Just as I was in the process of writing a Salt and Light article about chocolate Easter crosses and such, I ran across this. Now the chocolate crosses at the local grocery seem tame. Check it out…or maybe you’d rather not.http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070330/aponreus/chocolatejesus;ylt=AqAtm8WP.pAx8GGJHdDaNGs0NUE
I’ve previously criticized Dr. James Dobson for his negative comments about Sen. McCain and some statements McCain had made about gay marriage. It appears that Dr. Dobson has again thrust himself into the 2008 GOP primary, this time to slam a guy who isn’t even a candidate (yet).
Drudge posted a link to this story, where Dr. Dobson opines about Fred Thompson, former Tennessee Senator and actor on the TV show Law & Order. Key excerpt:
“Everyone knows he’s conservative and has come out strongly for the things that the pro-family movement stands for,” Dobson said of Thompson. “[But] I don’t think he’s a Christian; at least that’s my impression,” Dobson added, saying that such an impression would make it difficult for Thompson to connect with the Republican Party’s conservative Christian base and win the GOP nomination.
Wow. That’s pretty strong stuff to allege that he’s not even a Christian, even while acknowledging that he’s been supportive (“strongly”) for Dobson’s agenda. Why would a heathen support Dobson’s political agenda?
Thompson’s supporters immediately countered that he is in fact a Christian, and is a baptized member of the Church of Christ. Dobson left it to his spokesman to reply:
In a follow-up phone conversation, Focus on the Family spokesman Gary Schneeberger stood by Dobson’s claim. He said that, while Dobson didn’t believe Thompson to be a member of a non-Christian faith, Dobson nevertheless “has never known Thompson to be a committed Christian—someone who talks openly about his faith.”
So, now get this: unless you’re a noisy Christian, in evangelical politics, you aren’t a Christian. Do I have that straight? I think I’ve put my finger on the real problem here, too: evangelical politics. Now, I don’t want to be misunderstood. I hope many, many Christians are elected to public office. I think they should run, and I think their influence if elected will be salutary. However, having one man with a radio show in Colorado be the arbiter of who’s really a Christian for political purposes is completely insane.
I know that many folks respect Dr. Dobson, mainly for his views on raising children, and especially boys. The buzzword for this in the business world is “core competency.” And when a business gets outside its core competency, it runs a tremendous risk of failure. (Anyone remember Coca-Cola clothes?) I think that Dobson should stick to his core competency and quit trying to be the Christian political kingmaker.
The Riverwood Book Group will finish at our meeting tonight our discussions on two very fascinating books about persecution. They are Night by Elie Wiesel and Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch. Night is a memoir by Mr. Wiesel of the 15th and 16th years of his life; years spent in Auschwitz and Buchenwald. The book is, of course, shocking in the extreme; and a great deal of the shock comes from the effect of treating the prisoners as if they were sub-human and totally without human characteristics. For example, we see the young narrator and his family disembark from the train that brought them to Auschwitz in cattle cars. After entering the gate, the son and his father are sent to the right while the wife and mother and young daughter are sent to the left. The males are going to the work camp barracks. The females are going directly to the gas chamber and ovens. They are not given the time to say good-by to wife, mother, sister and daughter. They simply never see them again.
In the savagery of their imprisonment, they soon become almost sub-human; becoming the way they are perceived by their captors. Everything is subjugated to survival. Family ties, religion, a sense of community, even the basic human aspects of goodness, kindness and sympathy disappear before that urge. It is startling to read and especially startling is the giving up of everything human for the type of life they are facing.
Solzhennitsyn’s book is a novel but is based on first hand knowledge since he was imprisoned by Stalin for eight years in the Gulag labor prisons. Their life also is one of basic survival; getting enough to eat and keeping warm enough to stay alive in the Siberian winter in which they live and work. Being able to do this is not a given, either. While they are fed and clothed, it is not enough and they have to work at it to get food and stay warm enough to maintain life.
A major difference exists, however, in their response. The hunger, cold, beatings, and mistreatment doesn’t drive them to the same sub-human depths outlined in the Nazi camps because they are still considered to be human by their captors; lesser humans, but human all the same. Community, religion, and even some caring for each other; especially those with common ties, all exist in the camps. One of the things that they can maintain is even a pride in their work, forced though it may be.
