly stands up to king and prophets, but he remains extremely so human in the process! Today's first reading from 1 Kings 19 presents us with the great prophet who is vulnerable and subject to discouragement and fear. Let us situate today's story in 1 Kings. In Chapter 19 we have the aftermath of Elijah's brilliant victory in the contest with Jezebel and the priests of Baal atop Mount Carmel. Just when Elijah should have been triumphant, he receives a message telling him of Jezebel's murderous intentions, and he is "afraid" (v. 3). Elijah is persecuted for his faithfulness and for demanding total obedience to one God because such loyalty threatens the powers that be who have their own ideas about whom or what people should worship.Israel's fiery prophet immediately flees south into the wilderness of the Negev Desert. His mood is one of defeat and desolation. After all he had done for the God of Israel, his victory now seems vitiated. He has not been given divine protection he was promised and he only wants to die: "It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors." There, in the barren desert, Elijah lies down under "a solitary broom tree" and asks God to take his life, claiming that he is no better than his fathers. Elijah bemoans his discouragement at his lack of success in encouraging the Israelites to be faithful.Energy from aboveSuddenly, a messenger (angel) of the Lord awakens him and tells him to eat and drink. Whereas the wicked Jezebel sends a messenger of death to Elijah, the Lord God of Israel sends him a messenger of life, who serves Elijah food and water, two essentials for survival in the harsh wilderness. Elijah eats, drinks, but then falls asleep again, indicating that he has not yet recovered from his lethargy or depression. The messenger wakes Elijah again and urges him to eat and drink, this time providing a reason, "or the journey will be too much for you" (19:7).What can we learn from Elijah in the desert wilderness? Here is a man who has given his life totally in faithfulness to the God of Israel. He has been totally "zealous for the Lord." His desperate cry, "I am no better than my ancestors" reveals a man who no longer believes in himself. He had believed himself to be a spectacularly exemplary servant of God. No one could outdo him in his zealousness. Now he believes it has been all in vain!Dark night of the soulYet the God of Israel does not give up on Elijah. God's teaching moment begins when Elijah's famed resourcefulness runs out. Angels from God are needed to feed him in his weakness. Then God leads him through a time of reflection in the wilderness.His journeying through Negev wilderness lasts for the significant time of forty days and forty nights. As the Hebrews wandered earlier in the wilderness in search of God, this most zealous prophet and servant of the Lord is led on a similar journey. Eventually Elijah comes to the sacred mountain of Horeb, where he spends the night in a dark cave. The dark cave and the dark night are reflective of his "dark night of the soul."Mount Horeb is in some Old Testament traditions the name for Mount Sinai, the mountain associated with God's appearance. Forty days and nights in connection with Mount Sinai recalls the two sojourns of Moses on Sinai for forty days and nights (Exodus 24:18; 34:28). The point of this moving story is not just that Elijah makes a physical trip to Mount Horeb or Mount Sinai, but rather something much more significant. In an act of sheer grace God intervenes, provides the prophet with life-giving food and water, and suggests a pilgrimage to mountain that is the place forever associated with the source and essence of Israelite faith.The Elijah story speaks powerfully to those who are worn-out, fearful, or in need of renewal and recommitment to their original call. The story suggests a way forward -- eat and drink of God's life-giving sustenance, return to the core of faith, listen for God's still small voice. That may be the way to find new energy, new vision, and a new sense of purpose. Elijah must learn that God is not encountered in the sound and fury of loud and spectacular events. God will not be conjured up by the zealous or boisterous activity of the prophet who now stands quiet and broken atop the Lord's mountain. Elijah discovers that God is encountered when the activity ceases and the words stop, when the heart is sad and the stomach is filled with pangs of hunger. When Elijah's mind and heart are finally empty of ambition and self-promotion, God is ultimately heard.Bread of Life For Elijah, for Jesus, and for us, bread is fundamental to life. Bread stands at the center of life. Bread is life. And in today's Gospel (Jn. 6:41-51) we hear about Jesus who is the Bread of Life. Christ is life: He is the bread of life. To eat Jesus' body and to drink his blood means more than just to believe in him. The image of Jesus as the "bread of life" is at the heart of what renewal in the mystery of Christ is about.When Jesus says that he is "the bread of life" his emphasis is not on the bread as such, but on himself as the 'I" who declares it. Jesus is saying that what we long for to nourish our hungers is found in himself, the "I" who identifies his life with the bread he gives (cf. in 6:51). Jesus is more than mere bread for our bodily hunger. He is more than love to satisfy our emotional needs. He is the word that will satisfy our hunger for truth. He is bread for life itself; the total satisfaction for all our human hungers.For all baptized believers the Eucharist is the primary way of celebrating and sustaining contact with the risen Lord. Let us consider for a moment the highly symbolic actions of Jesus as he gives us the living bread from heaven. Jesus took the bread. He has taken the bread of our lives and joined it with his own. Jesus blessed the bread. He has blessed us with his life. Baptism was the first moment of that blessing. Every other moment of contact with Jesus Christ is a deepening of that blessing. Jesus broke the bread. Like Jesus, there are moments in our lives when we feel hurt, broken, lost, discouraged, disillusioned, empty, rejected and without energy and hope. We are like Elijah under the broom tree, waiting for our life to end. Yet even in these fractured moments, the Lord Jesus is present to us.Jesus gave the bread. He gave of his time and his touch. He gave encouragement, but also his challenge. He gave both word and bread to feed and nourish. He gave most fully in giving himself. He gave till there was no more to give, declaring his life and work complete with the words, "It is finished" (John 19:30). Then bowing his head, he handed over his spirit, the same spirit he gave us when he appeared risen from the dead (cf. in 20:23).In life, death, and resurrection, Jesus has given us a profound example, and challenges us to do the same. "Go and do likewise" is both a challenge and a commission. It is the commission to live the mystery of being bread blessed and broken for others. When life seems to be breaking apart, we should not forget the lesson of the bread broken for us. It cannot be broken without being firmly held in both hands. When it comes to the breaking of bread, or of our lives, both hold the challenge of the mystery of faith.Let us pray that our sharing in the Eucharistic bread and wine may transform us more and more into what we eat and drink, and that we might truly become living bread, broken and shared with all people.
[The readings for the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time B are 1 Kings 19:4-8; Ephesians 4:30-5:2; and John 6:41-51]* * *
Basilian Father Thomas Rosica, chief executive officer of the Salt and Light Catholic Media Foundation and Television Network in Canada, is a consultor to the Pontifical Council for Social Communications.
