Subscribers Feeds A to G
These are my links for August 21st from 10:41 to 12:46:
"I don’t want to go the route of carbon dating or dinosaurs or ice ages or tropical plants being found in glaciers, although that is an interesting conversation…especially when someone claims that dinosaurs were placed in the earth’s crust by Satan in order to test our faith in the Bible (and, yes, people actually say such nonsense)." ( >>)
Kathleen Parker is not happy with the fact that mega church pastor Rick Warren interviewed the candidates last Saturday:
At the risk of heresy, let it be said that setting up the two presidential candidates for religious interrogation by an evangelical minister — no matter how beloved — is supremely wrong.
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83% of Americans describe themselves as Christians. And to top that, 100% of the presidential candidates describe themselves as Christians. So it’s not a big stretch of logic that at least 83% of Americans would be interested in hearing the candidates’ thoughts on their religion. Given that Warren was not playing any favorites, and they were both asked the same questions, I fail to see the problem.
His format and questions were interesting and the answers more revealing than what the usual debate menu provides. But does it not seem just a little bit odd to have McCain and Obama chatting individually with a preacher in a public forum about their positions on evil and their relationship with Jesus Christ?
Ummm, no.  Let’s face it, a lot of people base their presidential vote on how they like and trust the candidate. Similar religious views, or lack thereof, is a not-insignificant part of this. Why WOULDN’T we have a forum like this to explore candidates’ religious views? Why hasn’t it been done before?
What does that mean, anyway? What does it prove? Nothing except that these men are willing to say whatever they must — and what most Americans personally feel is no one’s business — to win the highest office.
Wow. That’s pretty cynical. On what is she basing her jaded assumption that the candidates “say whatever they must?” And I’m guessing that most Americans would disagree with her characterization of “what most Americans personally feel is no one’s business.” Â
Rick Warren sums the real issue up nicely:
Faith, he said, “is just a worldview, and everybody has some kind of worldview. It’s important to know what they are.”
Bingo.
"Joe Strummer, the legendary gravel-voiced punk-poet from The Clash, loved to listen to music on the radio. Even as he toured the world with 'the only band that matters,' he still had a dream to one day spin records for the BBC World Service, where he heard the latest UK hits over the shortwave band as a teenager in Africa.
"He finally got his wish in 1999, when BBC World Service premiered Joe Strummer's London Calling. Between then and 2002, Strummer hosted a series of programs with a simple format - one man and his eclectic record collection. His globe spanning playlists included many of the rock, reggae and folk artists that inspired the Clash, plus many surprises." (>>)
Download all eight one-hour episodes in MP3 format [435MB, ZIP]
"That's what was good about punk. If you were ugly, you were in...
"Joe would have more ideas in a rhyming couplet than others would have in their whole fucking album." (>>)
Former Cabinet Minister Jehangir Tareen, on Pervez Musharraf (via the NYTimes):
Musharraf tried to construct a modern enlightened state. But he proved you cannot do this on the structure of a patronage-riven and police-oriented political machine.
NTodd, who’s been joining CodePink actions lately, tries to jolt me out of my stuck place:
The point is not to win over the unwinnable people, nor is it even to convince the alleged fence-sitters who would’ve come over to our side if only we’d not worn fucking pink spandex and tiaras. The point is to use one or more of the 198 different goddamned methods of resistance, some of which are mere protest and others that escalate to interventions meant to disrupt the status quo and operations of government, economic and financial systems, etc. If you don’t like what Code Pink is doing, fine: do your own thing. Just do it and stop bitching about people who are stepping it up.
And yeah, lots of people have been doing things, but clearly we collectively have not done enough. So I’ve been asking, repetitively, annoyingly–to the point that people call me condescending, self-righteous, boring–what’s something else you can try? Go beyond the usual writing letters every once in a while or “lighting up the switchboard” at the Senate or whatever. Those are still rather passive actions that don’t have much psychological or physical impact on our elected employees or the citizenry at large. Go beyond your comfort zone a little just once, do one new thing, then something else, and another thing, then again, and again and again and again…it will get easier and you’ll find you have more courage and power than you thought before.
Not all of this stuff will work all the time. What ever does? What’s necessary now is we get out of our chairs, out of our homes and into the streets, trying new things instead of reliving college bull sessions, intellectualizing and agonizing about the perfect solution and refusing to engage until we find it.
I missed the Saddleback forum thingy, so was interested to read Paul Raushenbush at Progressive Revival’s take. For him, the most interesting question was about the nature of evil:
The most telling theological difference between the candidates was in response to the question of evil - does it exist and, if so, how do we confront it? John McCain said it existed and that we must defeat it. He immediately went on to identify evil as radical Islam and spoke of fighting it around the world until it has been vanquished. This brought to mind the last eight years of the George Bush presidency, the clarity with which he identified the Axis of Evil, and his divinely inspired call to combat it which led to the Iraq war.