Reading the two books in juxtaposition was fascinating. Given the hard wired impulse to survive, what could cause a man who wants to live to freely give up his life? Soldiers give up their life for their comrades. Men die seeking to protect wives and children. And men and women were (and still are all over the world today) willing to die because of the truth that God exists and has placed that knowledge in their heads and hearts. This propensity is also hard wired into man, made in the image of a God who was willing to die for him.
The Hillary Clinton - Barack Obama race promises to be great fun, especially if you’re a Republican like me who’s basically not invested in the outcome. It’s gotten off to a great start, but in a decidedly 21st century way - on YouTube.
Someone, operating under a pseudonym, whose identity has yet to be revealed, has posted what I think is one of the most devastating political ads I’ve ever seen. Check it out:
Now, for the under 30 crowd, this is a take-off on an ad that Apple ran during the 1984 superbowl to introduce the Macintosh and this newfangled thingie called the mouse. To see the actual Apple ad, go here.
Everybody loves a mystery. Obama’s campaign swears that they had nothing to do with this ad. Some have speculated that a Republican actually did the ad. If the Obama camp is lying, they should stop immediately and run this on TV - frequently. If not, they - more than anyone else - need to find out who did it and put that person on the payroll.
Mystery political ads on YouTube - I love the internet.
If anyone is left out there that needs an object lesson in the perverse intersection we have in this country with the public schools and the First Amendment, then let me tell you about Bong Hits 4 Jesus.
Believe this or not (and this actually makes my point here) this week the US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case called Morse v. Frederick. Morse is the high school principal where Frederick was a student. The Olympic Torch was coming through town. The school apparently encouraged students to turn out to see it. Frederick did, and when the torch passed by, he unfurled a banner that read “Bong Hits 4 Jesus.” Morse took the banner away and suspended him for 10 days. Frederick later admitted that the banner had no meaning, was intentionally absurd, and that he did it just for attention.
This, folks, is before the United States Supreme Court. I know, you’d think they’d have better to do. The question in the case is whether the principal had the power to effectively censor the student’s speech at a non-school event. A good summary of the oral argument can be found at Prof. Althouse’s Blog.
Now, the reason I post this is that it exemplifies perfectly the problem with having the government be in the business of running schools. Because the principal is a government actor, this matters. Had this principal been running a private school, she would answer to her customers for her actions privately, and the US Supreme Court could consider more weighty and less sexy issues.
It’s not the fault of the schools that they’re run by the government. You’d think that governments would be tired to the point of exhaustion with dealing with endless federal court litigation over the schools. When any action that a teacher takes can result in a federal lawsuit (maybe even all the way to the top), it’s inevitable that teachers are going to have to spend a not insignificant amount of time basically learning federal civil rights law.
Is it only me that thinks that effort could be better spent?
Oh well, looking on the bright side, as Prof. Althouse points out, this case will make for no end of bong jokes in Constitutional Law classes for decades. At least there’s that.
Before getting started, let me just say that I am not making this up.
Colorado is actually considering making the song “Rocky Mountain High” its official state song.
As if that weren’t bad enough, State Sen Bob Hagedorn insists in the New York Times that the song has nothing to do with drug use.
Actual lyric from the song:
I’ve seen it raining fire in the sky. Friend around the camp fire and everybody’s high….
Hmmm…..
If everything goes as planned, the United Kingdom will, by Easter of next year, have one of the most thoroughgoing, restrictive, and invasive laws regarding the emission of carbon dioxide of any nation on the planet. Under the terms of the law, within the next ten years, all new homes would have to be “carbon neutral” - whatever that means - and existing homes would face a “home energy audit” by the government, one presumes. And those who fail such an inspection would, in the words of the British Environment Minister, face “painful” financial sanctions. Read all about this monstrosity here.
Is it just me, or is this whole global warming/environmentalist movement going from being absurd to frightening? I’ve heard this movement described as worshiping the creation instead of the creator, and I think that’s spot-on. In fact, it’s more like some old B-movie about a jungle tribe trying to pacify their angry gods with self-sacrifice. But instead of sacrificing a virgin, the modern take on this is to sacrifice the Suburban for a bike.
It just all seems so phony-baloney to me. I’m not advocating waste, and I know that we’re commanded to be good stewards of the earth. However, the heights to which this “crisis” has been elevated are amazing. Think about the last time that a Western democracy did something as invasive of individual privacy as inspecting every home for compliance with some law or as economically disruptive as the proposed caps on CO2 emissions will be. World War II is about as close as you can come. It wasn’t this bad fighting the commies, a much more real and lethal danger to Western civilization than car exhaust.
