Out, Standing In Her Field

Al Gore’s Remission of Sin

I guess if the nay-sayers of climate change, AKA global warming, can’t get us on the science, they’ll try to take us out with the religious angle.

Wanting to keep the world from being swept away by violent weather and catastrophic drought just ain’t Christian. Real Christians(tm) would want the destruction of the world — it’s God’s will, after all. Nevermind that not everyone is a Luddite-Fundagelical, don’t believe these are the End Times, and would want a better world for their children and children’s children to grow up in.

Oprahs school for girls opens Tuesday - CNN.com

Oprah Winfrey is so rich, she can do just about anything she wants to — and frequently gets lots of publicity doing so. Her Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa is one of her best ideas yet, and has garnered a great deal of attention. This attention will feed back into more donations and support, and make the school an even bigger success.

Last March, ABC’s Good Morning America did a story on Greg Mortenson and his mission to build schools in the wilds of Central Asia. I haven’t heard a peep about his efforts amidst the brouhaha about Oprah, and I think that’s a sad thing. The Central Asia Institute doesn’t have a big celebrity’s deep pockets behind it, and depends mostly on much smaller donations, many of which come from American school children who do “penny drives” in their communities. This effort is at least as important as Oprah’s, and goes far beyond just educating a few girls. It also goes forth in a part of the world which is notably more dangerous.

So, I encourage all my readers to make even a small donation to the Central Asia Institute again this year. It certainly wouldn’t hurt, and it would probably do some good.

Like I said, Christmas arrived today, unabated. That being so, it’s given me pause to think about the alleged “War on Christmas.”

Now, it seems to me that the birth of Jesus is the foundation of all this uproar, and He had quite a bit to say about peace, loving one’s neighbor, and looking out for the less fortunate. So, it’s confusing to me why these Christmas Warriors (like Falwell, Robertson and O’Reilly, etc.) get so all exercised about whether or not employees at Wal-Mart say “Happy Holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas.”

Modern Christmas involves a great deal of buying and selling, as Scrooge observed to the Ghost of Christmas Present. The Good Christians^tm noted above moan about how commercialized Christmas has become.

However, it seems that there is good money to be had defending Christmas from the secular liberals who (allegedly) want to destroy the holiday. It has created quite a jackpot for those who want everyone to share their religion with us whether we want to or not.

If they want to demonstrate how wonderful their religion is and spread Jesus’ philosophy of goodwill towards all, you’d think the Fundies would be all over charitable works rather than worrying about whether or not the Temples of Conspicuous Consumption put banners reading “Merry Christmas!” in their adverts for their latest 50% Off Sale.

Do you suppose it’s a case of “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”?

Boy Killed By Float In Portsmouth Parade - WMUR.com, Manchester, NH

When this story was first reported last Saturday evening, the parade in question was a Christmas Parade. As the days passed, and the investigation wore on, the parade became a “holiday” parade.

Hmmm. I guess the Christmas Parade didn’t want its image tarnished by a 9-year-old killed during a traditional celebration. Suddenly, it’s OK to be wished Happy Holidays.

Tell that to the kid’s parents.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses have finally joined the modern world: instead of going around knocking on doors, they’ve taken up telemarketing.

I thought I was pretty much immune to the JW’s campaigns because I live in an apartment building. The management takes a dim view of door to door soliciting, and even the JW’s who live in the building weren’t pushy enough to pester their neighbors. (If they became aware that you were a Pagan, they simply moved out…)

This afternoon, I receive not one, but two calls from the local Kingdom Hall. I guess they weren’t aware that I kept my own name when I married, so I got calls for Mrs. “D” and Mrs. “M”. I informed these nice ladies that I was Pagan and not especially interested in having scripture read at me. Probably a bad move; the last time I told a Witness that I was a “druid who worshipped trees,” she showed up on my doorstep at least once a week with her kids in tow for about six months. Persistant, but not very bright.

Oh, well. I’ll just have to be more careful about screening the buzzers-of-doors…

The first cup means you are a guest.
The second cup means you are a friend.
The third cup means you are family.

ABC News’ Good Morning America presented a story this morning on the man who went to climb K2, and ended up building schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. His theory is that if you give the children, especially girls, a balanced education, then you are more likely to foster peace in the world. Give these children an alternative to the radical Islamist religious schools which teach hatred along with their scripture, and you can more easily reach their hearts and minds. And focus on girls, because the girls will pass their knowledge and understanding on to their future families: Teach a boy, and you educate an individual; teach a girl, and you educate a community.

I’ve long held the belief that America could do a better job of fighting terrorism (and poverty in general) and improving it’s image in the world by throwing books rather than bombs. What a simple (and comparatively cheap) idea!

Greg Mortenson created a foundation to build these schools, the Central Asia Institute. Perhaps this would be a worthy charity for Peaceniks, Lefties and other progressive persons to support. I’ve already mailed them a check, myself….

