Not my god!

Well, thankfully, there is some sanity in the world.  Fred Phelps and his wacko, wacked out brand of Christians now have to pay for one of their insidious misdeeds. According to an article by ALEX DOMINGUEZ, Associated Press Writer Wed Oct 31, 6:23 PM ET: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071031/ap_on_re_us/funeral_protests_7

The jury awarded a total sum of $11 million to Albert Snyder because Fred Phelps' church protested at the funeral of his son, Matthew.

 

Rather than parrot the article, let me quote one passage I want to comment on:

"Earlier, church members staged a demonstration outside the federal courthouse. Church founder Fred Phelps held a sign reading "God is your enemy," while

Shirley Phelps-Roper stood on an American flag and carried a sign that read "God hates fag enablers." Members of the group sang "God Hates America" to

the tune of "God Bless America.""

 

If God hates America, why are these people living here?  They certainly don't speak for the God I believe in.  These delusional nut jobs lead by Mr. Phelps preach a god who, apparently, doesn't hate the sin and love the sinner, but rather hates both.  Come to think of it, that not only isn't the God I believe in and profess, but it isn't the God of the Bible.  Jesus never preached hate.  The apostles Paul, Peter and John never preached hate in their ministries.  In fact, the church of Fred Phelps must have St. Paul's words about grace torn out of their bibles.

Yes, the things they spew are protected by the first amendment, but that said, their actions went beyond cruel and disrespectful.  I hope they now understand that actions have consequences, and those actions and the subsequent consequences aren't confined to homosexuals but also apply to heterosexuals with a warped, hate-mongering view of God.

 

Mr. Phelps and his family (and his church) need prayer.  They need the mercy of the one true God.  If, however, they choose to not repent of their hate-filled preaching, one can only pray that God deals with them justly. I won't speculate on the state of their souls, I leave them to God.

 

If I could ask one thing of them, though, it is to stop doing what they do in the name of God, especially since it isn't my God.  The Westboro Baptist Churches of the world give Christians a very bad name.  It's tough enough for the world to see us in a positive light without Westboro Baptist Church and others like it casting huge, ugly and ominous shadows in the light of God.

Do we have a voice.

Today I am frustrated! I gave my voice to a cause, only to be ignored! The powers that be in the city of Lincoln, Nebraska decided that the bus system's routes needed to be changed. This despite plenty of feedback from the community that these changes were unwanted! It wasn't just people like myself who are blind, either. Today I join a group of people in this city and in places all over the world who feel that using their voice gets them nowhere. We start to wonder if we really even have voices...voices that count for more than a token gesture of looking as if we matter when, in reality, we don't. Plans we oppose will go ahead despite us. Don't be mistaken, my thinking here isn't confined to bus issues.
It could refer to people fighting for a school-related cause. It could refer to anyone who stood up at a city council meeting or some other meeting and expressed with passion their feelings on a given issue only to be ignored, passed over for whatever idea, plan, or scheme they opposed.
Are these voices really getting a fair shake, or short shrift? Do they matter in the scheme of things, or are they token voices empty of any real value?
These are questions I have regarding people all over the world today, myself and my friends and neighbors who opposed some really illogical changes in local bus routes. Personally, I have my doubts my voice mattered in the end. Thank you for nothing, StarTran.

I can't wait!

A book review, of sorts.

I just finished reading Neal Postman's "amusing ourselves to death" and I have to say, it makes for an interesting read.

Postman draws some frightening parallels between the visions of Huxley and the reality of TV in the 80's. In short his insightful book describes how we turn off our thinking and turn on TV. Not even the most serious
documentary or news show round table discussion can be taken seriously because TV filters it through the lens of entertainment, right down to music that
dictates the mood. The viewer cannot refute an argument, make any kind of rebuttal, and TV likes it that way. Postman talks about TV co-opting everything:
politics, religion, serious thought and philosophy. It is a very bleak picture indeed, but very real and very accurate.

When I say "interesting read," this is not an implicit hint that the book is boring. It isn't. I just have some trouble swallowing the entire premise, or more accurately concerns raised by the premise. Why I say this is that while I believe television can be detrimental, I don't know how much it can truly "kill" our culture. I say this because as long as people like Mr. Postman feel the way they do, our culture is not dead...merely on life support. That said, things have come down the pike that I suspect Mr. Postman would not have found surprising, but didn't live to see happen. Here I am refering to the iPod and cell phones both of which allow us to view TV programming on them. As it is, I think iPods, cell phone features such as games and the ability to play mp3's, and other mp3 players are doing more to isolate us from each other than TV ever could. At least TV gives us something to talk about over the water cooler, or around the coffee machine. iPods, mp3 players and cell phones do not. They do the opposite; cut us off from each other and isolate us from the world around us.

I am not, by any means trying to invalidate Postman's point, but I think we've gone beyond TV into other realms that would make him shudder. In fact, I am inclined to agree with a lot of what Postman said. I also tend to agree with a vastly more famous reader of the book, Roger Waters. Waters was inspired by the book and wrote a concept album called "amused to death" in which (if I understand the overall premise) advanced aliens from outer space find our world as nothing more than burned out shells (emotionally and intellectually speaking) gathered around TV's and "amused to death."

