Displaying 4,621 To 4,650 Of 5,146 Comments A Coalition of Church and State – Part 2 Dear Sue – you can’t go over the top. They already did. You are just the observer. I am terribly sorry you’ve experienced all this yourself. I as well, and it is scary bad stuff. You’re doing a HUGE services laying this all out. Thank you! » Posted By choicelady On March 15, 2010 @ 2:20 pm javaz and Sue – that figure of 144,000 is from some obscure passage in the Bible. I can’t ever find it, but they believe it entirely. Someone once asked me why anyone would embrace a religious view that is so based on fear and so hopeless. Only think I can see is that it gathers in people for whom personal judgment over the years has been less than successful. Rules and rites are very comforting to those whose lives have totally screwed up through lousy choices. Rules provide certainty in an uncertain world. Those of us who are willing to live with uncertainty and the diversity that usually accompanies that, are probably healthier and more in touch with the joy of being. But those who’ve messed up big time do find stability in those rules. I also don’t believe in hell as a place “after”. If you think of what humans can and have done to one another, why do you need hell? Control. Again. But think of genocides, holocaust, torture, slavery – why would you not think we already were there? I repeat my favorite line: “Religion is for people who are afraid of hell. Faith is for those who’ve already been there.” » Posted By choicelady On March 15, 2010 @ 2:19 pm No, but in the wonderful novel, “Lamb” by Christopher Moore, Jesus DID. “Lam” is supposed to be a writing of the “missing gospels” of Christ’s life by his best friend, Biff. It’s well worth pondering because a good bit of it could be true – in the years from 13 to adulthood, where WAS Jesus, and whom did he meet? What did he learn? His revolutionary inclusive universality was not only powerful for his time but pretty much at odds with every partisan effort waged in his name. Moore also deals well with the weird stuff about Jesus who as a youth was totally snotty and intolerant but who matures into this amazing being with regard for everyone, including (revolutionary for the time indeed) the poor, women, the alien, anyone. And he is no dwelling on “personal salvation” at all but about our capacity to bring about “paradise on earth” – he says to his rather dim disciples, that God is of the LIVING not the dead. Falwell, Robertson, et al. are about exclusion, tribalism, afterlife, and using religion to control wealth for themselves. So what would Jesus do? Here, today, I think he’d revert to his youth and turn the moneychangers out of the temple, that’s what. » Posted By choicelady On March 15, 2010 @ 2:12 pm Wonderful analysis, Sue! You know, I could buy into Pat Baby’s “there will never be world peace…” quotation if only Pat understood that “God’s people” are, well, everybody? NO exceptions! A friend of mine is a Methodist minister who survived torture under da Silva in Brazil back in the 70s for being a radical minister caring for those whom the Brazilian ruling classes wished to exploit and crush. He told a wonderful story about sectarian mindsets. He said that if you think about your neighborhood, city, state, nation, continents, other continents, the entire globe, then about our solar system, galaxies, all other galaxies, and the universe, it’s a little bit hard to think that God is a Methodist. The Religious Right thinks God is merely a tribal leader, and they are the tribe. Jehovah’s Witnesses believe, based on an obscure Biblical verse, that Heaven has room for only 144,000. The bigwigs in the RR think it’s not much more than that (but will, of course, exclude all Jehovah’s Witnesses.) The very fact that a human being can project a universe of kindness, cooperation, sharing, equality – if our minds can think of all that – how can our conception of God be so petty? Because those who like that kind of God think they are the chosen, the ones who should rule the world. And that, I think, says it all. » Posted By choicelady On March 15, 2010 @ 1:48 pm We monitored this closely after 2004 because one of our member congregations came under IRS fire since the vicar emeritus had given a sermon saying people of faith should review ALL candidates’ positions on war. He excoriated both Bush AND Kerry for supporting the Iraq war and took NO sides. Well, some turkey who wasn’t there told the IRS about it, claiming “peace” was partisan, and they got investigated. Now, mind you, the churches that told their members they HAD to vote for Bush or die, were NOT investigated. We are non-partisan, and we are careful to tell our congregations that they may do non-partisan advocacy only up to 5% of their budgets (as if they could spend that much!) so we do it FOR them. Our c-4 is NOT tax exempt nor are donations deductible. We believe utterly in the separation of church and state though not the right of people to speak from a faith point of view. BIG difference. But man oh man do we opposed this Texas style infusion of religion INTO curriculum!!! That is just plain wrong. And whose religion, by the way? I’d like to see how these bozos would do if it were CATHOLICS doing this!!! » Posted By choicelady On March 15, 2010 @ 3:32 pm Oh someone PLEASE tell me this picture is photo shopped!!!! PLEASE! » Posted By choicelady On March 15, 2010 @ 2:31 pm Hang on – they are simply NON profits guided by the same rules as the Red Cross