He can be reached at: rosica@saltandlighttv.org.--- --- ---
Permalink: http://www.zenit.org/article-26597?l=english
Elijah's Power Food, and Ours
Biblical Reflection for 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time B
By Father Thomas Rosica, CSB
TORONTO, JULY 30, 2009 (Zenit.org).-
I have always loved reading the Elijah cycle in the Book of Kings. The first book, Chapter 18, portrays Elijah as an invincible prophet who fearlessly stands up to king and prophets, but he remains extremely so human in the process! Today's first reading from 1 Kings 19 presents us with the great prophet who is vulnerable and subject to discouragement and fear. Let us situate today's story in 1 Kings. In Chapter 19 we have the aftermath of Elijah's brilliant victory in the contest with Jezebel and the priests of Baal atop Mount Carmel. Just when Elijah should have been triumphant, he receives a message telling him of Jezebel's murderous intentions, and he is "afraid" (v. 3). Elijah is persecuted for his faithfulness and for demanding total obedience to one God because such loyalty threatens the powers that be who have their own ideas about whom or what people should worship.Israel's fiery prophet immediately flees south into the wilderness of the Negev Desert. His mood is one of defeat and desolation. After all he had done for the God of Israel, his victory now seems vitiated. He has not been given divine protection he was promised and he only wants to die: "It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors." There, in the barren desert, Elijah lies down under "a solitary broom tree" and asks God to take his life, claiming that he is no better than his fathers. Elijah bemoans his discouragement at his lack of success in encouraging the Israelites to be faithful.Energy from aboveSuddenly, a messenger (angel) of the Lord awakens him and tells him to eat and drink. Whereas the wicked Jezebel sends a messenger of death to Elijah, the Lord God of Israel sends him a messenger of life, who serves Elijah food and water, two essentials for survival in the harsh wilderness. Elijah eats, drinks, but then falls asleep again, indicating that he has not yet recovered from his lethargy or depression. The messenger wakes Elijah again and urges him to eat and drink, this time providing a reason, "or the journey will be too much for you" (19:7).What can we learn from Elijah in the desert wilderness? Here is a man who has given his life totally in faithfulness to the God of Israel. He has been totally "zealous for the Lord." His desperate cry, "I am no better than my ancestors" reveals a man who no longer believes in himself. He had believed himself to be a spectacularly exemplary servant of God. No one could outdo him in his zealousness. Now he believes it has been all in vain!Dark night of the soulYet the God of Israel does not give up on Elijah. God's teaching moment begins when Elijah's famed resourcefulness runs out. Angels from God are needed to feed him in his weakness. Then God leads him through a time of reflection in the wilderness.His journeying through Negev wilderness lasts for the significant time of forty days and forty nights. As the Hebrews wandered earlier in the wilderness in search of God, this most zealous prophet and servant of the Lord is led on a similar journey. Eventually Elijah comes to the sacred mountain of Horeb, where he spends the night in a dark cave. The dark cave and the dark night are reflective of his "dark night of the soul."Mount Horeb is in some Old Testament traditions the name for Mount Sinai, the mountain associated with God's appearance. Forty days and nights in connection with Mount Sinai recalls the two sojourns of Moses on Sinai for forty days and nights (Exodus 24:18; 34:28). The point of this moving story is not just that Elijah makes a physical trip to Mount Horeb or Mount Sinai, but rather something much more significant. In an act of sheer grace God intervenes, provides the prophet with life-giving food and water, and suggests a pilgrimage to mountain that is the place forever associated with the source and essence of Israelite faith.The Elijah story speaks powerfully to those who are worn-out, fearful, or in need of renewal and recommitment to their original call. The story suggests a way forward -- eat and drink of God's life-giving sustenance, return to the core of faith, listen for God's still small voice. That may be the way to find new energy, new vision, and a new sense of purpose. Elijah must learn that God is not encountered in the sound and fury of loud and spectacular events. God will not be conjured up by the zealous or boisterous activity of the prophet who now stands quiet and broken atop the Lord's mountain. Elijah discovers that God is encountered when the activity ceases and the words stop, when the heart is sad and the stomach is filled with pangs of hunger. When Elijah's mind and heart are finally empty of ambition and self-promotion, God is ultimately heard.Bread of Life For Elijah, for Jesus, and for us, bread is fundamental to life. Bread stands at the center of life. Bread is life. And in today's Gospel (Jn. 6:41-51) we hear about Jesus who is the Bread of Life. Christ is life: He is the bread of life. To eat Jesus' body and to drink his blood means more than just to believe in him. The image of Jesus as the "bread of life" is at the heart of what renewal in the mystery of Christ is about.When Jesus says that he is "the bread of life" his emphasis is not on the bread as such, but on himself as the 'I" who declares it. Jesus is saying that what we long for to nourish our hungers is found in himself, the "I" who identifies his life with the bread he gives (cf. in 6:51). Jesus is more than mere bread for our bodily hunger. He is more than love to satisfy our emotional needs. He is the word that will satisfy our hunger for truth. He is bread for life itself; the total satisfaction for all our human hungers.For all baptized believers the Eucharist is the primary way of celebrating and sustaining contact with the risen Lord. Let us consider for a moment the highly symbolic actions of Jesus as he gives us the living bread from heaven. Jesus took the bread. He has taken the bread of our lives and joined it with his own. Jesus blessed the bread. He has blessed us with his life. Baptism was the first moment of that blessing. Every other moment of contact with Jesus Christ is a deepening of that blessing. Jesus broke the bread. Like Jesus, there are moments in our lives when we feel hurt, broken, lost, discouraged, disillusioned, empty, rejected and without energy and hope. We are like Elijah under the broom tree, waiting for our life to end. Yet even in these fractured moments, the Lord Jesus is present to us.Jesus gave the bread. He gave of his time and his touch. He gave encouragement, but also his challenge. He gave both word and bread to feed and nourish. He gave most fully in giving himself. He gave till there was no more to give, declaring his life and work complete with the words, "It is finished" (John 19:30). Then bowing his head, he handed over his spirit, the same spirit he gave us when he appeared risen from the dead (cf. in 20:23).In life, death, and resurrection, Jesus has given us a profound example, and challenges us to do the same. "Go and do likewise" is both a challenge and a commission. It is the commission to live the mystery of being bread blessed and broken for others. When life seems to be breaking apart, we should not forget the lesson of the bread broken for us. It cannot be broken without being firmly held in both hands. When it comes to the breaking of bread, or of our lives, both hold the challenge of the mystery of faith.Let us pray that our sharing in the Eucharistic bread and wine may transform us more and more into what we eat and drink, and that we might truly become living bread, broken and shared with all people.
[The readings for the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time B are 1 Kings 19:4-8; Ephesians 4:30-5:2; and John 6:41-51]* * *
Basilian Father Thomas Rosica, chief executive officer of the Salt and Light Catholic Media Foundation and Television Network in Canada, is a consultor to the Pontifical Council for Social Communications.
He can be reached at: rosica@saltandlighttv.org.--- --- ---
Where there is Smoke there is Fire
Many See Need For Reform and it's Fracturing the Intransient Church worse than the Pope's wrist.
By last poll over 70% of American Catholics want to see a Married Priesthood option- because it will sort the wheat from the chaff, the emotional adulterers from those who are really
Holy Spirit inspired celibates and take away the idolotry of celibacy which is not the goal- Love is.
John said "God is Love" and he never said "God is Celibate" because God in fact bore a son, and is the Father, natural and spiritual of all humanity. The absurdity of the proposition that celibacy is the truest purest path to holiness is manifestly evident to most people-as a contradiction of the existential nature of God-and is contradicted by the triune Holy "FAMILY" -including past Pope John Paul II who made it clear that he did not believe celibacy was an existential requirement of the priesthood.
Yet what has been fashioned for about a millenium as an institutional accomodation has now taken on an idolotry that misleads priests and laity alike, to serve the institutional goals from which an entire theology has been created (and existed only for about a thousand years), and fosters the sort of psychological perversity and emotional abuses against women that parts of the priesthood are famous for. It fosters the hypocricy that leads priests to take on "spiritual girlfriends" who support their work, act like church basement housewives, get possessively jealous, sometimes viciously and vindictively territorial about their "Priest" friends whom they lock away from anyone with a skirt shorter than a habit.
So people are literally screaming for reform. Good priests like Father Cutie couldn't take it any longer and just left and got married, going the way of that august Augustinian aescetic self-flagulating Friar Martin Luther (the first original one.)
The priest at the center of the Medjugordje apparations who was the confessor to the visionaries has requested himself to be laicized after given onerous punishments because he has fathered a child. Medjugordje is considered one of those windows to heaven where messages are still being conveyed by apparitions of the Blessed Mother-one of the holiest places of pilgrimmage to some who testify to healing miracles of mind, heart and body. One wonders if this Priest was healed of the miseducation he obtained in the seminary indoctrination that fooled his heart into thinking that celibacy was anything Jesus ever in a million years compelled anyone to practice in his name when no Jewish priest was ever given such a command.
And still the Church wants to condemn anyone who does not buy into the doctrine (flatly rejected by the Byzantine rite-the closest historically to the original church, the entire Eastern rite and all of the rest of Christendom), debunked by JPII himself that celibacy is the purest form of holiness and existentially necessary for the priesthood. This is not a gospel of "Life"- A gospel of "Life" would encourage "Life" to be born.