Barack Obama also allowed that evil existed and that we had to fight against it every day. However, Obama went on to caution that we must be careful not to fall in the trap of failing to recognize that we can, if we are not vigilant, do evil in the name of doing good.
Darn Democrats and their nuance!
Her review of “Vicky Christina Barcelona” nails it in fewer than 25 words:
This is a film about how vapid and empty Americans are, and how fiery and passionately alive Europeans are.
That is all.
::curtsy:::
Thanks, PB, you saved me a sawbuck!
… when motivated by generosity and relieved of fear.
Wandering Around an Albuquerque Airport Terminal
By Naomi Shihab Nye
After learning my flight was detained 4 hours,
I heard the announcement:
If anyone in the vicinity of gate 4-A understands any Arabic,
Please come to the gate immediately.
Well—one pauses these days. Gate 4-A was my own gate. I went there.
An older woman in full traditional Palestinian dress,
Just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing loudly.
Help, said the flight service person. Talk to her. What is her
Problem? We told her the flight was going to be 4 hours late and she
Did this.
I put my arm around her and spoke to her haltingly.
Shu dow-a, shu-beduck habibti, stani stani schway, min fadlick,
Sho bit se-wee?
The minute she heard any words she knew—however poorly used—
She stopped crying.
She thought our flight had been canceled entirely.
She needed to be in El Paso for some major medical treatment the
Following day. I said no, no, we’re fine, you’ll get there, just late.
Who is picking you up? Let’s call him and tell him.
We called her son and I spoke with him in English.
I told him I would stay with his mother till we got on the plane and
Would ride next to her—Southwest.
She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for the fun of
It. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and
Found out of course they had ten shared friends.
Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian
Poets I know and let them chat with her. This all took up about 2 hours.
She was laughing a lot by then. Telling about her life. Answering
Questions.
She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies—little powdered
Sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts—out of her bag—
And was offering them to all the women at the gate.
To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a
Sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the traveler from California,
The lovely woman from Laredo—we were all covered with the same
Powdered sugar. And smiling. There is no better cookies.
And I noticed my new best friend—by now we were holding hands—
Had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing,
With green furry leaves. Such an old country traveling tradition. Always
Carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.
And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and thought,
This is the world I want to live in. The shared world.
Not a single person in this gate—once the crying of confusion stopped
—has seemed apprehensive about any other person.
They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women too.
This can still happen anywhere.
Not everything is lost.
——————–
Via Jesus’ General.
I recently read (and very much enjoyed) The Night Men by Keith Snyder, which for some reason renewed my interest in Raymond Chandler. In a Chronology in the back of a Library of America omnibus edition of Chandler, I found the following:
1945: Begins writing original screenplay The Blue Dahlia for Paramount, which wants to make a film starring Alan Ladd before Ladd enters military service. Shooting begins before screenplay is finished; when Chandler falls seriously behind schedule, he proposed to producer John Houseman that he finish the script while drunk. Houseman agrees, and Chandler completes the screenplay in eight days, dictating to secretaries provided by the studio while receiving regular glucose injections from his doctor. [...] Chandler receives Academy Award nomination and Edgar award from Mystery Writers of America for his screenplay.
While I shepherded a gaggle of kids through a local amusement venue a couple of weeks ago, I noticed one couple several times. She carried a white cane and was lovingly guided by him. The stairwell was often crowded due to frequent elevator trouble, and at least once I saw kids jib around the couple (who were, as expected, taking the stairs at a cautious pace) as if they were obstacles. It distressed me enough that I asked my group later if they knew what a white cane signifies: none did.
That’s one reason why I was struck by Lower Manhattanite’s essay about his observations of crowds at Netroots Nation after being sensitized by his brother’s injury to the difficulties, obstacles, and rudenesses suffered by disabled people. He writes:
These events, my brother’s eye-opening injury, getting around with Maggie, and the dunder-headed diss on Jesse all happened within a couple of weeks of each other. And their coming so close together made me think about something that I, as a relatively fully able-bodied person in spite of my trying to be sensitive to people have tended to overlook—namely the way the greater society, those of us able to easily get from one place to another pain-and-disability free make this world an immensely harder place for our challenged fellow citizens. We are too often not patient, and treat these folks like annoying, inanimate speed bumps in our path between here and the places we want to get to. These are people—not potholes or barricades to be growled at and brushed past crudely.
Mom Pooch, who uses a cane and a walker, would almost certainly agree heartily.
“Rielle” is pronounced “Riley.”
Also, Edwards? You stink. As Dad Pooch might have said, “Just another goddamn politician.”
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