DemocratsForProgress

DemocratsForProgress's Journal

December 24, 2013

Nance Greggs: Peace to Men/Women of Good Will

If you are a sincere follower of the Christ who was beaten, tortured, scourged, crowned with thorns, nailed to a cross, and left to die in excruciating agony, don’t you think equating someone wishing you “Happy Holidays” with persecution is a bit over the top? And if you believe that Christ suffered all of this to save your soul, aren’t you glad He wasn’t the whiny little pissant you are? If He were, He would have bailed on the whole idea of saving your ass the first time someone wished Him well using phraseology He didn’t care for.

The Ten Commandments did not include “Thou Shalt Not Be Gay.” Being as God is pretty much omnipotent and all, he could have had those Commandments go all the way up to Eleven – if he’d wanted to. But He didn’t. Maybe He figured it wasn’t as big a deal as you think it is. But then maybe you think your priorities should supersede His.

There is no mention in the New Testament of Jesus ever commenting on the “sin” of homosexuality. Do you think maybe it just slipped His mind? Do you think He was crucified, rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, sat at the right hand of God – and then did a face-palm while exclaiming, “Holy shit! I knew I forgot something while I was down there”?

The teachings of Jesus were meant to be a complete meal, not a serving suggestion. If you think that feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, and sheltering the homeless are merely pick-and-choose, Column A/Column B side dishes, you’ve apparently missed the point of the menu entirely.

More at: http://www.democratsforprogress.com/2013/12/24/peace-to-menwomen-of-good-will/

December 18, 2013

Walter Rhett: The Justice Crisis

We have a justice crisis. It is growing.

It begins with the massive abuse of police powers. The old guidelines are being gamed to permit greater use of firearms. Police are spraying shots at routine traffic stops, on sidewalks with unsuspecting innocents, inside of homes with elderly residents, for the tiniest of things.

The justice crisis has infiltrated the streets and the courts. It is acted out and often ruled justified. It can kill your kids. And maim you. Or leave everybody stumped at the reasons for your death. It can give your killers a pass.

Last week, a drug task force with the Ross County sheriff’s department executed a search warrant on a trailer in Chillicothe, Ohio. They expected to find a large cache of weapons and drugs...

More at: http://www.democratsforprogress.com/2013/12/18/the-justice-crisis/

December 18, 2013

Megyn Kelly and Fox News’ White Santa—A Cautionary Tale

Brewman Jax: Megyn Kelly and Fox News’ White Santa—A Cautionary Tale

The latest Fox News controversy was Megyn Kelly and her insistence that Santa Claus and Jesus are white, in response to an article by Slate columnist Aisha Harris on the concept that Santa Claus should not be depicted only as an older white man. Watching the video of Kelly’s assertion showed that she was not speaking in jest and seemed rather offended that Santa could be depicted as anything other than an older white man. Ms. Harris proposed that Santa be depicted as a penguin.

Why Santa Looks the Way He Does

The present image of Santa Claus is based on Thomas Nast’s illustration for the Clement Moore poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” published in 1823. Mythical and fictional characters are going to take the form of the demographic group that is looking at them. Since the US is majority white, the depictions will be white, including the legendary 1st-Century itinerant Jewish rabbi from Nazareth in the Roman province of Judea. He is normally shown as if he was born in Bethlehem, PA rather than Bethlehem, Judea.

Going around the world, Jesus is generally shown in the form of the society in question. He is Japanese in Japan, Ethiopian in Ethiopia, and so on.

A comedy aside: I’ve listened to quite a few comic routines on the depiction of Santa Claus, especially by black comics. Of course Santa is white; he has to be. A black man would never get to creep around people’s houses late at without someone calling 911!

More at: http://www.democratsforprogress.com/2013/12/18/megyn-kelly-and-fox-news-white-santa-a-cautionary-tale/

December 13, 2013

Take Five (100th edition)

Jeff Rosenzweig: Take Five (100th edition)

ONE: It’s All Over Now, Sacre Bleu

The first edition of this column, three years ago today, began with an item about Bob Dylan’s handwritten lyrics for “The Times They Are A-Changin’” selling for $422,500. Last week, the Stratocaster Dylan (possibly) played at the ’65 Newport Folk Festival fetched $965,000, a world record auction price for a guitar. The previous record was for another Strat, formerly belonging to Eric Clapton, which sold at auction in 2004 for $959,500.