Emotionally torturing women is not Life giving. It is Life miscarrying.
How wrong is this:
http://www.zenit.org/rssenglish-26598
How Unlovely.
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/catholicamerica/2008/05/the_married_priest_option.html
By last poll over 70% of American Catholics want to see a Married Priesthood option- because it will sort the wheat from the chaff, the emotional adulterers from those who are really
Holy Spirit inspired celibates and take away the idolotry of celibacy which is not the goal- Love is.
John said "God is Love" and he never said "God is Celibate" because God in fact bore a son, and is the Father, natural and spiritual of all humanity. The absurdity of the proposition that celibacy is the truest purest path to holiness is manifestly evident to most people-as a contradiction of the existential nature of God-and is contradicted by the triune Holy "FAMILY" -including past Pope John Paul II who made it clear that he did not believe celibacy was an existential requirement of the priesthood.
Yet what has been fashioned for about a millenium as an institutional accomodation has now taken on an idolotry that misleads priests and laity alike, to serve the institutional goals from which an entire theology has been created (and existed only for about a thousand years), and fosters the sort of psychological perversity and emotional abuses against women that parts of the priesthood are famous for. It fosters the hypocricy that leads priests to take on "spiritual girlfriends" who support their work, act like church basement housewives, get possessively jealous, sometimes viciously and vindictively territorial about their "Priest" friends whom they lock away from anyone with a skirt shorter than a habit.
So people are literally screaming for reform. Good priests like Father Cutie couldn't take it any longer and just left and got married, going the way of that august Augustinian aescetic self-flagulating Friar Martin Luther (the first original one.)
The priest at the center of the Medjugordje apparations who was the confessor to the visionaries has requested himself to be laicized after given onerous punishments because he has fathered a child. Medjugordje is considered one of those windows to heaven where messages are still being conveyed by apparitions of the Blessed Mother-one of the holiest places of pilgrimmage to some who testify to healing miracles of mind, heart and body. One wonders if this Priest was healed of the miseducation he obtained in the seminary indoctrination that fooled his heart into thinking that celibacy was anything Jesus ever in a million years compelled anyone to practice in his name when no Jewish priest was ever given such a command.
And still the Church wants to condemn anyone who does not buy into the doctrine (flatly rejected by the Byzantine rite-the closest historically to the original church, the entire Eastern rite and all of the rest of Christendom), debunked by JPII himself that celibacy is the purest form of holiness and existentially necessary for the priesthood. This is not a gospel of "Life"- A gospel of "Life" would encourage "Life" to be born.
Emotionally torturing women is not Life giving. It is Life miscarrying.
How wrong is this:
http://www.zenit.org/rssenglish-26598
How Unlovely.
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/catholicamerica/2008/05/the_married_priest_option.html
Another Reason DC Needs Voting Representation in Congress; Spoliation- it's not a beverage
As reported in this week's DC City Toilet Paper
There is an article on a pending class action lawsuit against the DC Police for the manner in which they hauled and "hog tied" protesters at a World Bank/IMF protest some years back. The police are being sued apparently for getting aggressive and violating people's civil rights of one kind or another. Peaceful protesters with a permit have a right to do just that. They don't get to be "hog tied" by aggressive riot control DC police for loving peace and earth shoes and wearing goofy hats and sandals.
Here is the scandal- in the lawsuit apparently the police records and/or other documentation has been properly subpoenaed and this has uncovered a bag of worms of document mismanagement and lack of proper retention policies routinely practiced by the DC Police. More the rule than the exception it suggests.
This rather sucks (please excuse the vernacular) because if the police can just destroy their records of misconduct then you can never get to the root of the problem and correct it.
This had me thinking along these lines-Gee, if we were a State could they get away with this?
Ms. Cheh, City councilwoman with a prosecutorial background is rightly outraged. But does she have authority to compel a massive Attorney General investigation of the way that the DC Police routinely might destroy suspect records of their misconduct? Note to Holder; special investigation warranted here.
I have had an outstanding FOIA request for police records for about five months and am going to have to take it to Court to get anything at some cost if we decide to go there. This just shouldn't be. FOIAs by the Police should be methodically responded to in a timely fashion within the law or people should get pay docked or something. Destroying documents by the DC police should meet with a higher authority - like the ArchAngel Michael perhaps. Protect us in Battle.
There is an article on a pending class action lawsuit against the DC Police for the manner in which they hauled and "hog tied" protesters at a World Bank/IMF protest some years back. The police are being sued apparently for getting aggressive and violating people's civil rights of one kind or another. Peaceful protesters with a permit have a right to do just that. They don't get to be "hog tied" by aggressive riot control DC police for loving peace and earth shoes and wearing goofy hats and sandals.
Here is the scandal- in the lawsuit apparently the police records and/or other documentation has been properly subpoenaed and this has uncovered a bag of worms of document mismanagement and lack of proper retention policies routinely practiced by the DC Police. More the rule than the exception it suggests.
This rather sucks (please excuse the vernacular) because if the police can just destroy their records of misconduct then you can never get to the root of the problem and correct it.
This had me thinking along these lines-Gee, if we were a State could they get away with this?
Ms. Cheh, City councilwoman with a prosecutorial background is rightly outraged. But does she have authority to compel a massive Attorney General investigation of the way that the DC Police routinely might destroy suspect records of their misconduct? Note to Holder; special investigation warranted here.
I have had an outstanding FOIA request for police records for about five months and am going to have to take it to Court to get anything at some cost if we decide to go there. This just shouldn't be. FOIAs by the Police should be methodically responded to in a timely fashion within the law or people should get pay docked or something. Destroying documents by the DC police should meet with a higher authority - like the ArchAngel Michael perhaps. Protect us in Battle.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
And the Teachable Moment that Wasn't.
Ginned Up Beer
OBAMA's comments on the dialogue between his Professor friend and the cop:
"Hopefully, instead of ginning up anger and hyperbole everybody can just spend a little bit of time with some self-reflection and recognizing that other people have different points of view," Obama said. "And that's it."
Except that's not it. Because the Police still misbehave sometimes. There is still racial profiling sometimes. There are still rogue officers who do not-- by the books--a lot of things- there are still people whose constitutional rights are violated-every day. There are still vindictive Americans who sick the police on people they don't like-there are people who call themselves churchgoing Christians who sick the police frivolously on other church going Christians. There are significantly more African Americans in jails proportionately to whites and lots of them don't deserve the disparate treatment and some really are innocent. Gates epitomized that raw deal. His charges were dropped because he put up a stink and had a profile that carried it all the way to the White House. Other people are abused by police overreaching and abuse of authority and they are just joe or sally six pack and don't get invited to the White House. They get invited to an arraignment hearing- and eventually a trial, and if they don't have the money to pay a good lawyer, to a nice metal bed in a jail cell.
No one is ginning up anything- some defendants who are cuffed, finger printed and hauled to "county" get to stay there. They don't get to tour the White House and have a free beer.
As a lawyer actually out there in the client world you can see this quite a lot without even trying to look. It's ugly. In DC for example the police can be sicked on someone merely on the word of someone else without a shred of second witness support-they can be hauled in on the word of one person without a witness on an assault charge. On mere hearsay and rumor 'banning' orders are issued with police intimidation with zero due process rights. Hearsay will support an assault charge without evidence (the Prosecutor then decides whether to paper the file, etc. after the police intimidation) This has happened to people I know- the anger is real and really justifiable.
Remember Rodney King? There are still hate crimes masquarading as police action out there.