I don’t know what displays the greater arrogance - that man think that he holds the power to change the very temperature of the earth, or that he thinks that laws mandating the use of compact fluorescent light bulbs can change it back. Whichever it is, one thing that’s certain is that when the kind of far-reaching power that the UK Climate Bill proposes is granted to government, it will be abused.
I’ve been paying attention to politics pretty much all of my adult life. I cannot remember a presidential campaign season starting so early or having as many doofus candidates as this one. But hey, lots of blogging material, right?
The doofus du jour is John Edwards. Let me supply some background here for readers with better things to do that read about this junk on a daily basis. (I know, it’s a sickness - I should seek treatment.)
Edwards is probably best known politically for being John Kerry’s running mate in 2004. On the stump, he argues that there are “two Americas” - one inhabited by the rich, with all sorts of comforts and luxuries, and the other inhabited by the poor, who endure something like the lives led by the Joads in the Grapes of Wrath to hear Edwards tell it. You can read his campaign’s position on ending poverty ( - really!) here.
He’s got something of a prima donna reputation, though. Rush Limbaugh mockingly refers to him as the Breck girl. (College students and younger: google that, you’ll understand). It’s somewhat deserved, I think. Back in the 2004 campaign, a video surfaced on YouTube of Edwards fixing his hair before some event . It seemed to last an hour. You can see it, if you must, here.
John Edwards is a very wealthy man. He’s a plaintiff’s lawyer, and has made lots of money practicing law. Not knocking it, just pointing out a fact. By reputation, he was quite a good trial lawyer. Recently, he sunk some of his fortune into a new home. It’s 28,000+ square feet. It will be the most highly appraised piece of residential property in the county, according to local officials. You can read about the house (and see pictures of it) here. I suppose we know which of the two Americas he lives in.
Now, this might be bad enough, but to prove to you that I’m not calling Mr. Edwards a doof without just cause, consider his recent comments about how Jesus would view the whole “two Americas” that we have. Here’s an excerpt of his interview with BeliefNet:
What parts of American life do you think would most outrage Jesus?Our selfishness. Our resort to war when it’s not necessary. I think that Jesus would be disappointed in our ignoring the plight of those around us who are suffering and our focus on our own selfish short-term needs. I think he would be appalled, actually.
You can read more here.
OK, so with all that background, rather than having me type in (more) sarcastic comments, I’m going to let cartoonist Sam Ryskind finish up.
Recently, a man was arrested for trying to cash a $50,000 dollar check and a $100,000 check signed by God. You can read about it here. Innocent until proven guilty, I say.
Seriously, somebody in Rudy’s, Romney’s and McCain’s campaigns should all be taking note of this blog post. There is one issue so powerful, it can, if properly executed, propel whichever one of them is the eventual Republican nominee straight to 1800 Pennsylvania Avenue. And no, it’s not the war, the economy, or anything trivial like that. No, this issue hits much, much closer to home than ANY of those.
What is it, you ask? Easy - Having to buy Sudafed from behind the drug counter.
I had no idea, but it turns out that none other than Sen Barack Obama and Sen Hillary Clinton co-sponsored the bill that required this. If properly publicized, this would surely DOOM their political aspirations. No one could possibly vote for any politician who caused so much inconvenience. And aside from that, this bill has apparently served to radically empower the Mexican drug cartels who operate outside its limitations (and who could have seen that coming, right?)
Because the elections are in November, right in full swing of cold season, this issue will be a sure fire winner for the GOP. It could be a Reaganesque landslide.
You heard it here first.
Just when you thought that you had read every asinine, hysterical, over-the-top moronic thing that could be written or said about global warming, along comes Paul Hellyer. Mr. Hellyer used to be the Defense Minster of Canada. He has figured out the way to save the planet from all the destruction that mankind is wreaking through greenhouse gas emissions. Ready?
That’s right. If the government will just give up the secret alien technologies that it has in Roswell, NM, then we can use those to save the planet. After all, those aliens had to have some more kind of energy source to fly all those light years to earth. And they’re sooo smart, they’d never use fossil fuels. Right? Right??
And they say Christians are wackos.