Christian Hubris

The Governor of Alabama (the state that claimed American law is based on the 10 Commandments, not English Common Law) who announced that citizens who do not believe that Jesus is their savior are not his "brothers" is an ignorant jerk.
Christians don't like the story of the good Samaritan. It dissolves the differences that divide us (like religion, race, riches) and makes us confront our own prejudices. No wonder they don't teach it very often.
In case you forgot the story, from the book of Luke, chapter 10:
²⁵ On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

²⁶ “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

²⁷ He answered, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself'.”

²⁸ “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

²⁹ But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

³⁰ In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. ³¹ A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. ³² So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. ³³ But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. ³⁴ He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. ³⁵ The next day he took out two denarii^c]">[c] and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’

³⁶ “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

³⁷ The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”

Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

Support for the governor seems to rely on the following:

“While [Jesus] was still talking to the multitudes, behold, His mother and brothers stood outside, seeking to speak with Him. Then one said to Him, ‘Look, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside, seeking to speak with You.’ But He answered and said to the one who told Him, ‘Who is My mother and who are My brothers?’ And He stretched out His hand toward His disciples and said, ‘Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother’” (Matthew 12:46-50 NKJV).

I guess I'm missing something because I don't read the words "accept me as your savior" here. He does mention doing "the will of My Father in Heaven..."

I'm not smart enough to decide who is and who isn't doing the will of God the Father, but apparently some idiot in Alabama has it figured out. He should remember: Judge not lest ye be judged. (Matt. 7:1)

It seems like if Christians can't proclaim themselves superior to others they wouldn't bother being Christians.

Why I don't Shop at Walmart

This is the first in an ongoing series explaining why I would comb through the newspaper circulars, clip grocery coupons, and turn my basement into a food pantry rather than patronize my local Walmart.
While I'm sure Walmart isn't the only American corporation employing paranoid sycophants to manage their investment, the level of competence they utilize seems excruciatingly low compared to other retailers.
And while Walmart does indeed hire people with physical challenges, one wonders if below market wages doesn't have something to do with it.
Take the case of Joseph Casias, a Walmart employee with sinus cancer and a brain tumor who was treated for a sprained knee last year. Walmart requires all injured employees to take a drug test when being treated for a work related injury, but Joseph was permitted to use medical marijuana legally by the state of Michigan to help manage the chronic, constant pain he endured.
Walmart, however, fired Joseph upon learning of his "drug use" claiming concern for the safety of its customers and "associates". I guess stocking them shelves is every bit as complicated and dangerous as brain surgery, flying an airplane or driving a school bus. Seems like shelf-stockers ought to be paid extra considering all the responsibility keeping customers safe and all.
Joseph was awarded Associate of the Year by Walmart in 2008. And Walmart was certainly aware of his medical condition.
So what did they suppose he took for his pain? Even over the counter antihistamines caution about machinery use and driving while using the drug. How about Rush Limbaugh's drug of choice OxyContin? Presumably, with a Doctor's prescription, Joseph would still have a job if he was using OxyContin, even if the side effects were more problematic than "the killer weed". Not to mention that if he'd used prescription Vicodin, Percodan, or Dilaudid he would still have a job. The problem is he would also pose a "risk" to Walmart shoppers, but hey, it was never really about that was it?.
Why didn't he use one of those opiates? Medical marijuana worked better for his pain relief with virtually none of the side effects of the opiates.
I understand that Walmart pricing has lead manufacturers into a fight to the bottom, assuring the the cheapest p.o.s. is the one Walmart offers, but applying the same standards to hiring store managers may not be the best idea.

The Economy That Tea-Baggers Don't Want to Talk About

Pointing out that the ignorance and duplicity of tea-baggers could be a passionate, revelatory cause if they weren't so openly, proudly ignorant.
The stimulus didn't work, the bank bail-outs were a waste of money, Obama ruined the American economy. Yada, yada, yada.
Well golleee old timers. Looked at your 401-k lately?
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 7776 a year ago yesterday (March 23, 2009). Yesterday the DJIA closed at 10888, a 40% increase in one year.