The episode should prompt the White House to do a serious study and demand statistics on the incidents of harassing police behavior where the charges were never papered by the prosecutor or dropped and look at the racial breakdown of this across the entire country. How many times have the police done something, hauled someone in, filed a charge or a unilateral order where it did not support a criminal charge and the prosecutor deemed the action frivolous or meritless. How much police harassment is there really out there. Everyone knows that the criminal justice system, and particularly the juvenille justice system are racked and stacked against African Americans. Why is that? How much racial harassment is there. If an African American administration is not going to take a serious look at this, with an African American Attorney General and and African American President, then we are in serious trouble.
Don't trivialize what happened here. You are missing your teachable moment.
You don't have to try so hard not to offend really offensive people. We get it.
It happened also to this guy- he should be invited to the next meeting (he wrote a book about it- read it):
http://www.law.gwu.edu/Faculty/profile.aspx?id=1723
OBAMA's comments on the dialogue between his Professor friend and the cop:
"Hopefully, instead of ginning up anger and hyperbole everybody can just spend a little bit of time with some self-reflection and recognizing that other people have different points of view," Obama said. "And that's it."
Except that's not it. Because the Police still misbehave sometimes. There is still racial profiling sometimes. There are still rogue officers who do not-- by the books--a lot of things- there are still people whose constitutional rights are violated-every day. There are still vindictive Americans who sick the police on people they don't like-there are people who call themselves churchgoing Christians who sick the police frivolously on other church going Christians. There are significantly more African Americans in jails proportionately to whites and lots of them don't deserve the disparate treatment and some really are innocent. Gates epitomized that raw deal. His charges were dropped because he put up a stink and had a profile that carried it all the way to the White House. Other people are abused by police overreaching and abuse of authority and they are just joe or sally six pack and don't get invited to the White House. They get invited to an arraignment hearing- and eventually a trial, and if they don't have the money to pay a good lawyer, to a nice metal bed in a jail cell.
No one is ginning up anything- some defendants who are cuffed, finger printed and hauled to "county" get to stay there. They don't get to tour the White House and have a free beer.
As a lawyer actually out there in the client world you can see this quite a lot without even trying to look. It's ugly. In DC for example the police can be sicked on someone merely on the word of someone else without a shred of second witness support-they can be hauled in on the word of one person without a witness on an assault charge. On mere hearsay and rumor 'banning' orders are issued with police intimidation with zero due process rights. Hearsay will support an assault charge without evidence (the Prosecutor then decides whether to paper the file, etc. after the police intimidation) This has happened to people I know- the anger is real and really justifiable.
Remember Rodney King? There are still hate crimes masquarading as police action out there.
The episode should prompt the White House to do a serious study and demand statistics on the incidents of harassing police behavior where the charges were never papered by the prosecutor or dropped and look at the racial breakdown of this across the entire country. How many times have the police done something, hauled someone in, filed a charge or a unilateral order where it did not support a criminal charge and the prosecutor deemed the action frivolous or meritless. How much police harassment is there really out there. Everyone knows that the criminal justice system, and particularly the juvenille justice system are racked and stacked against African Americans. Why is that? How much racial harassment is there. If an African American administration is not going to take a serious look at this, with an African American Attorney General and and African American President, then we are in serious trouble.
Don't trivialize what happened here. You are missing your teachable moment.
You don't have to try so hard not to offend really offensive people. We get it.
It happened also to this guy- he should be invited to the next meeting (he wrote a book about it- read it):
http://www.law.gwu.edu/Faculty/profile.aspx?id=1723
Why We Have A Constitution
In Pertinent Part
To protect the citizenry against the abuse of State Power. We fought hard a revolution where dead soldiers litter fields on a Mountain called Valley Forge, redefended the union in a battlefield called Gettysburg and in countless other places where American lives were lost on American soil to protect us against the abuse of State power against the citizenry.
The backdrop of the 4th Amendment against unlawful unwarranted searches and seizures and the penumbral privacy right was that British soldiers were "quartered", just posted, living off the fat of the land and the good cooking of Americans who farmed and raised their food for the soldier squatters to pilfer at will and invade their space bunking in their homes. "Quartering" was a widespread practice and we just had to deal with it.
Boston had enough first.
The rest of the country had courage to throw off the tyranny of abusive State Power.
It's about more than Race in Boston. It's about a Policeman misunderstanding his power and abusing it. It's about violating the security of someone in their own residence. It's about exactly what we fought a revolution for. It's a Professor saying-you don't know who you are messing with- because this Professor knows his constitutional rights. It's not about an arrogant Professor- or someone caught in a "script" as Jim Wallace wants to declare. It's about someone
who knows what America stands for and that it applies equally to him.
The privacy rape of a person in their own residence by someone abusing their State powers of enforcement authority is unconstitutional, unamerican and indecent.
No, the Professor was not here unduly arrogant- he was standing for all of us, White, Black, Brown, Yellow or Green- All of us who inherited the benefits of a Revolution fought against King George and his quartered soldiers living off our labors.
To protect the citizenry against the abuse of State Power. We fought hard a revolution where dead soldiers litter fields on a Mountain called Valley Forge, redefended the union in a battlefield called Gettysburg and in countless other places where American lives were lost on American soil to protect us against the abuse of State power against the citizenry.
The backdrop of the 4th Amendment against unlawful unwarranted searches and seizures and the penumbral privacy right was that British soldiers were "quartered", just posted, living off the fat of the land and the good cooking of Americans who farmed and raised their food for the soldier squatters to pilfer at will and invade their space bunking in their homes. "Quartering" was a widespread practice and we just had to deal with it.
Boston had enough first.
The rest of the country had courage to throw off the tyranny of abusive State Power.
It's about more than Race in Boston. It's about a Policeman misunderstanding his power and abusing it. It's about violating the security of someone in their own residence. It's about exactly what we fought a revolution for. It's a Professor saying-you don't know who you are messing with- because this Professor knows his constitutional rights. It's not about an arrogant Professor- or someone caught in a "script" as Jim Wallace wants to declare. It's about someone
who knows what America stands for and that it applies equally to him.
The privacy rape of a person in their own residence by someone abusing their State powers of enforcement authority is unconstitutional, unamerican and indecent.
No, the Professor was not here unduly arrogant- he was standing for all of us, White, Black, Brown, Yellow or Green- All of us who inherited the benefits of a Revolution fought against King George and his quartered soldiers living off our labors.
I'll Have a Guiness Please
Racism is Real and Rears It's Ugly Head Again
Racism in America? What? Really? No kiddin? You Sure? Naaaaah. But we have one in the White House!
It is now being reported all over the internet that the officer who arrested the Harvard Professor actually let a few email farts loose calling this esteemed Harvard Professor something like a jungle monkey. Some will debunk this as unverified.
[Hard drives don't lie and are hard to erase. Get the hard drive.]
I will tell you, however, that actual people still do talk like this. Yep. They talk like this behind closed doors where only white folks go in country clubs as exclusive as Ligoneer, they talk like this in bars in divey parts of South Philly, they talk like this when they think no one is watching and they think it is fun or justified.
In the late 1990s in America, I was an attorney on a case involving an unnamed large public company who had a factory in South Philadelphia. Some of the supervisors of the $11.-$13.00 an hour union guys were suspected actual Klans folks who were suspected of attending Klan rallies in suburban Pennsylvania, parts of which might be called "Pennsyltucky" for its urbaneness.
What was not suspected but pretty verified with exhibits filed in Federal Court in Philadelphia were pictures of monkeys passed out on fliers eating bananas referencing the "help"- graffitti scrawled on bathroom walls that was epithetic and pathetic with overt racial references, pictures of hangmen nooses and reports of supervisors referencing "porch monkeys" and the like. The "N" word was the least of it- and it was everywhere also.
Yes, this crap still exists- Yes, the blue collar white underclass still dumps all their miseries on the rising African American class of people they feel superior to. Yes, business people and so called 'self-made' men still use the "N" word in secret when they think no one is watching. They do this not so much around me anymore because they know I will call them out- and I write a blog read in 40 or so countries now. So don't try it around me. Don't you dare call anyone I know or love a "porch monkey" a "N" a "jungle monkey" or anything close. Don't you dare. Don't you dare call an affordable accessible health care program an "affirmative action medical plan" or call
the Supreme Court choice an "affirmative action candidate." Don't you bloody dare- because I will call you out, publish your name, and post it here.