There was a time when I believed that TV would possibly the culprit of such a death, but now I tend to lean towards the idea of becoming isolated by iPods and other forms of portable entertainment. It only gets worse, however, if TV programming (or the idea of TV itself) becomes integrated into that portable technology. I already see it happening.

Maybe Waters is right, and some "alien anthropologists" will declare, very sadly, "This species has amused itself to death!" Only time will tell.

Fascinating quiz.

I took this quiz and it labeled me as a "centrist." I don't claim to disagree, but want to check and see how accurate it really is. Meanwhile, what do you, my readers, think?
http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html

Ever hear of letting go?

Democrats and their seeming inability to let go of the past puzzles me.  No, I don't refer here to another in the endless stream of attacks on our current president.  I am talking about something further back in our history (the world's history) that the dems feel is desperately worth condemning...decades after it happened.

 

Naturally, I am humane and therefore opposed to genocide.  That said, however, I don't understand the desperate need in congress to create a resolution condeming Turkey, and risking losing an ally in the war in Iraq, because of mass murder committed between 1915 and 1923.  If the genocide were happening right now, I could see condemning it.  I cannot fathom condemning something so far in the past that the current Turkish government had nothing to do with. 

 

Personally, I am inclined to think this is just another way for congress to avoid doing true work.  So much of what the democratically -controlled congress seems to be doing at present rings of mostly symbolic work.  Nothing tangible and concrete.

Tell me, Speaker Pelosi, what will this resolution accomplish?  Will it do anything beyond symbolic closure?  Somehow, I doubt it.  The negative consequence is already beginning to show...angering the Turkish government.  Not a wise move since we are receiving significant help from them over in Iraq at the moment.  An individual  more paranoidand conspiracy-minded than I am would be prone to suggest that this was a conspiracy on the part of the left to make things look worse in Iraq.  Sadly, worse in Iraq is what things will become if this resolution passes.

 

So, dear dems and left-leaners, please, let the past stay in the past.  Forget condemning old misdeeds.  It's just wasting the valuable time and resources of a lot of people.

Excuse me?

Sometimes, a political decision doesn't make sense to me.  It doesn't matter that the person making the decision is in the party opposite the one I belong to.  It's just that, for whatever reasons, their decision defies logic and sense.Take Hilary Clinton's decision to not pull out of the Michigan primary, despite the fact her most worrysome opponent, Berack Obama, and most others decided to pull out, and for fairly good reasons.  Not Clinton.  To quote her spokesman from an article in today's Washington Times, "We're honoring the pledge, and we won't campaign or spend money in states that aren't in compliance with the DNC calendar," said Clinton spokesman Jay Carson. "We don't think it's necessary to remove ourselves from the ballot."

 

That strikes me as being like someone saying "I won't allow this magazine to interview me, or publish advertisements with my likeness, because they violated one of my personal beliefs, but I don't think it is necessary to remove myself from the cover of the magazine."

 

Perhaps this is a weak analogy.  I'm not sure, but it is the best I can do.  My point is this.  You either show compliance all the way or not at all.  This also applies to Christopher Dodd, who doesn't wish to deprive the voters of Michigan by removing his name from the ballot.  Instead, apparently, he wishes to deprive himself of a little bit of integrity.  Don't misread that statement, I am not saying he has no integrity whatsoever.  I am saying that he is choosing not to have that one bit of integrity that would provoke him to remove his name from the ballot.

 

Michigan violated DNC rules by changing the date of their primary.  Obama and others felt that they should respect their party.  Not Mrs. Clinton Or Mr. Dodd.  To tell the truth, I am not surprised by Hilary's choice.  She strikes me as just arrogant enough, just egotistical enough to think herself above the wisdom of her own party.  If the DNC feels that Michigan violated the rules by making the primary date too early, that is a decision I can respect, all partisan politics aside. Hilary Clinton and Chris Dodd might as well be thumbing their noses at their very own party.

 

Here's the Washington Times article:

www.washingtontimes.com/world/20070517-014838-8942r.htm -
 

So, here I am!

I know somewhere out there, even if it's just some alien out in outer space, someone has to have been wondering where I've been hiding myself.  I'd say that you ought to blame my going to school, but who would I be kidding?  I haven't written all summer or anything like that.

 

Anyway, so here I am.  I'm in the middle of my second semester at UNL, and excited and nervous about the future.  After a meeting I attended today with my advisor, two faculty members from the journalism college, and the director of Services for Students with Disabilities, I decided to get back into this to strengthen my writing.

 

My goal is to keep up more on the news and to write my own personal commentaries on what I read.  It may be political, it may be social, it may be demented and sad, too.  Sorry, couldn't resist the "Breakfast Club" reference there.

 

It could even be, god forbid, about Britanny spears.  You just never know with me.  It could be as simple as numbering the hairs I pulled out just prior to an exam.

 

So, keep your eyes open.  I have some ideas in the back of my head, so there is more to come in the very very near future.