It’s been a slow month or so here in the hills of New Hampster. I see where my favorite right-wing nutjob, Pat Robertson is up to his old tricks threatening small Pennsylvania towns with the Wrath of God^(tm), and Bill O’Reilly, that Fox News terrorist sympathizer, is reviving that lame old conspiracy theory regarding Liberals trying to outlaw Christmas. Again.Why don’t these guys think up some new conspiracies to keep us entertained instead of boring us to death with the same old grind?

I’m on outrage overload: if I read one more article like the following, I am definitely going to explode. Of course, I’d like to do it in a place where some of these vultures are likely to get caught in the blast radius.

Retreat On Robertson: FEMA Fumbles On Operation Blessing

“Gonzalez examined Operation Blessing’s financial records and was surprised at what he saw. “The biggest single U.S. recipient of the charity’s largess, according to its latest financial report, was Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network,” he wrote. “It received $885,000 in the fiscal year ended March 2004.”

Rob Boston, Americans United

Now, I can’t figure out why the big name bloggers and the media opinionators are surprised by this. I’ve been keeping an eye on ol’ Rev. Pat for a while, and anyone with more than two brain cells can see that Robertson’s so-called “ministry” is nothing but a personal money-making engine, and that the Bush administration is one of his biggest facilitators.

Immediately upon assuming the presidency, George Bush set up his Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, Robertson was, at first, reluctant to participate in this cash cow, but once he was reassured that non-Abrahamic religions would not get any money, and that he wouldn’t be forced to adhere to the non-discriminatory employment rules that secular charities must follow in order to receive government money, he was all on board with it, and Operation Blessing got on the Bush gravy train.

Robertson made the news again when he supported Charles Taylor, the tin-pot dictator of Liberia. Seems Uncle Pat had a partnership with Taylor involving a gold mine. Mr. Gonzalez notes other Robertson chicanery in his article.

How could FEMA not have known about this? Why was Operation Blessing even on it’s list of recommended charities, never mind in the top three? Don’t bother answering those questions; it’s all political payback.

Bryan at Why Now? wonders where all the money that the Congress has approved for Katrina relief is going. Well, at least some of it is going directly in Pat Robertson’s bank account.
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Update: ABC World News Tonight did a story about the Operation Blessing controversy, and reported all the above incidents. However, at the end of the piece, they reassured us that every dollar contributed to Operation Blessing for hurricane relief was going to be used for hurricane relief.

Yeah — right… AMD

Robertson Apologizes

I wonder if Uncle Pat thinks the American people are so chronically congested that we can’t recognize bullshit when we smell it.

“I didn’t say ‘assassination.’ I said our special forces should ‘take him out,’” Robertson said on his show. “‘Take him out’ could be a number of things including kidnapping.”

I dunno, me. I saw the clip at MediaMatters.org, and I distinctly heard him used the word “assassination” at least twice. What other meaning of “take him out” does he mean? Take Chavez out for dinner and a movie? Not in the context of this particular rant.

Of course, the media has misinterpreted his statement. How else could he wangle another excuse to feel persecuted?

Sorry, Mr. Robertson. Say what you mean the next time. We’re all of us not so stupid that we can’t look words up in a dictionary.

Robertson calls for Chavez Assassination

“You know, I don’t know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it,” Robertson said. “It’s a whole lot cheaper than starting a war … and I don’t think any oil shipments will stop.”

By now, it should come as no surprise that Pat Robertson is a gawdalmighty hypocrite. Don’t permit women to decide whether or not to continue a pregnancy, as abortion equals murder, but killing a foreign head of state because he is a critic of the President of the United States is quite all right.

The Ten Commandments, so he says, are the foundation of American law. So, what happened to that commandment which reads “Thou shalt not kill”? Apparently, Rev.* Robertson has reinterpreted it beyond “Thou shalt not murder” to “Thou shalt not kill unless it will further your political agenda.” Of course, he has leave to do this because he has a direct line to God, and so knows exactly what the Almighty meant when He handed down those Commandments.

Anyway, why stop at killing foreign heads of state? Let’s take this to the extreme in the furtherance of the Christian Ultra-Right as represented by Rev. Robertson.

Robertson and his colleagues have been praying for more openings on the US Supreme Court. Why not just speed up the process, since God is apparently an awfully busy fellow, and just pop one or two liberal judges to make room for men more likely to further the conservative agenda. Who needs civil rights, anyway? The Bill of Rights just gets in the way of creating a Christian Nation.

And, gosh, aren’t elections just a waste of time? Let’s call for the assassination of certain liberal Democrats who might be thinking about running for office, such as the office of President. With the first string of Democrats out of the way, there won’t be any (remaining) opposition to righteous, conservative Republican candidates.

I’m all for everyone having the right to say what they damn well please, but statements like Robertson’s should not go unanswered. Even Republicans with more than one brain cell should be distancing themselves from this one.
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*I use this title advisedly, since I really don’t feel that Pat Robertson is actually very reverent….