Yes, the cop who arrested a Harvard Professor- AFTER HE SHOWED HIS HARVARD ID- IN HIS OWN HOUSE for 'breaking into' his own home was an idiot. He should be sued. He got pissed off that the Harvard professor gave him lip -when the cop invaded HIS HOME.
Good Grief Charlie Brown.
No, we are not in a police state -Cheney wants his empire back but he is gone. Get over it. Cops MAY NOT arrest you for allegedly breaking into your own home. Even if you give them lip for what might be considered a 4th Amendment violation of your right to privacy in your own home by conducting an interrogation of you in your own home when not invited in your own home without a warrant. Colin Powell- too "House" my friend. You don't have to be nice to a cop invading you in your own home with a false arrest. He is the intruder here.
So Mr. Policeman- Go to the White House- sit with the President of the United States and the nice Harvard Professor- and say you are sorry. You should be sued, and instead you get to have beer with the President in the White House. Count your lucky f'ing stars you brain dead white inbred Moron from planet Urananus.
(I'm Caucasian by the way so don't even try it.)
Racism in America? What? Really? No kiddin? You Sure? Naaaaah. But we have one in the White House!
It is now being reported all over the internet that the officer who arrested the Harvard Professor actually let a few email farts loose calling this esteemed Harvard Professor something like a jungle monkey. Some will debunk this as unverified.
[Hard drives don't lie and are hard to erase. Get the hard drive.]
I will tell you, however, that actual people still do talk like this. Yep. They talk like this behind closed doors where only white folks go in country clubs as exclusive as Ligoneer, they talk like this in bars in divey parts of South Philly, they talk like this when they think no one is watching and they think it is fun or justified.
In the late 1990s in America, I was an attorney on a case involving an unnamed large public company who had a factory in South Philadelphia. Some of the supervisors of the $11.-$13.00 an hour union guys were suspected actual Klans folks who were suspected of attending Klan rallies in suburban Pennsylvania, parts of which might be called "Pennsyltucky" for its urbaneness.
What was not suspected but pretty verified with exhibits filed in Federal Court in Philadelphia were pictures of monkeys passed out on fliers eating bananas referencing the "help"- graffitti scrawled on bathroom walls that was epithetic and pathetic with overt racial references, pictures of hangmen nooses and reports of supervisors referencing "porch monkeys" and the like. The "N" word was the least of it- and it was everywhere also.
Yes, this crap still exists- Yes, the blue collar white underclass still dumps all their miseries on the rising African American class of people they feel superior to. Yes, business people and so called 'self-made' men still use the "N" word in secret when they think no one is watching. They do this not so much around me anymore because they know I will call them out- and I write a blog read in 40 or so countries now. So don't try it around me. Don't you dare call anyone I know or love a "porch monkey" a "N" a "jungle monkey" or anything close. Don't you dare. Don't you dare call an affordable accessible health care program an "affirmative action medical plan" or call
the Supreme Court choice an "affirmative action candidate." Don't you bloody dare- because I will call you out, publish your name, and post it here.
Yes, the cop who arrested a Harvard Professor- AFTER HE SHOWED HIS HARVARD ID- IN HIS OWN HOUSE for 'breaking into' his own home was an idiot. He should be sued. He got pissed off that the Harvard professor gave him lip -when the cop invaded HIS HOME.
Good Grief Charlie Brown.
No, we are not in a police state -Cheney wants his empire back but he is gone. Get over it. Cops MAY NOT arrest you for allegedly breaking into your own home. Even if you give them lip for what might be considered a 4th Amendment violation of your right to privacy in your own home by conducting an interrogation of you in your own home when not invited in your own home without a warrant. Colin Powell- too "House" my friend. You don't have to be nice to a cop invading you in your own home with a false arrest. He is the intruder here.
So Mr. Policeman- Go to the White House- sit with the President of the United States and the nice Harvard Professor- and say you are sorry. You should be sued, and instead you get to have beer with the President in the White House. Count your lucky f'ing stars you brain dead white inbred Moron from planet Urananus.
(I'm Caucasian by the way so don't even try it.)
HEALING THE MASSES- One of His Primary Purposes
From the Presidential Prayer Team People.
Words from President Obama... On Aligning with God's Purposes
When you’re in this job, I think that every president whose had it is constantly humbled by the degree to which there are a lot of issues out there, and the notion that one person alone can solve all these problems I think you’re cured of that illusion very quickly. This is something where you just hope that you are aligning your work with His purposes and that you’re attuned to the needs of the people you’re there to serve.
— President Obama, as quoted in a post by Stephanie Condon:
July 24 on the Political Hotsheet at www.cbsnews.com
.
Words from President Obama... On Aligning with God's Purposes
When you’re in this job, I think that every president whose had it is constantly humbled by the degree to which there are a lot of issues out there, and the notion that one person alone can solve all these problems I think you’re cured of that illusion very quickly. This is something where you just hope that you are aligning your work with His purposes and that you’re attuned to the needs of the people you’re there to serve.
— President Obama, as quoted in a post by Stephanie Condon:
July 24 on the Political Hotsheet at www.cbsnews.com
.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Fun Fact
Did You Know?
Padre Pio's father was for a time an Italian immigrant in New York and worked on the Long Island Railroad and the Pennsylvania Railroad to put him through Seminary. Ask the folks at the Padre Pio Shrine at Saint John the Baptist in New York behind Penn Station. (Now it makes sense it is so close to the train station.)
[see below entry on St. John's and visit next you are in NY.]
Padre Pio's father was for a time an Italian immigrant in New York and worked on the Long Island Railroad and the Pennsylvania Railroad to put him through Seminary. Ask the folks at the Padre Pio Shrine at Saint John the Baptist in New York behind Penn Station. (Now it makes sense it is so close to the train station.)
[see below entry on St. John's and visit next you are in NY.]
From the Fabulous Common Ground Folks.
About Time- to Get Serious.
The issue of health care transcends political labels of "left" and "right." Something more is at stake: the dignity of the human person. Providing access to quality and affordable health care is a moral imperative. As people of faith, we are called to ensure that the value of human life is placed above profit and that our elected officials are creating policies that benefit the common good, not just a select few. Though Congress is preparing to recess, we need to continue to advocate for health care reform that benefits ALL people, including immigrants and their children. Click here to download a free guide that provides valuable information about the health care reform debate from a faith-based perspective. As Martin Luther King, Jr., said, "Justice too long delayed is justice denied." With almost 50 million Americans-including 9 million children-lacking health care coverage, we can't afford to wait for just health care reform any longer. Use this guide to learn how YOU can speak out on behalf of justice. NOW is the time.
Thanks,
The Catholics in Alliance Team
IS DENTAL INCLUDED?
The issue of health care transcends political labels of "left" and "right." Something more is at stake: the dignity of the human person. Providing access to quality and affordable health care is a moral imperative. As people of faith, we are called to ensure that the value of human life is placed above profit and that our elected officials are creating policies that benefit the common good, not just a select few. Though Congress is preparing to recess, we need to continue to advocate for health care reform that benefits ALL people, including immigrants and their children. Click here to download a free guide that provides valuable information about the health care reform debate from a faith-based perspective. As Martin Luther King, Jr., said, "Justice too long delayed is justice denied." With almost 50 million Americans-including 9 million children-lacking health care coverage, we can't afford to wait for just health care reform any longer. Use this guide to learn how YOU can speak out on behalf of justice. NOW is the time.
Thanks,
The Catholics in Alliance Team
IS DENTAL INCLUDED?
Less is More
For Friars on a Foray.
