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Affordable Health Care, climate change, Elizabeth Taylor, Entertainment, fundamentalism, GOP, Herman Cain, Islamaphobia, religeous extreme right, Sarah Palin, science, science education, social issues, teabaggers, theology
“Sarah Palin is going to Israel next week on a fact-finding tour. She wants to find out things like where is it and who’s their king. She says she’s very excited to visit the Wailing Wall, because whaling is illegal in Alaska.” – Jay Leno
About the only thing I’ve seen reported about Sarah and her trip to “create some foreign policy cred” is that she claims to have “lots of Israeli flags” which she displays everywhere. Like in the powder room, and the breakfast nook, ya know, just to remind herself of her close ties with her home away from home.
Oh yeah, and don’t forget that Israel is necessary because of that Armageddon thing, and all the Jews will either convert or die. She believes that too. But that plays no part in her “we are all Israeli’s” love fest. For a Christian, doncha wonder why she didn’t bother to visit any Christian sites while there?
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By the by, the Christian wacko right thinks the Christian left is starting to be a force. That must be good news. I’m guessin’ they don’t see it that way. In a video and accompanying text, TIkkun gives a good summary of why the right extremists don’t think that it’s a good idea to care for the less fortunate in this country and tax a few more of the outrageously rich in order to do so.
Again, I always come down on the fact that their “theology” is so damned convenient for them. It keeps their money in their pockets, “because God wants it there.” God is for justice and there ain’t no justice in feeding and tending to those who are deemed “lazy and deserve their status.”
Theology of convenience is almost never good theology. In fact it ought to be a rule, if I find God’s call easy and right up my alley, it’s probably not God’s call.
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You no doubt have heard of the passing of Elizabeth Taylor at the age of 79. Ms. Taylor was truly one of the giants in the old studio system. She was a giant of a talent, and it should not be forgotten that she was one of the first to come out for funding for AIDS research. She did that when it was still highly unpopular.
As with most of you, she was part of my life since I had one. Most all of these icons of the silver screen are gone now. But a few remain.
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Big Think has a good article on the difficulty the science community has in conveying its “science” to the outlying public. Traditional methods of “education” are often seen as elitist and snobbish arrogance. A new approach is essential of the public is to be informed and to find reason to adopt scientifically generated claims such as climate change that require adoption and implementation.
This issue is critical since Republicans in the House are busy trying to undue everything the EPA is doing these days, all based on their “climate change is a theory that hasn’t been proven” rhetoric. They have even gone so far as to want to declare that carbon dioxide is not a greenhouse gas. (Moe at Whatever Works reported on this today.)
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If you remember, the GOP and all its crazier element was determined to stop Affordable Health Care a year ago. They screamed, they ranted, they raved. They prophesied the end of the world, the end of civilization as we know it, the end of democracy, death to countless people, the death of industries and on and on.
Funny thing happened on the way to its second year, not a one of those things has happened. NOT A ONE. Yet they are still predicting it will. Yes, probably true, and the sun will expand incinerating the earth. Just give it enough time. It certainly will.
Media Matters has even more great quotes. This stuff is really fun to read.
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My dad was a pretty much life-long racist. He progressed from the N word to black, but he could say black in a way that left little doubt what he truly thought. I remember on one of his last hospital stays, when he was near death that he was less concerned that one of the attending doctors attempting to help him was an African-American. He was simply grateful at that point to be alive.
Herman Cain, Republican and wanna be president, expressed relief that his surgeon was a Arab Christian and not a Muslim. This kind of ugliness cannot go unaddressed, and We are respectable negroes does just that. Read it.
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What’s on the stove? Homemade pizza.
Related Articles
- Bethlehem a step too far for Palin’s Israel visit (independent.co.uk)
Existential Ennui 
//My dad was a pretty much life-long racist//
That’s funny. My Dad had a ‘polite bias’ against Gay folk….. when a young Gay guy moved in next door, twenty five years ago… he started with the “gay-jokes”… then he found out Peter raised canaries… and Dad also raised canaries and parakeets and finches. Then Peter was said to be “OK”. A year later Dad fell and broke a leg…. and Peter would go to the grocery for them, shovel the walk…. and the jokes stopped. Then he found out Peter raised orchids… something Dad could never accomplish… until Peter taught him. Then all we would hear, on coming home, was what a neat guy Peter was. I teased him, once, on his changed attitude. He just kind of glared at me and said, ” You just have to get to know someone.” Dad was never one to admit to anyone, but himself, that he was wrong. Funny guy, my Dad. I loved him.
My dad never changed his underlying bigotry alas. Sad to say…he wasn’t introspective enough I don’t think for that.
okijimm – I love your story and kind of love your Dad because of it. Let me share one of my own. In the early ’70’s friends of mine and my siblings, a gay couple, began attending our family events – usually at my parents’ house. After the guys had visitied there a few times, my Dad took aside my mother and told her she had to do something because he didn’t want those ‘queers’ around the grandkids.
Somehow, nothing happened. That was then.
In his last years, my father was visited regularly by Ed and Steve. He lvoed their visits. He would embrace them both, kiss them on their cheeks and introduce them around as ‘my other boys’.
Dad was born in 1912 and grew up with all the attendant predjudices of his day. He died last year; Ed and Steve were at his bedside with my brother and I..
Thanks Moe for your story. What a lovely one it is. With Jim’s we are all enriched. My father could never take the ultimate step out of his own fears I believe.
Okjimm, that is the sweetest story. And how instructive that is and possibly, very true for many homophobes – who aren’t really that, but just afraid, ignorant and following the social norm of the time. Your Dad’s progression through life inspires me. It tells me that there might be hope for many others. Thank you, man!
Even a goodly number of Repubs and Teabags think Palin is to flaky to support; Biggest Money disagrees: BIG Secret Mega-Money to her. Hopefully she will run, so Many get Proof how crazy Big Money Radical Right is. Too many of the public think Teabag Crazies are just ‘Far Out Liberal lies.’ The Liars always blame the Truthers Lie.
You are so right Tony, the neo-cons are about done with Palin, she just won’t do as they wish. She served her purpose, and the other buffoons do as well, by keeping us all distracted, most of all their lemming followers who cut their own throats without even realizing they are doing it…
Only American Christians see science as an enemy. In Europe Christian are not worries much. The Pope accept evolution; the church has no problem with evolution under god.
You are very correct. American fundamentalists are the only ones who see science as an enemy. They have warped the scriptures until they are no longer recognizable, but suit their own needs. Sad and dangerous…..much as Islamic extremists.
The Christian left. Now wouldn’t that be nice. A counter-balance, you know?
Indeed it would be. There are more of us than I think many think.