Hey Joe! Here’s Ten Reasons I wasn’t a Tea Bagger (and you’re one of them)

I understand the most famous plumber that isn’t a plumber will be gracing our fair county soon. Sam Wurzelbacher (aka Joe T. Plumber) is coming to Livingston for the second time in just a few months. His first visit was with the traveling herd known as the Tea Bag Express which partied down at the Brighton Mill Pond. I’m told his moment with the microphone was charitably called unscripted as he was reported to have randomly ranged from gun possession to something about snakes on a leash, a difficult image to envision.

It’s not that I was too busy to attend that party, but there are many reasons why I preferred to observe the Tea Bag phenomenon from afar.

1.)The Boston Tea Party occurred to protest “Taxation without Representation”. The fact that folks like U.S. Representative Addison “Joe” Wilson shows up at these events kind of blows that conceit out of the water.

I have a representative whose name is Mike Rogers. The fact that I’ve never voted for him doesn’t mean that I’m taxed without representation.

Last year we all voted for our representatives from President to dog catcher. Some voted for winners, some didn’t. I suspect the tea baggers didn’t get their wishes from the vote fairy. Sorry.

2.)The Tea Parties attracted a gaggle of protesters. One group was there to protest the TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program), the multi-billion dollar program to stabilize American commerce and finance. I can only assume that these folks thought that if the world banking system collapsed they would be immune to the effects. We may get a sense of the consequences from this week’s CITI bankruptcy. It may, unfortunately, provide a real lesson when small and medium size retailers not only can’t borrow money for inventory, they may even have their credit lines called in just in time for the holiday shopping season.

To understand what happens when a country’s (let alone the world’s) banking system collapses, consider Iceland where borrowing money will cost you well over 15% (if you can actually find someone with money willing to loan you money) and the currency is less stable than Zimbabwe’s. McDonalds even closed all of its restaurants there! The cost of the failure of Iceland’s three main banks is seven times more than Iceland’s GDP (the total value of everything Iceland produces in a year).

Immune? Sure, in a bomb shelter full of food, guns, and krugerrands. You’ve got all three? I see no reason for you to tolerate this society any longer and think you should relocate underground immediately.

3.)Anti-health care reformers apparently showed up in droves. They worried that granny will face a death squad just like the Republican legislature and Governor George W. Bush created in 1999 in Texas. Or force people to make life ending decisions when face to face with their Doctor like Sarah Palin touted in Alaska on April 16, 2008, her self proclaimed “Healthcare Decisions Day”.

The case for overhauling the health care system is obvious to everyone not on Medicare, an irony lost on the tea baggers. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan raised their premiums 20% in May and has applied for increases of as much as 31% going forward. As a former employer I know that providing health insurance at these levels and with these annual increases simply won’t be possible. And forget about raises if you’re lucky enough to have employer paid health insurance.

Just about every opinion poll except Fox News gives the health care reform with the “public option” an over 50% favorable rating (Fox admits 49% for the public option). The New England Journal of Medicine shows 62.9% of American Doctors support the public option. It’s not often I go with the flow but I will on this issue.

4.)When the busses rolled into Brighton for the party there was much concern that a black man was giving a 15 minute talk in some lily-white schools. That arbiter of all things stupid, Glenn Beck, announced he was keeping his children home from school so they wouldn’t be forced to watch the President of the United States of America speak to the nation’s youth about education.

I agree with Randy Speck, superintendent of Oakland (County) Christian School who noted “This kind of outrage gives conservative Christians a bad name.” Those wild and crazy liberals, Laura Bush and Newt Gingrich, thought it was a worthwhile message, but Beck’s kids will never know.

5.) Hucksters like Addison “Joe” Wilson, who hides his racism by claiming he’s simply trying to restore pre-Civil War Southern culture, goes to Tea Bag parties. Wilson is a member of the Sons of the Confederate Veterans, a group in good standing with white supremacist organizations around the country.

6.) Some Tea Baggers are still whining about the government bailing out General Motors and Chrysler. Mostly they’re anti-union people anxious to repeal Frankie Roosevelt’s administration. I laughed my butt off when the Southern legislators kept demanding that GM and Chrysler should be allowed to fail and then cried like babies when the local auto dealerships started closing. Did they really think the dealerships were going to stay open if GM and Chrysler closed? Were they really concerned when they talked about the necessity of the hardships Michigan workers were going to have to face? Apparently lots of jobs in Michigan don’t matter as much as a few jobs in Armpit, Alabama. Do those guys stand for anything besides the bad old days and fat campaign contributions?

