Just Above Sunset Archives

January 11, 2004 Sidebars













Home | Odds and Ends | Music Notes | Book Notes | Sidebars | Culture Wars Lost | Culture Wars Won | Gay Marriage | Jesus Flogged Repeatedly | Photography | Quotes | Links and Recommendations | Archives | Daily Commentary (weblog)





You will find the SIDEBARS from the first Twenty-Five issues here.  The page was getting rather long.  All other SIDEBARS are archived each week.







































Waiting for the Big Fox

_____

 

Over at Michael Moore's website he runs this daily reminder:

 

How Long Before Bill O'Reilly Apologizes to the Nation?

In the build up to the war with Iraq, Bill O'Reilly was on television every night backing up Bush's whoppers. Like the White House team, O'Reilly assured us that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. On March 18, 2003, O'Reilly was on ABC's "Good Morning America." He made the following promise about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction:

"If the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush Administration again, all right?"

It's time for Bill O'Reilly to apologize to the nation and tell us that he no longer trusts the Bush Administration. How long must we wait?

 

Don't hold your breath.






On being "Sufficiently Christian..."

_____

 

According to radio talk show host Lowell Ponte, Howard Dean, and the members of the Congregationalist church to which he belongs, are not sufficiently Christian: "[T]his week get ready to see Howard Dean with what amounts to his own prefabricated cardboard cutout of Jesus on stage with him as he campaigns for Southern votes in South Carolina. It will be a thin, two-dimensional Jesus, and Dean will declare Christ to be more socialist than savior."

See Howard Dean's Politics of Bad Faith

Lowell Ponte, FrontPageMagazine.com, December 29, 2003

 

... So how genuine is former Vermont Governor Howard Dean's newly expressed Christian faith?  Jesus, he reportedly recently told editors at the Boston Globe newspaper, was "an important influence" in his life.

"Christ was someone who sought out people who were disenfranchised, people who were left behind," Dean told the Globe editors. "He fought against self-righteousness of people who had everything.... He was a person who set an extraordinary example that has lasted 2000 years, which is pretty inspiring when you think about it."
The Jesus embraced by Howard Dean is a mere liberal social activist, a do-gooder whose "extraordinary example" of helping the poor and downtrodden is "pretty inspiring when you think about it."

What is missing from Dean's picture?  To devout Christians, Jesus Christ is infinitely more than a social worker or political activist.

 

Yes, Jesus kicks ass and punishes bad dudes.






Is America safer now that we have a color-coded alert system, and now that we're fingerprinting folks who fly in from places that are suspicious, and now that we have captured Saddam Hussein?

 

Is our government doing its job well - the job of making us all safe and secure?

_____

 

Well, maybe so.

At least two of my regular readers have degrees in philosophy.  But we all should consider this exchange from the ever-popular Simpsons television show.

Homer: Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working like a charm.
Lisa: That's specious reasoning, Dad.
Homer: Thank you, dear.
Lisa: By your logic I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away.
Homer: Oh, how does it work?
Lisa: It doesn't work.
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: It's just a stupid rock.
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: But I don't see any tigers around, do you?
[Homer thinks of this, then pulls out some money...]
Homer: Lisa, I want to buy your rock.

Just something I found at Oliver Willis a while back...

We have not been attacked again since September 11, 2001 of course.  Thus George Bush is doing a fine job and should be reelected, or actually elected.  Or whatever.

I opt for "whatever."
 
But it seems that come the next election many a "Homer" will probably buy the magic rock.