The Cover story of the Washington Post today is something remarkably refreshing. A troupe of Franciscan Friars, complete with brown robes and rope belts walking through Virginia all the way to DC where they ended at a pilgrimage at the beautiful Franciscan Monastery in Washington, DC, in the Brookland section, near Catholic University (the entire area has been dubbed "Little Vatican" for all the Catholic culture and institutions there.)
As in the gospels they took no purse, no second tunic, and went to share the meaning of Meaning Itself- they went to share the Word of the Word, the message of Jesus' love- that permeates and transcends the material madness of the modern world. Love- it's possible. Really. Still. All you need is Love.
They slept apparently on trampolines, picnic tables, church basements, in the homes of strangers (who now are blessed beyond what they can imagine) in police academy barracks, and in an abbey of trappist nuns.(you can read about their trek in today's Post). I spotted them yesterday walking ensemble through the MetroCenter area and what a sight.
If they take the $20.00 Chinese bus or the Megabus from DC up to New York city they can go to Saint John the Baptist Franciscan church which is right behind Penn Station on 31st st. It has a beautiful church and Padre Pio garden (also a Franciscan)- which is where I just went to pray yesterday before heading back to DC (and picked up a Padre Pio CD in the little gift shop.) Check them out next you are in NY- they have a great retreat schedule.
http://shrine.padrepio.us
(turn the sound on; cut and paste the link to browser)
The Cover story of the Washington Post today is something remarkably refreshing. A troupe of Franciscan Friars, complete with brown robes and rope belts walking through Virginia all the way to DC where they ended at a pilgrimage at the beautiful Franciscan Monastery in Washington, DC, in the Brookland section, near Catholic University (the entire area has been dubbed "Little Vatican" for all the Catholic culture and institutions there.)
As in the gospels they took no purse, no second tunic, and went to share the meaning of Meaning Itself- they went to share the Word of the Word, the message of Jesus' love- that permeates and transcends the material madness of the modern world. Love- it's possible. Really. Still. All you need is Love.
They slept apparently on trampolines, picnic tables, church basements, in the homes of strangers (who now are blessed beyond what they can imagine) in police academy barracks, and in an abbey of trappist nuns.(you can read about their trek in today's Post). I spotted them yesterday walking ensemble through the MetroCenter area and what a sight.
If they take the $20.00 Chinese bus or the Megabus from DC up to New York city they can go to Saint John the Baptist Franciscan church which is right behind Penn Station on 31st st. It has a beautiful church and Padre Pio garden (also a Franciscan)- which is where I just went to pray yesterday before heading back to DC (and picked up a Padre Pio CD in the little gift shop.) Check them out next you are in NY- they have a great retreat schedule.
http://shrine.padrepio.us
(turn the sound on; cut and paste the link to browser)
French, Catholic and loving it.
The last acceptable American prejudice might be French Catholicism.
Just watch Glenn Beck for 20 minutes and see him explode into a "I don't care what Mr. Frenchie French thinks" juvenille-rant-o-meter off the charts vitriol against anything just French.
You can still find mockery of French accents with less humor than PePe Lepieu.
French, it seems is synonymous in America still with cheese-eating effeminate wino or something equally morally depraved in the red-neck Beck popular culture.
That is why it is still acceptable for Republicans in the Senate to do things like ask a Supreme Court nominee whether she will in fact consider international law- the hubristic undercurrent being, we are the best most moral people on the planet so why do we have to look at what anyone else in the world does? This I call the insular ignorant american myopia. This IIAM syndrome is also at the root of the "teach no student spanish" for fear we become a -God forbid-multilingual society (as if we aren't already.)
Have you people ever been to Provence? The French Alps? They had international ski championships there in Val D'Isere last year. Ever heard of Mont Blanc? Nice (pronounced Neeece) on the Riviera? Normandy? Ever hear of Monet? Dannon yogurt maybe? Seriously? Have you been outside Alabama or Alaska-outside a radio studio ever? Do you know that they have train stations in Paris? With real high speed trains. Ever hear of Lourdes? Cannes (oh, forget that one- all those Holywood A -listers you can't stand for jealousy either)- ever hear of Mont Saint Michele? Champaign (it's really a place)- or Dijon (not just a mustard.) How about Lyon or a Cathedral in Chartres?
Seriously- who put Glenn Beck on the air? Is there really a market for this sort of buffoonish
bulldog without lipstick frat boy flunk-out pseudo-Budweiser-slogfest- patriotism? Is that what Republicanism stands for -because if so, you all can have your head in the sand and ask moronic questions of the most qualified Supreme Court nominee we have put before a Senate committee in a few decades like will she consider foreign law- as if she is going to say- NO WAY! I wouldn't want to be learned about anything going on outside the country- because nothing relevant to us here in this age of globalization happens east of Long Island! Get Serious Senator.
Or- you can tune into French Catholic TV right on line here-
http://www.ktotv.com/
Just watch Glenn Beck for 20 minutes and see him explode into a "I don't care what Mr. Frenchie French thinks" juvenille-rant-o-meter off the charts vitriol against anything just French.
You can still find mockery of French accents with less humor than PePe Lepieu.
French, it seems is synonymous in America still with cheese-eating effeminate wino or something equally morally depraved in the red-neck Beck popular culture.
That is why it is still acceptable for Republicans in the Senate to do things like ask a Supreme Court nominee whether she will in fact consider international law- the hubristic undercurrent being, we are the best most moral people on the planet so why do we have to look at what anyone else in the world does? This I call the insular ignorant american myopia. This IIAM syndrome is also at the root of the "teach no student spanish" for fear we become a -God forbid-multilingual society (as if we aren't already.)
Have you people ever been to Provence? The French Alps? They had international ski championships there in Val D'Isere last year. Ever heard of Mont Blanc? Nice (pronounced Neeece) on the Riviera? Normandy? Ever hear of Monet? Dannon yogurt maybe? Seriously? Have you been outside Alabama or Alaska-outside a radio studio ever? Do you know that they have train stations in Paris? With real high speed trains. Ever hear of Lourdes? Cannes (oh, forget that one- all those Holywood A -listers you can't stand for jealousy either)- ever hear of Mont Saint Michele? Champaign (it's really a place)- or Dijon (not just a mustard.) How about Lyon or a Cathedral in Chartres?
Seriously- who put Glenn Beck on the air? Is there really a market for this sort of buffoonish
bulldog without lipstick frat boy flunk-out pseudo-Budweiser-slogfest- patriotism? Is that what Republicanism stands for -because if so, you all can have your head in the sand and ask moronic questions of the most qualified Supreme Court nominee we have put before a Senate committee in a few decades like will she consider foreign law- as if she is going to say- NO WAY! I wouldn't want to be learned about anything going on outside the country- because nothing relevant to us here in this age of globalization happens east of Long Island! Get Serious Senator.
Or- you can tune into French Catholic TV right on line here-
http://www.ktotv.com/
Health Care Scare
The Lack of It, not the Bill is the Fright.
The dueling propaganda machines are in full throttle over Health Care which now appears stalled on the vote until after the break. The adverts on the Right have you asking your Congressperson if they actually read all 1,000 plus pages of it. (doubtful). The adverts on the left pull out a slightly paunchier slightly grayer Harry and Louise to urge that we get it done this time, touting all the nightmarish scenarios that plague Americans because of the way health care is financed in this country. On the radio you can hear guys named Stuart (Stewart?) Butler from the Heritage Institute (no relation) blasting the British health care system from whence he came, noting its lack of innovation. (Not to mention sterilization and sanitation my mother chimed in.)
And the scare continues....Guiliani at the American Enterprise Institute cautions-what if they tell you that you can't get another "stint" after age 59 because they are now rationing them. What? Where is that in the bill? Who ever said that the government would tell you what procedures would be authorized or not? Where, Sir, did you read that in the bill? Page please. What else could be the scariest thing about what the government does with the health care bill? Just imagine the worse then imagine that the entire Congress is stupider than your two year old and can't figure out that this is not advisable. These are the premises you have to buy to believe the Scaretigists on the Right.
