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Haiti is devastated. 100,000 people are likely to have perished in a quake that destroyed the entire country and leveled the capitol to a point where it will take years just to get the country back to the mediocre condition many of its poorest people lived in for most of their lives. Amidst this devastation, many are thanking God for his providence in leading their family to safety or for sparing their family altogether, or for not devastating relatives in Haiti.
I don’t get it.
Far be it from me to question someone’s belief in God. I believe, also. Maybe not to the extent people would like me to believe, but I believe. I believe God sets us down on Earth, lets us do our thing, then comes and gets us after a few years when He’s ready, not unlike the way parents pick you up, as a kid, from a friend’s house after a play-date. God is our father, and he picks us up to go home when we’re done playing with our friends here on Earth.
For me, there’s no leap of faith to be made here because I don’t believe that God has a hand in everything that goes on on this little marble we’re spinning through space on. I think he just lets us be and picks us up at the end. We can eff up everything, and we’ll be picked up by the Father when it’s time to go home. For others, however, I can’t imagine what a tortured life it must be to believe that everything that happens and is done for them or for their family is done at the hands of the Lord. If you believe that, and I’m not saying you shouldn’t, you have to reconcile a lot of things that I don’t have to, and you also have to discount what’s staring you right in the face.
For example, if you believe God has a hand in everything, you have to therefore believe the earthquake was caused by Him and to believe that, you’d have to believe he did it for a reason. You would also have to suspend disbelief that God would harm innocent people for no reason, and trod upon the already-suffering masses in a country that’s had more sadness than most others in the world. You’d essentially have to believe that your God, for no apparent reason, decided to smite a country with a natural disaster. What’s that, you say? I don’t understand?
Well, actually I do, because on top of believing that, if you believe God has a hand in everything, you’d also have to believe that God didn’t save thousands of people from torturous deaths in Haiti, but helped you graduate college, get a job promotion, or helped P. Diddy win a Grammy. In fact, we know he helped the Yankees win the World Series, and he helped numerous R&B singers win AMA’s, Grammy’s, and MTV VMA’s because, as they remind us when they win, they’d like to “thank God.”
That this leaves us in, at the very least, a contradictory position, is obvious. In order to believe God tinkers with our daily lives, we have to accept the fact that He destroyed a tropical nation of impoverished people, while at the same time gave Soulja Boy mad stacks on deck, lotsa hunnys, and so on. Does that even make sense to anyone?
Oh right, it’s not supposed to make sense because we take it on faith that giving Soulja Boy a leg up and destroying a country are the same thing. We’re supposed to take it on faith that God works in ways we don’t understand. In fact, arguments like this are usually cut off with such compelling thoughts as “because He can,” or “that’s why it’s called faith,” and in the end both of those say one of two things to me: we don’t have an answer, or we do and it’s not convenient to our beliefs so we just ignore it.
I have the answer. God is out there. Watching. Paying attention. He sees what we do. He pays attention. He takes notes. But in the end, he’s an observer. What happens to us is up to us, not up to Him. He doesn’t give people awards, sports championships, or help them graduate college. He doesn’t give people healthy babies, bigger houses, faster cars, more money, or a better sex life. The next time you see some dope on television (or anywhere, for that matter) telling you how great God is because God turned their life around and took their dumb pothead knocked up ass and helped them graduate college and get a happy family, just ask them about the thousands of people who God, by their definition, let slip who worked hard, were good people, and didn’t make it.
God doesn’t intervene because if he did, there are a lot of people who could’ve been spared some insanely tragic circumstances in their lives.
That’s just the way it is.
Haiti was forced to pay France for its freedom. When they couldn’t afford the ransom, France (and other countries, including the United States) helpfully offered high-interest loans. By 1900, 80% of Haiti’s annual budget went to paying off its “reparation” debt. They didn’t make the last payment until 1947. Just 10 years later, dictator François Duvalier took over the country and promptly bankrupted it, taking out more high-interest loans to pay for his corrupt lifestyle. The Duvalier family, with the blind-eye financial assistance of Western countries, killed 10s of thousands of Haitians, until the Haitian people overthrew them in 1986. Today, Haiti is still paying off the debt of an oppressive dictator no one would help them get rid of for 30 years.
This would be a good time for the United States and other western countries to do the right thing for Haiti. Sadly, we probably won’t, but it still would be nice.
Lots of good linkage in the accompanying post.
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You would think she would’ve learned after giving the same “all of them” answer when Katie Couric asked her what magazines and newspapers she read. I did notice, however, that she managed to get the word “die-versity” in there a few times. Very important, and very politician-like.