7.)There are a lot of complaints about the national debt at these parties. I agree. I worry about the debt our children and their children will bear because of us. But I wrote often about the ballooning debt during the Bush years when low and middle class wages were stagnant or falling and only the wealthy prospered. I didn’t get any angry arguments from anyone in Livingston County when the deficit grew by more than 4 trillion dollars then.

Throwing money at the economic wreck Bush passed on to us is scary, but the economy was slipping into depression and token gestures like Bush’s “rebate checks” weren’t going to turn the tide. A robust, expanding economy will cure a lot of ills and that’s what the stimulus money is meant to do.

8.) Sorry, but I didn’t want to listen to Joe the Plumber, the guy who isn’t Joe and isn’t even a plumber yet. Joe’s claim to fame was announcing that he wouldn’t go into business because of increased taxes on the wealthiest 5% of Americans. Having run a small business for 16 years, let me tell Joe if he’s basing his desire to own a business only on the tax situation, he should just open a bank in the Grand Cayman Islands. If he doesn’t like taxes in the U.S. there are a lot of countries with almost no taxes. I hear Pakistan needs plumbers badly.

Or just maybe America’s infrastructure, that benefits both citizens and businesses and was paid for with taxes, has some advantages that aren’t enjoyed by many low tax countries. A legal framework to open and operate a business, trade laws to ensure fair and equal commerce, rails, rivers and roads kept open and operable for bringing goods to markets, and an educated work force are possible because of taxes. Since you can’t pick and choose which taxes you want to pay, communication with your representative (see No. 1 above) is the way to affect tax policy, which, by the way, is what the original Boston Tea Party protesters were demonstrating for.

9.)Some of the partiers were protesting the possibility of strong carbon emission controls. Since both Presidential candidates backed such action last year it seems like the timetable is more when than if.

We’ve done a great job of mucking up a beautiful planet. I’ll bet God’s not too pleased with how we’ve taken care of his creation. Whether the changes in our weather are man made or natural occurrences doesn’t mean we should keep treating the atmosphere as a dumping ground for the poisons that we generate.

Why do the same people who wring their hands over leaving their kids a large national debt have no problem leaving their children and their children’s children life on an ultimately toxic planet?

10.)Another group in attendance was the birthers, a movement so discredited that even Ann Coulter ignores it. I just find the word “birthers” hilarious and try to work it in to as many articles as I can.

Plus, the protesters at the Boston Tea Party wore Native American Indian costumes, presumably so they wouldn’t wake to British Red Coats knocking on their doors the next morning. That seems pretty brave as well as pretty cool.

But stapling tea bags to your clothes? Mmmm, I don’t think so.

The Nobel "Problem"

Starting off the day Friday with Rush Limbaugh hollering about the secret coded message five guys in Norway sent to President Obama was kind of a surprise.

I never tune in to Rush Limbaugh since I’m more of an exclamation point head.

But, whew, it was just a sound bite from his show on my regular station, Radio Free Livingston.

Of course that sure didn’t explain why Rush’s panties were all in a bunch. I needed the trusty old internet to find that out. And there it was, splattered all over my home page “President Obama Gets Secret Coded Message from Five Guys in Norway.” Or something like that.

Actually the headline was about the Nobel Peace Prize. “Geez,” I thought, “Doesn’t he have anything better to do than sit around all day filling out prize applications?” I remember one time Frito Lay had a sweepstakes and I spent three days filling out 3 x 5” cards with my name and address, which is what you had to send them if you didn’t actually buy their Doritos. But postage was only twenty three cents back then.

And then I found out he didn’t spend three days filling out three by five index cards. He didn’t have to do anything. Some other people took care of everything and he just went about his business and before you know it he had won the most prestigious award ever of all time.

That’s not exactly right either.

But then the you-know-what hit the fan. NOBODY thought he should have won. No one. Not even Bo, the watery dog.

So I felt kind of bad that the President of the United States of America had to apologize about winning the jackpot. If I’d won that Chevy Vega from Frito Lay I wouldn’t have apologized about it to anyone, even if I really didn’t think I deserved it.