All that said, there is basic and there is basic. There is a bottom and there is a top of the line care- and the bottom is what we need to establish, for ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE IN AMERICA. This it seems should rise to the level of a constitutional right of citizenship. If you can afford and want the Mercedes top of the line health care, go for it, if you just need your basic Ford or Toyota to get you around town, don't begrudge the folks who can afford the Mercedes. And Mercedes people, don't deny the "little people" the access to a basic Ford. The government it seems ought to be able to sort out a system so that everyone can drive.
If you find yourself in the camp off to the right, read this to pull yourself out of denial by your bootstraps. You did it so well for everything else.
http://www.truthout.org/072809R?n
Now, be part of the solution or get out of the way. We need a universal health care basic driving package without the bells and whistles, deluxe CD and GPS system for the hoy poloy masses.
It's good for business.
The dueling propaganda machines are in full throttle over Health Care which now appears stalled on the vote until after the break. The adverts on the Right have you asking your Congressperson if they actually read all 1,000 plus pages of it. (doubtful). The adverts on the left pull out a slightly paunchier slightly grayer Harry and Louise to urge that we get it done this time, touting all the nightmarish scenarios that plague Americans because of the way health care is financed in this country. On the radio you can hear guys named Stuart (Stewart?) Butler from the Heritage Institute (no relation) blasting the British health care system from whence he came, noting its lack of innovation. (Not to mention sterilization and sanitation my mother chimed in.)
And the scare continues....Guiliani at the American Enterprise Institute cautions-what if they tell you that you can't get another "stint" after age 59 because they are now rationing them. What? Where is that in the bill? Who ever said that the government would tell you what procedures would be authorized or not? Where, Sir, did you read that in the bill? Page please. What else could be the scariest thing about what the government does with the health care bill? Just imagine the worse then imagine that the entire Congress is stupider than your two year old and can't figure out that this is not advisable. These are the premises you have to buy to believe the Scaretigists on the Right.
All that said, there is basic and there is basic. There is a bottom and there is a top of the line care- and the bottom is what we need to establish, for ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE IN AMERICA. This it seems should rise to the level of a constitutional right of citizenship. If you can afford and want the Mercedes top of the line health care, go for it, if you just need your basic Ford or Toyota to get you around town, don't begrudge the folks who can afford the Mercedes. And Mercedes people, don't deny the "little people" the access to a basic Ford. The government it seems ought to be able to sort out a system so that everyone can drive.
If you find yourself in the camp off to the right, read this to pull yourself out of denial by your bootstraps. You did it so well for everything else.
http://www.truthout.org/072809R?n
Now, be part of the solution or get out of the way. We need a universal health care basic driving package without the bells and whistles, deluxe CD and GPS system for the hoy poloy masses.
It's good for business.
Torture -not for AMERICA
JESUITS IN AMERICA MAGAZINE ADDRESS TORTURE-GATE
http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=11795
And what exactly should those
White House lawyers have been doing? See the Article on "Legal Obligations"
www.AMERICAMAGAZINE.org
http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=11795
And what exactly should those
White House lawyers have been doing? See the Article on "Legal Obligations"
www.AMERICAMAGAZINE.org
Monday, July 27, 2009
LOOKING FOR A MEDIATOR?
THERE IS ONE MEDIATOR
There is ONE Mediator between GOD and MAN and that is the Man JESUS CHRIST.
[1 Timothy 2]
There is ONE Mediator. ONE, only ONE, ONE and ONLY ONE MEDIATOR
between God and Man and that is the Man JESUS CHRIST.
Think about it.
Just ONE.
[Not a College of Cardinals.]
There is ONE Mediator between GOD and MAN and that is the Man JESUS CHRIST.
[1 Timothy 2]
There is ONE Mediator. ONE, only ONE, ONE and ONLY ONE MEDIATOR
between God and Man and that is the Man JESUS CHRIST.
Think about it.
Just ONE.
[Not a College of Cardinals.]
Friday, July 24, 2009
You won't believe this church is here
Saint Mary's in Mid-town.
Right off Times Square is a church that partly emulates Saint Sulpice in Paris next to the Palais de Justice called Saint Mary's. You won't believe it's there- across the street is a seedy looking Irish Pub and a theatre. A mere few blocks away you could have seen the naked cowboy when he wasn't running for Mayor (not kidding.)
Inside the dimly lit expanse you are met with tall royal blue Gothic vaulted ceilings speckled with gold stars-very French. It has a wedding chapel with a large round Italian ceramic medallion of Mary marrying Joseph circled with Mediterranean lemons and foliage and a painted wooden ceiling that evokes an Edwardian library feeling. It has another chapel with an enormous statue of Mary. One is greeted at the door with a row of candles and an enormous crucifix next to a potted hydrangea.
I was almost fooled- I sat from 5:00 until about 5:30 praying in the wedding chapel thinking 5:30 mass must be starting soon. I was hiding from the rain that deluged manhattan that evening. 5:30 approached and the one person crouched at the back and
other soul deep in prayer under the Mary statue were the only two people still to be found in the church. I wondered if they would give a mass for only 3 people in a dark stone gothic church castle or whether I should make my way to Starbucks to wait for my sister. they were saving electricity so only the faces of statues and Jesus was lit giving it a rather eerie ambiance-like glow in the dark Apostles.
Just then the organ blasted loudly something out of a horror movie as if Vincent Price was going to peer behind a stone column in a black crepe cape. It was loud horrible organ music- not lovely, sweet Mozart, Bach or anything really recognizable. OK - a bit of a zealot music major rehearsing for Lincoln Hall or something, cut him a break. Creative. Yes, that's what it was-loudly creative. Still no Mass. Just the Fuge in Mortisha Minor. I started to wonder what kind of church this was.
Then I read the fine print of the flier I picked up at the back. "The Episcopalian Diocese welcomes you to the Catholic experience in the Episcopalian church." It was like the Queen of England wearing a Milanese designer dress --not quite Italian but very nice try. Especially the wedding chapel. Hydrangeas were lovely also this time of year. Still, there's something really real about a real Mass. You know it when you see it.
http://www.stmvirgin.org/
Worth a visit for the Architecture and the prayer cards with the Angelus and Magnificat on them.
Right off Times Square is a church that partly emulates Saint Sulpice in Paris next to the Palais de Justice called Saint Mary's. You won't believe it's there- across the street is a seedy looking Irish Pub and a theatre. A mere few blocks away you could have seen the naked cowboy when he wasn't running for Mayor (not kidding.)
Inside the dimly lit expanse you are met with tall royal blue Gothic vaulted ceilings speckled with gold stars-very French. It has a wedding chapel with a large round Italian ceramic medallion of Mary marrying Joseph circled with Mediterranean lemons and foliage and a painted wooden ceiling that evokes an Edwardian library feeling. It has another chapel with an enormous statue of Mary. One is greeted at the door with a row of candles and an enormous crucifix next to a potted hydrangea.
I was almost fooled- I sat from 5:00 until about 5:30 praying in the wedding chapel thinking 5:30 mass must be starting soon. I was hiding from the rain that deluged manhattan that evening. 5:30 approached and the one person crouched at the back and
other soul deep in prayer under the Mary statue were the only two people still to be found in the church. I wondered if they would give a mass for only 3 people in a dark stone gothic church castle or whether I should make my way to Starbucks to wait for my sister. they were saving electricity so only the faces of statues and Jesus was lit giving it a rather eerie ambiance-like glow in the dark Apostles.
Just then the organ blasted loudly something out of a horror movie as if Vincent Price was going to peer behind a stone column in a black crepe cape. It was loud horrible organ music- not lovely, sweet Mozart, Bach or anything really recognizable. OK - a bit of a zealot music major rehearsing for Lincoln Hall or something, cut him a break. Creative. Yes, that's what it was-loudly creative. Still no Mass. Just the Fuge in Mortisha Minor. I started to wonder what kind of church this was.