And she’s an analyst.
On the number one rated cable news outlet.
God help us all.
The Campbell Soup Co. executive who was behind the enduring brands Spaghetti Os and Chunky Soup has died.
Donald Goerke was 83. A Campbell spokesman confirmed that Goerke died of heart failure Sunday at his home in Delran in southern New Jersey.
Goerke was marketing research director of Campbell’s Franco-American line in the early 1960s when his group started dreaming up pasta in shapes that would appeal to kids. He chose the o’s. They were marketed with the unforgettable tagline, “Uh-oh, Spaghetti Os.”
Later, he helped introduce Chunky Soup, a hearty ready-to-serve soup that stood out from the company’s traditional line of condensed soups.
The Waukesha, Wis., native worked for Camden-based Campbell for 35 years, retiring in 1990.
Many many a school lunch were passed with Spaghetti O’s in my Thermos as other people ate the crap sandwiches their moms made them.
RIP Donald, and thank you.
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What do we sing about, when we sing about the body? The chart below, based on a sample of thousands songs, tells the story. The size of a circle corresponds to how often that part is mentioned in each genre. Click on a genre name to see a close-up that shows exactly what words were used.
As could be expected, asses are number one in Hip Hop…
Both behind the mic and in the mic…
HAHAHAHAHA
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With gasoline prices once again approaching $3.00 per gallon, you’d think public outcry over the rise would be at a fevered pitch.
You’d think that politicians, pundits, and citizenry alike would be frothing at the mouth, claiming that the president is nothing more than a puppet for the middle east oil regimes.
You’d think that people would be in hysterics, accusing the president of sleeping with the oil industry and their lobbyists.
You’d think that.
The silent acceptance of the rising price of gasoline just goes to show another line in the list of double standards pertaining to coverage of and criticism which has been and continues to be levied at President Bush.
Just another example of the main stream media purposefully ignoring a politically volatile situation for The One. Bush was bludgeoned for rising gas prices while president, with charges of lining pockets of his “oil buddies” in the U.S. oil industry to exploiting media-driven phantom ties with the likes of the Saudi royal family.
Obviously…
I asked that once on this site. Since we only heard during the 8 years of Bush’s Presidency how the gas prices were consistently climbing, by the time he left office, the price should’ve been $7.00 a gallon. God knows they could never honestly report a decline in gas prices because it doesn’t dovetail with an increase in gas prices due to Bush being chummy wummy with big oil.
Mallow appropriately titled this article, “In the tank.” To me? It’s just a continuation of what we saw while the Great Onetm was actually running for the presidency.
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Remember last week’s overly-hyped Iron Chef episode that featured dishes supposedly made with fresh ingredients from the White House garden? As it turns out, the White House footage was filmed in October, but the actual episode wasn’t shot until a week later. And as a result, the Iron Chefs used STUNT DOUBLE VEGETABLES in the episode, and not the produce they had just picked from the Obama’s garden.
This incident wouldn’t have been a big deal, had only the Food Network fessed up instead of intentionally trying to deceive the public.
Well well well… The big hype was a big nothing.
This shouldn’t surprise anyone, though. Scripps has been lying about having their programming pulled from Cablevision (they pulled it themselves in order to turn fans onto Cablevision; a strategy that’s clearly backfiring as no one seems to give a rat’s ass) since January 1st, so if they’re willing to lie about something that big and provable, there’s no reason to think they’d suddenly find integrity and honor when they can create drama in the cutting room.
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Very interesting video from Hank explaining what Ecosystem Services are. Sounds much less interesting than it is, trust me.
But no matter how much time a president actually spends away from the official residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Knoller says that the commander in chief is never really off the clock. “I have long held the view that a US president is never really on vacation,” Knoller told FactCheck.org in an e-mail. “The job – and its awesome powers and responsibilities – is his wherever he is and whatever he’s doing.
Every time someone criticizes a sitting (or former) President for their vacation days, I just laugh because it shows just how little the person doing it knows about what it is to be the President of the United States. Apparently, stupid critics live in a world where if the President isn’t at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, they aren’t doing their job.
Note to the idiots: it’s not like the job you do… You know, being a clerk at the Quick-E-Mart.
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This is the last season Simon Cowell will judge “American Idol.”
Sources confirm to Hollywood Reporter exclusively that Cowell will quit the top-rated show on television at the end of this season as part of his plan to focus on launching a new series, “The X-Factor.” Fox has picked up “Factor” for the fall of 2011, when “Idol” is on hiatus.