Then I got to thinking about who else ever won the Peace Prize. Off the top of my head I actually couldn’t remember that Martti Ahtisaari won last year, which I should have because I was quite a fan of his when he was President of Finland.

So I found a list of all the people who had ever won the Nobel Peace Prize. It was quite a walk down memory lane. Remember 2004 when Wangari Maathai won the prize? I wonder how she’s doing these days.

And I know it’s crude to laugh at people’s names because people can’t pick out their own names, but back in 1994 when Joseph Rotblat and the Pugwash Conferences shared the prize I laughed so hard beer shot out my nose when I heard the announcement.

Although Rotblat and the Pugwash Conference actually would have been a great name for a rock band now that I think about it.

All day long all I heard was that President Obama should give back the prize. Yeah, right, like they’d do that if they’d won. Some said better people deserved it more but after the Dalai Lama won in 1989 I think the really obvious world peace choices were basically narrowed down by a lot. There’s probably a rule against winners entering twice so everyone has a fair chance.

I like to think that I’m a good sport, so since I didn’t win the Nobel Peace Prize I’ll step aside and congratulate the winner. At least he’s someone I’ve heard of before.

And it might just work out like that Christmas when your aunt Donna finally got you a cool present, a black leather jacket. And you looked at the label and it was a size 42 but you wore a size 38. Your mom told you not to mention it to aunt Donna or give it back because it might hurt her feelings. Then a couple of years later you found the jacket way back in the closet and tried it on and it fit perfectly.

I guess sometimes you just have to wait to grow into neat things that people give you.

The Tea-Bags of Wrath

I’ve never met Rich Perlberg, the executive editor of the Livingston County Daily Press and Argus, and sometimes knowing someone helps to understand how and why some sort of kerfuffle blows up around them. Sure, I’ve been reading his editorials for years but he never really struck me as someone committed to the kerfuffle business.
Mr. Perlberg fancies himself as a conventional moderate in a county that considers Bill O’Reilly a bit left-leaning. He took a little heat back in 2007 for allowing the newspaper to be one of the sponsors for an Ann Coulter speech, but in Livingston County, Ann’s just a moderate.
I do feel a little bad for him, though. They say you’re judged by the company you keep and poor ole Rich is kind of stuck between companies right now. Progressives know he’s not about the kind of change they’re hoping for, and now conservatives have turned on him like he was working for ACORN on the side. Which I pretty much doubt, but like I said, I don’t know the man.
Back on Sept. 13 Mr. Perlberg wrote an editorial in The Daily Press and Argus in what I would call a breezy style. You know, not lots of hokey gravitas like a Southern politician would use. You could kind of see him smiling as he wrote it.
But man, the hounds of hell slipped their chains that day. Apparently, breezy is not an approved conservative literary style. In the following days Letters to the Editor column a Mr. Nelson wrote that it was written in a “childish …style” (Letters, Sept. 17) which may explain why Mr. Prystash wrote that even his 5 year old understood what the heck was going on (Letters, Sept. 17).
The game changing event Mr. Perlberg covered in his editorial was a party given by a group of non-partisan Republicans at the Brighton Millpond. August celebrities attended such as Joe the Plumber, who’d better get back to plumbing or he won’t have to worry about taxes at all anymore. Actually Joe seemed to be about the only one skipping work that day. There were stay at home moms with their (precocious) tots, retirees and small business owners, but I couldn’t see a lot of people who might have clocked out for an hour or two to attend the party. You know, guys in mechanics clothes, pressmen with inky fingers or even a McDonald’s uniform.
It’s too bad they missed it because these parties are such a riot that there’s even a band of groupies with a bus and everything following the parties around the countryside organizing these spontaneous events wherever the voice (or school video) of President Obama might be heard.
Apparently the parties are open to the public so long as the public answers the question, “Did your heart explode when you awoke last November 5 to find out McCain lost the election?” by saying “God yes,” an invocation of complicity.
Although he was in attendance, Mr. Perlberg chose not to debate obvious (at least to him) facts like the government already runs your healthcare if you have Medicare. He may have felt that if you didn’t believe that to be true, rational discussion was clearly not going to rear its controversial head. So when he got back to his office, a breezy style was adopted.
Too bad because it shows that the whole point of the party eluded Mr. Perlberg much the way the statements of Sonja Sotomayor eluded old white judges.
The point was that there were 4,000 people with 4,000 complaints and they were hoping Mr. Perlberg would make it 4001. He could have joined Joe and his rants about his deep affection for his fire arm, the retirees who promised there would be no government-run health care, the birthers who spoke of secret dark conspiracies, or even joined the people of non-color warning everyone else that, for now, they are still in the majority.
It’s too bad Mr. Perlberg didn’t reach out to these poor souls disaffected by society. They were clearly hurting and reaching out for understanding. Breezy just didn’t do it.