or Common Cause. There are strict guidelines, and when churches cross that line, they should indeed pay taxes. But they get their exempt status for doing the things YOU want them to do – feed the hungry, provide a myriad of services (health ministries are often the ONLY health care communities of color have), offer money to those in need, sometimes provide shelter, counseling, clothing, whatever. If you make churches pay taxes, what about all the other non-profits? United Way got in hot water for paying its national CEO nearly $500,000. Should they NOT be tax exempt? Churches DO pay taxes on any activities such as renting space to other groups, etc. They are forbidden from partisan politics, but ALL churches, progressives, too, can and do get involved in NON partisan action. Perfectly legal and if you tax conservative churches. you have to tax the progressive ones as well. So think this over – it’s such a thoughtless reflexive response. No it is NOT the time for churches to pay taxes as a blanket statement. It IS time to make sure churches obey the existing laws and that they are neither partisan nor exceeding the advocacy guidelines of 5% of total income for advocacy. My organization exists as a c-3 (education that is tax deductible) and a c-4 (that DOES pay some taxes and that does advocacy but without donations being tax deductible for the donors.) If churches exceed their allotted limits, fine. But do this on a case by case basis. Churches overall help their communities, and you really would NOT like to do without them. You especially would not like to do without the churches in our organization that are not only fighting for economic and social justice, against racism and for equity, fighting to abolish the death penalty and have criminal justice reform, fighting against poverty and hunger, against torture and governmental abuses of power, fighting FOR civil rights, etc. We are the “Social Gospel” churches Glenn Beck hates – so you REALLY want to end our tax-exempt status????? Don’t make me worry about my allies along with Beck, please! » Posted By choicelady On March 15, 2010 @ 2:00 pm The real problem with health care I admit I was with Kaiser in their Bad Old Days. I do hear it’s much, much better. » Posted By choicelady On March 15, 2010 @ 4:44 pm Is BCBS Bad Care for Body and Soul? » Posted By choicelady On March 15, 2010 @ 4:43 pm I am near you, Franken, and I use the Davis U. Med Center. My records are impeccable, but the service sucks. I have few problems, but my physician is wedded to throwing major meds at me even when I’ve said over and over and OVER that some of them are not right. I was also at Kaiser some years ago when the doc gave me a sulfa drug that did me enormous damage then said too late that I did NOT have what he’d prescribed the drug for. Never did find out what was wrong, but I had body pain and a huge, black blister in the palm of my hand that gave me a fever and a goose egg swollen gland under my arm. He sort of figured it for “shingles” but no one ever had THAT happen with shingles. It came back regularly, and he said to come in immediately for a culture of the blister – but he forgot to tell that to the appointment people who would NOT let me back EVER for at least two weeks. By that time, it was gone. Oh – the sulfa drug? Tore up my digestive system, and now I have massive food intolerances. Thanks for nothing, Kaiser. However we pay for it, good care will always be a crap shoot. And if you’re a person of color, an aging person, an immigrant? Good luck to ya. Physicians do NOT get good training in nutrition, in alternative meds, in reading the patient as an individual. I have never been with either for-profit insurance OR for-profit medicine, and I HATE most of the doctors with whom I’ve worked. The only one I liked was a woman from Italy who was just great, but I moved, and that ended that. Good medicine depends on well trained and caring doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, whoever. At least I like my phlebotomist who draws blood twice a year… » Posted By choicelady On March 15, 2010 @ 4:26 pm I will send some southeast to you, dildenusa! » Posted By choicelady On June 23, 2010 @ 2:20 pm Hi- CA could take some of the rain, too! Send it this way, and I will pass it on to ecat, fully loaded from going over the mountains and picking up more moisture from melting snow. Deal? » Posted By choicelady On June 23, 2010 @ 2:19 pm Hi- She should be able to get much less expensive care for her children through the State Children’s Health Insurance Program unless it’s not available where she is. I have lost track of which state, but it’s been expanded and is subsidized up to (I think) 400% of the Federal Poverty Level or over $88,000 for a family of 4. It’s a huge saving. If she then can find something less expensive for herself, that would be a huge savings for the, With her gestational diabetes, though (which may end with the birth) she might be denied coverage – which would then let her into the new federal high risk pool. I don’t know the cost, but it also is subsidized. So she should look at those options. » Posted By choicelady On May 26, 2010 @ 10:50 pm I actually bought the book, “I Can Haz Chesbuger” LOL! » Posted By choicelady On April 22, 2010 @ 12:29 pm Euuuuuw. Changes the whole meaning of the question “Who’s for dinner?” » Posted By choicelady On April 22, 2010 @ 12:28 pm LOL!!! In the 60s, an upscale British Music Hall duo, Flanders & Swann did a very funny