Fox chairman Peter Rice and entertainment president Kevin Reilly are expected to announce the “Factor” pickup and Cowell’s “Idol” departure today at the Television Critics Association’s winter press tour in Pasadena.
Uh oh… That’s not good news for Idol…
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The average temperature in December 2009 was 30.2 F. This was -3.2 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average, the 14th coolest December in 115 years. The temperature trend for the period of record (1895 to present) is 0.1 degrees Fahrenheit per decade.
Somehow this must be related to global warming.
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During the campaign season of 2008, Harry Reid referred to then-candidate Obama as a man being “light-skinned” and having “no Negro dialect unless he wanted to have one.” In essence, Reid, using a term to describe black people from a segregationist south, asserted that Obama was a black man of convenience and could turn on and off his blackness at his leisure.
How tasty, right?
As could be expected, since this wasn’t a right winger that said it, we’re being told again and again that we had to take it context. After all, when you’re a left-winger, like Reid, and you make a racist remark or use a racially derogatory term, the context must be discerned and true intent must be deciphered. Context in other cases, of course, is irrelevant, because if you’re a right-winger or a non-approved white person, you’re a racist; context-be-damned.
To be clear, there has been nearly no universal outrage at Harry Reid’s remarks, and he hasn’t distanced himself from them. In fact, he not only admits having made them, but he has apologized to President Obama who called for Trent Lott and Don Imus’ heads on a platter after Lott made a remark that could only be interpreted as racist (it wasn’t outwardly racist no matter how tortured your look at it is) and Don Imus’ “Nappy Headed Ho” remark. Needless to say, Obama immediately accepted the apology because, as stated earlier, Reid is an approved white person. Apparently, in context, with the benefit of being Black Approvedtm, you can call the president a Negro of Convenience without fear of repercussion.
I find it funny that this is all going on amidst another controversy in the use of the word Negro.
A fiery blast from the past is conjuring controversy in the new millennium. The word “negro” is now featured on an official U.S. document and now many are questioning if the Census Bureau is being insensitive.
It’s a word that many African Americans associate with segregation, so imagine how shocked many were to see it on the 2010 U.S. census form.
“The fact that it’s 2010 and they’re still putting ‘negro,’ I am a little offended,” said Secaucus resident Dawud Ingram.
Question #9 on the this year’s census asks about your race. One of the boxes you can choose is “black,” “African American,” or “negro,” all placed next to the same box. Ingram said it’s not a word he uses to identify neither himself nor anybody else.
“African Americans haven’t been going by the term ‘negro’ for decades now. It’s really confusing,” he said.
But census officials disagree, saying they found some older African Americans identify themselves that way and they’re trying to be inclusive. In a statement, they said: “Results from the census in 2000 showed that a number of respondents provided a write-in response of ‘negro’ when answering the question on race.”
In fact, Congress approved the form more than a year ago. Newark resident Jabbar Ali can’t believe it.
“I thought it was something we left behind a long time ago – the word ‘negro,’” said Ali.
Chanou Wilshire said the census form doesn’t give her an option since it’s got “African American,” “black,” and “negro” next to the same box.
“It’s highly offensive,” she told CBS 2.
The mere mention of the word is “highly offensive.” In fact, this story has been playing out quite a bit in the local New York media to the point that it’s near inescapable. Every two-bit hack local news reporter is cramming a mic into the face of the first black person they can get to to get their reaction to the word Negro being on the census form. The universal reaction, of course, is outrage, and the outrage is that the word is dated, and hails from the darkest times of Antebellum America.
The word being on the census form is offensive to the point of mobilizing outrage.
A Senator using it to discuss a black man running for President? Not so offensive.
I’ve heard a lot of talk about double standards between right and left and the use of racially inappropriate terms, but this isn’t even a left-right issue. This is a curious issue of manufactured outrage versus subdued reactions or a lack of reaction at all.
Incidentally, I don’t think the term Negro on a census form indicates racist intentions. I also don’t think that Harry Reid was being racist just in his use of the word Negro, but that’s because I’m smart enough to see that using a word one time doesn’t necessarily equate to racism / hatred. I’m not part of the offenderati culture, and I refuse to be, but it’s hard to reconcile offense at a word with no target against lack of offense at use of that same word when aimed at a specific target, to whom it would likely apply. If context is indeed important, than shouldn’t using the word as a derogatory term carry more weight than using it on a form for voluntary classification purposes?
Unless, of course, we’re just talking purely about using the word as a club of convenience with which we can beat our political opponents over the head, in which case we’re doing just fine.