The guitar was sold by a New Jersey woman named Dawn Peterson, whose father, Victor Quinto, had been a pilot employed by Dylan’s then-manager Albert Grossman. Quinto claimed the Strat and two other guitars were left on his plane, and that his attempts to contact Grossman about them got no response. After the guitar was authenticated in 2011 by experts from PBS’ History Detectives, Dylan initiated legal proceedings (since settled) to get it back, although he disputed its Newport connection:

“Bob has possession of the electric guitar he played at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965,” his attorney, Orin Snyder, said in a statement. “He did own several other Stratocaster guitars that were stolen from him around that time, as were some handwritten lyrics.”

Dylan is now enmeshed in legal proceedings of a different sort, having been charged in France with “public insult and inciting hate.” The charge stems from comments he made in a 2012 interview, comments that did not sit well with the Council of Croats in France...

More at: http://www.democratsforprogress.com/2013/12/12/take-five-100th-edition/

December 9, 2013

Stormy Monday, 12/9/13

Jeff Rosenzweig: Stormy Monday, 12/9/13

The President and First Lady will attend a national memorial service for Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg Tuesday, but other details of the trip are still unannounced. Mandela’s state funeral will be held Sunday.

In the Obamas’ absence, Vice President and Dr. Biden will fill in today and tomorrow as hosts of the White House Congressional Holiday Balls. Presumably the Bidens have been warned to watch for untoward events like Michele Bachmann stealing silverware or Rand Paul peeing behind a potted palm.

The Bidens signed a condolence book at the South African Embassy, which has been hosting candlelight prayer vigils. The Vice President will speak at a National Cathedral memorial service on Wednesday morning, ending a week of mourning in Washington.

Others traveling to South Africa this week to honor Mandela’s memory include Presidents Carter, Clinton and Bush the Lesser, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the prime ministers of the UK, Spain, Canada and Australia, the presidents of France, Brazil and India, and, from the non-political world, Pope Francis, Prince Charles, Peter Gabriel, Oprah and Bono...

More at: http://www.democratsforprogress.com/2013/12/09/stormy-monday-12913/

December 7, 2013

Nance Greggs: An Open Letter to Rick Santorum (and His Fellow Convenient Christians)

Re your recent remarks on CNN’s State of the Nation:

“I also discussed how our First Amendment rights are being impacted by ObamaCare. The idea that the First Amendment stops when you walk out of a church, that it doesn’t have anything to do with how you live the rest of your life, I don’t know very many people of faith that believe their religion ends with just worship. It ends in how you practice and live that faith. And now what President Obama is saying, ‘No, once you step outside of that church door, I get to impose my values on you. Your religious values don’t matter anymore. It’s my values that I can impose on you.’ I don’t think that’s what the First Amendment stands for…”

Apparently you have absolutely no understanding of how the First Amendment works. It guarantees your right to practice the faith of your choosing; it does not allow you to impose your faith on others. The ACA offers access to affordable healthcare; it imposes no values, nor does it require anyone to do anything contrary to their religious beliefs. It’s simple, Ricky: if using birth control is against your faith, you are free not to use it. If abortion is contrary to your religious beliefs, you are free not to have one.

But there is something more to your statement, other than your usual habit of opening your mouth and making an idiot of yourself, and it is this:

Sadly, our political system has been inundated with people like yourself, who practice the Christianity of Convenience. They tout their devotion to the teachings of Christ while on the campaign trail, but discard those same teachings the minute they are in office. They brag endlessly about their religious principles, but once in a position to put those principles into action, they toss them aside as a hindrance to the furtherance of their own political careers...

More at: http://www.democratsforprogress.com/2013/12/07/an-open-letter-to-rick-santorum-and-his-fellow-convenient-christians/#more-13472

December 6, 2013

Take Five (Odds & Sods edition)

Jeff Rosenzweig: Take Five (Odds & Sods edition)

ONE: Season of the Which?

“Silly season” used to refer to a specific time of year when substantive news was temporarily replaced with outsized coverage of trivial events, quirky happenings, fluff, and the occasional 15-minute political or celebrity scandal. Much like “election season” before it, the term has become meaningless; both “seasons” are now essentially perpetual.

The notion of anything being recognized by huge segments of the corporate media as “important, substantive news” has of course become absurd. They don’t need to bother, since everything is already treated with the monotonous, insincere gravitas they freely bestow on the newest controversy over Justin Bieber or Black Friday brawls or minor clinical studies of caffeine toxicity in rats. Come World War III, I expect to breathe my last with Wolf Blitzer yammering some idiocy faintly at the far edges of my fading consciousness, having screwed up my part of the end of the world by turning on CNN to see what the hell was going on.