song, “The Reluctant Cannibal” who refused to indulge because “eating people is wrong.” But at the end, the cannibal’s father said, why that could lead to – not waging WAR!!! At which point all the cannibals fell on the floor laughing. See what can happen when you challenge the norm? » Posted By choicelady On April 22, 2010 @ 10:06 am How utterly amazing! Thank you for sending this to us all. The connection between species is always amazing and beautiful. It gives one hope for peace in the world. » Posted By choicelady On April 21, 2010 @ 10:00 am Hi Cher – I found racism in LA takes a very different tone. I was in a coffee house standing behind two very upscale young women who lived in the West LA are who, in front of the server, a young Asian woman, were bemoaning how awful it had gotten with all those “orientals” moving in. They were clueless and mired in their own privilege. The young woman was nothing to them. » Posted By choicelady On April 14, 2010 @ 4:48 pm Brava to her! Stillness in the face of rant is the highest form of witness and Zen. She must be something special to move them out of her center of being. I wish I had her aplomb. Doncha love the guy, taking a “gummint handout” in the handicapped sign yet trashing gummint in the process. Your wife was wonderful to let him “speak for himself”!! I think one of the ‘advantages’ of being white is you get to hear all the racist bullshit that is said to you because they think obviously you must agree. It’s a major eye opener to anyone who has an ounce of concern for the whole of humanity. It makes us serious witnesses to the persistence of racism in America. And, oh yeah. It’s your wife’s country, too. Her family undoubtedly has been here longer than his. » Posted By choicelady On April 14, 2010 @ 4:45 pm Sue – I think you CAN fix ignorant. You can’t fix stupid. Ignorance is lack of information. Stupid is willingly staying ignorant. HUGE difference, IMHO! » Posted By choicelady On April 14, 2010 @ 4:39 pm javaz and bito – our hearts are with you! » Posted By choicelady On April 1, 2010 @ 9:52 am Jewish friends who work on Mid-East peace issues, are teeth-gritting angry that NO one can distinguish between being anti-Zionist (which THEY are) and anti-Semitic (which they are not, and anyway Arabs are Semites, too.) Objecting to Israeli actions that convey harm to Palestinians is not a shred out of place and no different from objecting to Palestinian actions that do harm to Jews. I don’t have a problem differentiating. My Jewish and Muslim friends don’t have a problem differentiating. So what’s HP”s problem and how does this all make our President an “anti-Semite”? Bah! » Posted By choicelady On March 29, 2010 @ 9:38 am Good morning – or afternoon? – Kalima. Thank you for the day in pictures. I agree about number 10 – horrific! But I’m confused about why women in Afghanistan would protest a law banning marriage by women UNDER the age of 17? Most such protests are about allowing girls to BE married under that age. I wonder what happens to girls who are not married by that age – perhaps marriage is their only security? Awful if that’s true! » Posted By choicelady On March 22, 2010 @ 8:33 am Love these! As I age, I definitely resort to fard. Former Congressman Hayworth is a grinagog. So is Pat Robertson. What a lot of great words we now have to describe things we encounter in daily life. Too many of my colleagues are capable of only twi-thought. It definitely makes that more clear! I worked with a Texan (progressive and cool) who though pronunciation could also reflect nuance. If you work with really good people they are your colleagues. If they are dim nuisances, they are your Co-leagues. If something is weird but understandable, it is bizarre. If it is weird and totally incomprehensible it is Bi-ZAIRE. Politics in America today is Bi-ZAIRE. Works for me. » Posted By choicelady On March 18, 2010 @ 9:27 am Anyone recall when in 1988 Dan Rather was brusque with President Bush 41 because he, the Prez, was being dishonest about Iran Contra? Rather got in massive hot water over that when the issue was possible criminal action by Bush. But the creeps LUV someone interrupting this president over a national policy emanating in part from Congress, not the White House. But is Bret going to get in trouble? Nope. Ever since Reagan we have had such a double standard. I thought during the HCR Summit that it was incredibly creepy that the Reeps counted Obama as “just” another Dem. When he pointed out that he was the President, they looked shocked, as if all the 200-plus years of respect for the office could not possibly mean OBAMA! And therein hangs the problem. They just cannot accept him as the Chief Executive, the President, the nation’s elected leader. It’s very troubling. » Posted By choicelady On March 18, 2010 @ 9:20 am Lovely! Happy St. Patrick’s Day! » Posted By choicelady On March 17, 2010 @ 9:33 am Glen Beckistan Strikes Again but this Time with a Dem The issue is not entirely bogus – GMO seeds cannot legally be saved since they are “proprietary”. But regualr hybrids from Burpee – you bet. Seed saving is very cool and totally inexpensive to do. But this survivalist mentality is needlessly scaring people to make a profit for themselves. You are SO right to be pissed! » Posted By choicelady On March 10, 2010 @ 8:16 am Hi- One last comment before I leave the blog world (out of town, no computer – will miss SueinCA’s wonderful series til I return.) Sure – unions do this all the