You’ve seen these, right? They make me mad. Why? Because they don’t really mean what they say.
Let’s break it down. We’ll call each worldview by the letter it’s supposed to represent. So:
- C = Islam
- O = Pacifism
- E = “Gender equality” (=the LGBT agenda)
- X = Judaism
- I = Wicca / Pagan / Bah’ai
- S =Taoism / Confucianism
- T = Christianity
And let’s assume a very broad definition of “coexist”: living together without calling for the destruction of each other. Here are the problems with that:
- C wants to kill E, X, T, and (by implication) O. If they achieved the world they wanted, I and S would also no longer exist.
- O doesn’t allow for effective resistance or defeat of C.
- E stands in direct opposition to C, X, and T, and accuses those who speak against them of hate speech. Also, they’re trying to edge X and T out of public schools in favor of their own agenda. (They’re afraid C will be offended, so they get less trouble.) E is actually very, very intolerant.
- X’s existence is threatened not only by C but also by O, who invariably supports C over X.
- I and S are statistically insignificant and are mainly on there to complete the bumper sticker.
- T is who the bumper sticker is really arguing against, but poses no physical threat to any of the others.
Historically, T has brought about more tolerance– “coexistence” if you will– than any other movement. But the kind of “coexistence” the people who make this sticker envision is one where at least X and T are completely marginalized.
What he said.
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Every year, we throw a big, game party to ring in the new year. This year (2010) is our house’s 100-year birthday, so we celebrated with cupcakes…
…and the cupcakes were a game.
Here they are in random order – see how many you can guess! Mouse over the question mark to reveal the answer.
Go check it out. I got a bunch of ‘em, but a bunch of ‘em eluded me. Very well-done and a very talented decorator is behind them.
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President Obama accepted an apology from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., for comments he made during the 2008 campaign that are, well, racist. Before he was president, Obama wasn’t as gracious — calling for the ouster of Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., and radio host Don Imus after they made controversial remarks.
Yet again, the great one proves what a hypocritical piece of crap he is.
Honestly, I can’t wait until 2012.
Meet the new boss: hypocritical as the old boss.
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Hysterical… This is why Jim is one of my favorite comics EVER…
Ooof… That’s gonna leave a mark.
I guess the sanctity of marriage isn’t damaged by in-breeding.
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Just so you know, Rudy Giuliani is as dumb as Dana Perino.
President Obama yesterday took personal responsibility for failures in the Christmas day terror plot, but Rudy Giuliani still isn’t convinced.
I spoke to the former mayor of New York City this morning on GMA, who assailed the Obama administration’s decisions on national security.
“What he [Obama] should be doing is following the right things that Bush did — one of the right things he did was treat this as a war on terror. We had no domestic attacks under Bush. We’ve had one under Obama,” Giuliani said. “Number two, he should correct the things that Bush didn’t do right. Sending people to Yemen was wrong, not getting this whole intelligence thing corrected.”
Giuliani isn’t quite correct in his assessment. The Sept. 11, 2001 attacks happened during the Bush administration, as well as the case involving shoe bomber Richard Reid.
I wish you could imprison people for criminal stupidity.
Found this site, and apparently the whole point is that you’re randomly connected with someone and you can chat with them anonymously. So I clicked the link and this is the conversation that ensued…
For once I got to make someone’s day instead of ruining it. Nice change of pace 
It was 2AM on January 1st. I was speeding underground on the no. 2 subway line back from a party that said farewell to the year that was. As I struggled to keep myself awake, I suddenly heard a calming voice — two voices actually — that appeared to be guiding me home like a lighthouse or illuminated runway.
These voices — a man’s and woman’s — seemed familiar but I wondered who they were or if they even existed. They usually said approximately the same phrases and used near perfect pronunciation with each sentence.
First the woman’s informational message:
“This is a Manhattan-Bound Two Express Train. The Next Stop is Times Square.”
And then the man’s instruction:
“Stand Clear of the Closing Doors Please!”
Before getting too metaphysical I’ll cut right to the chase. Of course I’m talking about the voices of the new(ish) New York City subway cars
Awesome piece on the voices behind the subway. I was most interested in the voice of the 5 line, because that’s the one that runs right next to my building and I hear her voice constantly.
“This is Morris Park.”
Now I can finally put a face with the voice (she’s the one in the YouTube Video toward the bottom being interviewed by the obnoxious guy with the unplugged microphone.
I love stuff like this. There are so many odd and interesting stories in this city.
Big thanks to Second Avenue Sagas for posting this in the first place.
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