But why shouldn’t the media be mired in an endless silly season when one of the two major political parties is too? And Republicans get more ludicrous by the day. Booking Rand Paul to headline the opening of the “African American Engagement Office,” the Michigan GOP’s minority outreach center? Check. George Bush the Lesser’s Chief of Staff carping about President Obama and his administration “misleading” the American people? Check. A white Republican winning office in a predominantly African American district by conning voters into thinking he’s black? Check. Rating Ronald Reagan the nation’s greatest Chief Executive and Barack Obama its worst? Check.

I use the word “silly” with regard to Republicans only because it’s more polite than saying “completely unhinged” or “out to lunch” or “a danger to themselves and others” or “just flat-out batshit.” They embrace a shopworn collection of ideas long ago proven to be unworkable, inequitable and fundamentally anti-American. They put forward candidates with no respect for or knowledge of the political institutions they yearn to become part of. They pander furiously to old-fashioned populism while working strenuously for the elites. They loudly level accusations of class warfare whenever Democrats rightly point out how Republicans themselves declared class warfare and have waged it, brutally, for decades. They play the race card by accusing liberals of playing the race card. With the exception of a very few bravely dissenting voices in their ranks, they hold women, the poor, minorities (visible and invisible), gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered persons, immigrants, the New Deal, the Great Society, the Affordable Care Act, TANF, SNAP, community organizers, the Girl Scouts, the United Nations, the Peace Corps, and most of Europe, the Middle East and Asia in contempt. They’d hate Africa and South America too, if they ever thought about them much...

More at: http://www.democratsforprogress.com/2013/12/05/take-five-odds-sods-edition/

December 4, 2013

Walter Rhett: "God Is:" Advent and Howard Thurman

I am diabetic and I am gaining weight. These are not good things to do in tandem. As I rise and fall to correct my slow, steady march into the broad plains of health tragedies, I remember this is the first week of Advent. I thought it is a good time to break a taboo and talk about God. Not the moral God of right and wrong, of heaven and hell, of fire and brimstone, of love and wrath. Nor the God of the evangelicals of the right wing who seems to sanction their personal idolatry, nor the straw God of many atheists who insist and dismiss God as largely superstition and myth.

What’s left? Am I dismissing all of the competing narratives and banning their views to make an easier path for my assertions? Are you, Dear Readers, already on guarded edge? Especially as I eliminate the great and small Gods of the world, the theology issues of Christianity, and discussions of Christianity’s central beliefs. and promise not to try to convert you. (Already, doubts emerge!)

I confess, however, to enjoying the pageantry of high Christianity. Nothing is better than a tightly swung censer that billows a cloud of incense at the end of its arc, leaving the elders coughing and small children’s eyes burning.

But entertainment or cruel sting is not the source of my faith or belief...

More at: http://www.democratsforprogress.com/2013/12/04/god-is-advent-and-howard-thurman/

December 2, 2013

Stormy Monday, 12/2/13

Jeff Rosenzweig: Stormy Monday, 12/2/13

Accompanied by his son Hunter and granddaughter Finnegan, Vice President Biden begins a week-long Asian junket on Monday with a stop in Tokyo. His itinerary includes meetings with Japanese, Chinese and South Korean leaders, and the mooted Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal and regional security concerns are expected to top the agenda. The Veep’s trip comes at a time when China and Japan are engaging in a Falklands-style dispute over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.

David Cameron is also in China this week, desperate to kiss some State Council butt after his meeting with the Dalai Lama in May of last year got them all riled up. For good measure, the British PM brought along scores of business people, all eager to be the first and biggest (and perhaps only) recipients of what Cameron recently termed “real rewards for our peoples.”

Elsewhere in the Far East, the tense situation in Thailand shows no signs of easing. Suthep Thaugsuban, leader of the anti-government faction, claims he told Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra in a secret meeting on Sunday that she and her government have two days to step down and turn control of the county “over to the people.” Violent, sometimes deadly protests continue, but it’s unclear what will happen should Yingluck fail to heed the dissidents’ ultimatum.

Although acknowledging that more remediation is needed, the White House claimed Sunday that HealthCare.gov is now largely fixed and capable of handling 50,000 visitors at a time, meeting the President’s self-imposed repair timeline. Watch for renewed efforts this week to undermine or sabotage the site, if enough Republican hackers can figure out how to turn on their computers. And if that effort fails, they’ll always have Benghazi...

More at: http://www.democratsforprogress.com/2013/12/01/stormy-monday-12213/

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