time. It’s lobbying definitely. Unless we say ALL such comments are illegal and “bribes” it’s business as usual, and people DO have the right, even the responsibility, to say what they expect from legislators. We can debate whether that’s right morally, but it is the way the job is done. Groups such as mine with no money, have only moral persuasion though our MEMBERS can and do say the same things – we won’t vote for you if you don’t do what we believe is the good thing to do. As a registered lobbyist, I go through the same ethics training (NOT an oxymoron) as Exxon lobbyists. When we get to the part about what circumstances are legal about lobbyists giving money to legislators (NEVER legal) those of us in the non-profit world are laughing and rolling on the floor. What money? We want the legislator to give US money (perfectly legal.) But they don’t. So Massa is completely an idiot to say the unions were bribing him. Nope. They were exercising their totally legal democratic right to say what they want for their members. Just proves he’s even weirder than he seems. » Posted By choicelady On March 10, 2010 @ 8:13 am How far will we have to go to fix everything? Hi FrankenPc – this is just plain weird. At the core of the poor man’s dilemma lies the persistence of class and power. You notice SHE did not turn into a veggie. Noooo – SHE gets to determine who gives up mobility, autonomy, lust for life, energy, intellect, love, hope, sex, dreams, work, creativity. Talk about a persistent vegetative state! But the “change” in “human nature” has NOT occurred since she remains in control of other people, making choices for them, making sure they bend to her will. This film is the perfect manifestation of the Trilateral Commission’s 1975 presciption for global dominance. The elites must rule! Of course in 1975 they just wanted to reduce everyone to robots to serve the global machine. But hey – veggie people will do fine, too. New day, new vision of dominance. I wonder if the person (people) who made this film realize how right wing megacorporate their point of view is? I wonder that the person who got veg-o-maticized is ASIAN and the woman is white? Hmmm – is there a message here? Is there supposed to be a rebellion later (is this a series – not clear) in which real humanity rises and overthrows their mulch pile? Hope so! In sum, I hate it. But I’m really glad you posted it because it allows me to vent how much I hate it and why. » Posted By choicelady On March 8, 2010 @ 8:28 pm Es-cat – nothing like an historical perspective to keep, well, a perspective! I have to agree that for the most part, I look back just a century and realize that things were MUCH worse than they are now. No one really had rights other than the well to do white male, the attitudes towards immigrants was horrific though changing (Hull House and the general progressive movement helped a great deal), racial attitudes were at their MOST dire with the new Jim Crow laws, and women struggling for suffrage were tormented just for wanting to vote. Poverty was the norm – only 7 percent were middle class, about 1/2 percent were stinking rich, and everyone else was dirt poor and in hock to some giant corporation in which they labored 12 hours a day, 6-7 days a week. It was the time of the “long turn” – 12 hours on, 12 off until Sunday when you did 24 then got 12 off to start over again on the different shift. Every other week you got 24 hours off – and the highest rate of death and accident was going back. Just enough relaxation to make you even more tired and off kilter. Kids were lucky to get through 5th grade, children worked the mills starting as young as 5, and the boom-bust cycles of Wall Street with its total lack of regulation put people into the streets every 5-8 years. So yes – things are better. MUCH better. But we’ve lost the gift of anger and action because we believe things will always BE better so we have forgotten how to challenge the system. I’m not sure I know. What are we willing to risk? A century ago, there was nothing left to lose most of the time. Most workers embraced, unknowingly, Zapata’s famous, wonderful, inspiring line: It is better to die on your feet than to live life on your knees. They knew it, but we do not. We have a lot to be grateful for – but it also makes us fearful of risk. And unlike those days, there are way too many of us who won’t risk anything because they do not have to. They carp and whine, but they do not act, even when the acts are without violence and risk. Revisiting the past should help us keep perspective, both in gratitude AND as empowerment. It is not beyond the pale, as SueinCA has noted, for us to lose it all if we wimp out now and let the RW back in power, for they will roll over us all, and we may not, this time, emerge. They learned the lessons of the Gilded Age, and they won’t let go this time. They have too much to gain. But we do have strengths IF we will use them. That is the single biggest question: will we keep the progress we have just regained? Or will we let it slip through our fingers because it’s not “good enough”. I love Kucinich, but he is wrong, wrong, wrong to block this reform simply because it’s incomplete. That’s what I fear too many of us will do. And that will bring us BACK to 1864 and all the fresh hell that would unleash. Thanks for reminding us of perspective! » Posted By choicelady On March 8, 2010 @ 11:37 pmComments Posted By choicelady
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