Thanks, Joe Wilson (No Lie!)

Like 99% of the American populace, I’d never heard of Rep. Joe Wilson before his now famous outburst. But after reading a few articles on the internet about him I realize I owe him a debt of gratitude.
Joe is a cracker from South Carolina who isn’t actually a Joe at all. He’s an Addison, and like many people from South Carolina Addison Graves Wilson Sr. seems fixated on an era that doesn’t exist anywhere but in the minds of his neighbors and him. The era is one when African American citizens showed deference to white people, acted like they enjoyed working in the homes of white people, and had no rights to vote, go to the local school or even grab a sandwich at the soda shop downtown.
A couple of years ago my daughter was considering two out of state employment opportunities. She visited Columbia, South Carolina and Denver, Colorado to get a sense of not only the job but also the culture.
During the ensuing family discussion of the pros and cons of each, I had to tell her that if she moved to South Carolina I’d be hard pressed to visit her. South Carolina didn’t make my list of a million places to visit before I die.
She was incredulous. How could I be so arbitrary? I explained that it wasn’t just South Carolina, but most of the confederate states missed inclusion on my list. South Carolina stood out because of their insistence on flying a flag at the state capitol from a war that ended 150 years ago.
Germany ditched the Swastika flag, Japan got rid of the Rising Sun but the confederate flag officially flies in Columbia.
Much of the credit must go to Addison Wilson who, as a proud member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans was one of only seven (all Republican) Senators who voted to continue to fly the confederate flag on the capitol roof in 2000. However, the compromise to fly the flag on the capitol grounds did little to mollify this Son of whatever.
Prior to that, Addison Wilson had served as a page for the 1948 Segregationist party’s presidential nominee, Strom Thurmond when Thurmond served in the U.S. Senate. After Thurmond’s death in 2003 Addison was shocked when an African American woman named Essie Mae Washington-Williams came forward with the news that Thurmond had supported her mother and her after impregnating her then 16 year old mother.
Addison was distraught. He called the revelation “unseemly” and wondered aloud why Ms. Washington-Williams hadn’t kept the news to herself.
Addison, like Nixon and G. W. Bush, believes that actions have no meaning, that the illusion constructed around the action is all that’s important.
Addison’s outburst came during a speech on health care reform by President Obama. In fact, before Addison converted his campaign website into a plea for contributions, it headlined “JOE WILSON IS PASSIONATE ABOUT STOPPING GOVERNMENT RUN HEALTH CARE!” Like so many other confused people, however, Addison forgets that his entire family is covered, at no charge, by TRICARE, a government run health care program for some servicemen and veterans. He calls TRICARE “world class care”.
And to prove that only faux aristocracy like him deserves free “world class” care, Addison has repeatedly voted not to include all reservists and National Guard members in TRICARE eligibility.
Wilson claims his outburst was spontaneous. I suppose maybe it was. He sat there being lectured by a black man, who happens to be the President of the United States of America, and just couldn’t take it any more. He needed to let people, especially his South Carolina constituents, know that he would not civilly listen to this uppity black.
Addison’s outburst was intended to show those people whose self worth is based solely on their skin color that the old southern biases are alive and well in Columbia.
For that I thank him. My daughter, still in Denver, now understands why there are parts of this great country I’ll never visit or pass through.
I prefer looking to the future and the possibilities it holds to wallowing around in regret and recrimination over a war that ended 150 years ago and a culture that’s best days are behind it but still flatters itself by dehumanizing others.