Then I read the fine print of the flier I picked up at the back. "The Episcopalian Diocese welcomes you to the Catholic experience in the Episcopalian church." It was like the Queen of England wearing a Milanese designer dress --not quite Italian but very nice try. Especially the wedding chapel. Hydrangeas were lovely also this time of year. Still, there's something really real about a real Mass. You know it when you see it.
http://www.stmvirgin.org/
Worth a visit for the Architecture and the prayer cards with the Angelus and Magnificat on them.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
The Next RUC Chairperson
Rudy Guiliani-today at the AEI
If the Republicans want to forward a face that explains their economic philosophy from someone who took New York city from the brink of Bankruptcy they should cart out Rudy Guiliani on every talking head show and make him the RUC Chairperson- because he articulates the values of that party in mostly a thoughtful and humorous but poignant way in a manner that doesn't alienate nearly as bad as I expected and turns all the culture wars into a fight for free enterprise-which has a bit of propagandistic appeal if you are looking for a scapegoat boogeyman to wail against the miseries. Somehow listening to him one forgets the debate over whether 9-11 was rigged by his party that killed a few thousand of its own in his city, and poisoned the air into a carcinogenic swamp. What 9-11? Who me sitting in the trade towers at ground zero?
Plus he is a Yankees fan and I like his parochial New Yorkisms. He did revitalize the private sector in New York. He fought for public schools but he also is a school choice zealot.
That said, he was still basically wrong on some major points, left no doubt that the Republicans will tooth and nail fight Obama on health care for the sport of it regardless of what it says denying americans who overwhelmingly of all parties want health care reform of some kind unless they work for the pharmaceutical companies or HMOs or directly profit in some other way (even my brother in law the famous Yalie cardiologist thinks the system needs radical reforming). Its too damned expensive. We are all going bankrupt.
Guiliani here accidentally modeled some of the heartless aspects of Laissez Faire that leave everyone to their own devices without addressing for example the insane costs of health care that even fair minded republicans find unacceptable- even at one point in his address to the American Enterprise Institute slightly mocking the crowd of people he fired from NY City run/owned hospitals that he indicated were the right people to fire because they never found work after that and spent their days tracking and following him around wherever he went making speeches. Joblessness isn't all that funny for the folks without a paycheck and all their families. Ah- that Empathy factor.
He noted that Belview in New York would have to treat you if you showed up still -and neglected to mention the bill you might get later that would throw you into bankruptcy. Belview- isn't that the hospital that featured all over Youtube last year where a woman waited so long in the ER waiting room in a bathrobe she flat out keeled over, dropped to the floor, writhed there unnoticed for a good 20 minutes and died?
Is this the Mayor who fought Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in their homeless ministry (see ink below) because the homeless slept on the streets of New York surrounding the church -all the way to the Supreme Court. He said if he had a homeless brother he wouldn't want him sleeping on the street, or demanding a right to sleep on the street, he would get him a place off the street and not allow him to sleep on the street. This is actually a rather shockingly ignorant statement coming from a Mayor who should be at least knowledgeable about the facts on homelessness and that the people who are on the street have often burned all bridges with family (family get tired of drug addict relatives stealing from them) and they often have either been kicked out of shelters for behavior problems or know the shelters to be madhouses of threatened assaults and craziness that makes the street actually a more peaceful rest. Aahh-that Empathy Factor again.
Guiliani did score a few fair points- the New York city skyline was not planned- and its beautiful in its expression of free enterprise and the entrepreneurial spirit. There was no city planning Czar of Skylines.
I agree. Wonderful.
He said that too much government and too many czars really doesn't address the efficiencies needed to resolve a lot of issues. I agree.
He got a laugh when noting "remember what happened to the last real
Czar?" A little menacing- call homeland security.
If the Republicans want to forward a face that explains their economic philosophy from someone who took New York city from the brink of Bankruptcy they should cart out Rudy Guiliani on every talking head show and make him the RUC Chairperson- because he articulates the values of that party in mostly a thoughtful and humorous but poignant way in a manner that doesn't alienate nearly as bad as I expected and turns all the culture wars into a fight for free enterprise-which has a bit of propagandistic appeal if you are looking for a scapegoat boogeyman to wail against the miseries. Somehow listening to him one forgets the debate over whether 9-11 was rigged by his party that killed a few thousand of its own in his city, and poisoned the air into a carcinogenic swamp. What 9-11? Who me sitting in the trade towers at ground zero?
Plus he is a Yankees fan and I like his parochial New Yorkisms. He did revitalize the private sector in New York. He fought for public schools but he also is a school choice zealot.
That said, he was still basically wrong on some major points, left no doubt that the Republicans will tooth and nail fight Obama on health care for the sport of it regardless of what it says denying americans who overwhelmingly of all parties want health care reform of some kind unless they work for the pharmaceutical companies or HMOs or directly profit in some other way (even my brother in law the famous Yalie cardiologist thinks the system needs radical reforming). Its too damned expensive. We are all going bankrupt.
Guiliani here accidentally modeled some of the heartless aspects of Laissez Faire that leave everyone to their own devices without addressing for example the insane costs of health care that even fair minded republicans find unacceptable- even at one point in his address to the American Enterprise Institute slightly mocking the crowd of people he fired from NY City run/owned hospitals that he indicated were the right people to fire because they never found work after that and spent their days tracking and following him around wherever he went making speeches. Joblessness isn't all that funny for the folks without a paycheck and all their families. Ah- that Empathy factor.
He noted that Belview in New York would have to treat you if you showed up still -and neglected to mention the bill you might get later that would throw you into bankruptcy. Belview- isn't that the hospital that featured all over Youtube last year where a woman waited so long in the ER waiting room in a bathrobe she flat out keeled over, dropped to the floor, writhed there unnoticed for a good 20 minutes and died?
Is this the Mayor who fought Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in their homeless ministry (see ink below) because the homeless slept on the streets of New York surrounding the church -all the way to the Supreme Court. He said if he had a homeless brother he wouldn't want him sleeping on the street, or demanding a right to sleep on the street, he would get him a place off the street and not allow him to sleep on the street. This is actually a rather shockingly ignorant statement coming from a Mayor who should be at least knowledgeable about the facts on homelessness and that the people who are on the street have often burned all bridges with family (family get tired of drug addict relatives stealing from them) and they often have either been kicked out of shelters for behavior problems or know the shelters to be madhouses of threatened assaults and craziness that makes the street actually a more peaceful rest. Aahh-that Empathy Factor again.
Guiliani did score a few fair points- the New York city skyline was not planned- and its beautiful in its expression of free enterprise and the entrepreneurial spirit. There was no city planning Czar of Skylines.
I agree. Wonderful.
He said that too much government and too many czars really doesn't address the efficiencies needed to resolve a lot of issues. I agree.
He got a laugh when noting "remember what happened to the last real
Czar?" A little menacing- call homeland security.
He blamed the economic melt down not on greed gone awry (where guys actually named Madoff Made Off with livlihoods and retirements and entire foundations trusts) unchecked by republican government watch dogs licking themselves instead, but by intrusive governmental intervention in the first place- as if he had a senior moment fog of memory and forgot the last 8 years his party ruled the government, staffed the SEC, hired the SEC commissioners and had majorities in Congress effecting any banking regulations. Whose fault was that? Does anyone think if it was all bad government's fault that this 7 month old Administration did it all? The Democrats have not been in power since the 1990s to the extent that they could possibly be blamed for not establishing capitalization reserves or ratios appropriately.
So all in all, Guiliani gets a 100 % on the basically very likeable and basically great to have a beer with quotient-better yet go to a Yankees game with. But he needs a much better coach on some basic empathy factors- so as to diminish the Grandpa Munster affect a bad light can turn his profile into.
If he is running for anything next- get a better set of advisors.
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