Mark Bittman, in the NYTimes, highlights a rising star:
… The current versions of the Farm Bill in the Senate (as usual, not as horrible as the House) and the House (as usual, terrifying) could hardly be more frustrating. The House is proposing $20 billion in cuts to SNAP — equivalent, says Beckmann, to “almost half of all the charitable food assistance that food banks and food charities provide to people in need.”
Deficit reduction is the sacred excuse for such cruelty, but the first could be achieved without the second. Two of the most expensive programs are food stamps, the cost of which has justifiably soared since the beginning of the Great Recession, and direct subsidy payments.
This pits the ability of poor people to eat — not well, but sort of enough — against the production of agricultural commodities. That would be a difficult choice if the subsidies were going to farmers who could be crushed by failure, but in reality most direct payments go to those who need them least.
Among them is Congressman Stephen Fincher, Republican of Tennessee, who justifies SNAP cuts by quoting 2 Thessalonians 3:10: “For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.” …
This would be just another amusing/depressing example of an elected official ignoring a huge part of his constituency (about one in seven Americans rely on food stamps, though it’s one in five in Tennessee, the second highest rate in the South), were not Fincher himself a hypocrite.
For the God-fearing Fincher is one of the largest recipients of U.S.D.A. farm subsidies in Tennessee history; he raked in $3.48 million in taxpayer cash from 1999 to 2012, $70,574 last year alone. The average SNAP recipient in Tennessee gets $132.20 in food aid a month; Fincher received $193 a day. (You can eat pretty well on that.)
Fincher is not alone in disgrace, even among his Congressional colleagues, but he makes a lovely poster boy for a policy that steals taxpayer money from the poor and so-called middle class to pay the rich, while propping up a form of agriculture that’s unsustainable and poisonous….
As a person of faith, this is why I pray to the Trickster God that every “pious” person gets the religious desserts of the creed they profess in life. Because, from my readings, I think that Jesus guy would most certainly have some creative rebuttal waiting when Rep. Fincher shows up at those pearly gates — say, for instance, requiring Fincher to pack every cent of that three-point-five-mil, in Sacajawea dollars, into the bodily orifice of his choice.
Funkula
Well, if it’s about the creed he professes, it’ll be Supply-Side Jesus waiting to high-five him. What makes you think Actual Jesus gets any consideration in this dude’s head?
Bob In Portland
I stumbled across this scumbag about a week, a week and a half ago.
Biscuits
I really hate these “people”. So cruel.
Juju
Holy cow! What an a$$.
Omnes Omnibus
Nickels.
Hal
Weren’t the Thessalonians the 14th tribe from Battlestar Galactica?
Nerdlinger
I think he quoted the wrong
Bible
TooManyJens
Who would Jesus starve?
MikeJ
I saw this jerkwad on sobeale’s blog.
MattF
I’m not a Christian, but isn’t there some business in the Christian scriptures about camels and needle’s eyes?
Nerdlinger
@MattF: “Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.”
rea
Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?
Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:
I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?
Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.
And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.
Villago Delenda Est
@MattF:
Yes, but you would not believe the linguistic and theological gymnastics that these vile Mammon worshipers will go through to deny the plain meaning of that passage.
different-church-lady
So, dude never heard about the Nazz and the scene he pulled with the loaves and the fishes?
I sometimes wonder how it is these bible readers never seem to grock just how at opposition the old and new testaments are.
Hal
And Jesus said unto him; “If I hath be drug tested for my trade which provides for your food stamps, you shall hath be drug tested to receiveith food stamps.”
Yatsuno
@rea: You’re reading the red letters again. Everybody knows Supply Side Jeebus is quoted perfectly by all the Paulite chapters. The red letters are a temptation, to make you stray into hippie pinko Communist homosecksual thinking. It’s a TEST people!!! WAKE UP!!!!
Chris
@Funkula:
Interesting Christianity related article from The Atlantic that’s been making the rounds on Facebook today: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/06/listening-to-young-atheists-lessons-for-a-stronger-christianity/276584/. Claims that the reason atheists left Christianity is because they were in fuzzy liberal churches where pastors didn’t adhere to the Bible enough.
I really hope they stick with this. The more they do, the more people they’ll lose.
Baud
Jesus wept.
schrodinger's cat
Thread needs more kitteh, not any ordinary kitteh but a mews to artists!
Kitty
Awful, horrible person.
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/05/23/2053081/congressmans-misuse-of-bible-verse-belies-bad-theology-and-ideology-on-food-stamps/
Cacti
Oh come Anne Laurie.
We all know that the world’s greatest monster is Obama.
NickT
@Omnes Omnibus:
Melt ’em down first, say I.
Emma
There are several choices for his afterlife in the Malebolge.
Citizen Alan
2 Thessalonians 3:10 is one of the verses most cherished by the Cult of Mammon, none of whose members have ever read the whole book to get the context for that verse. Paul wasn’t talking about lazy poor people who won’t work. He’s talking about Christians who don’t see the need because they think Jesus will come back any day now. If that verse has any relevance to modern America, it applies to Christianist nutjobs like Paul Broun who actively undermine every effort to prevent global climate change because they think Jayzus will come and save them before things get too bad and leave all the hippies to suffer and die.
lou
I think M. Fincher needs to read his own church’s interpretation of that scripture. From Bible.org:
“This is a very critical observation. The “freeloaders” that Paul is dealing with are not people who refuse work in any and every form. They are people who avoid one kind of work by becoming too busily engaged in other “work.” And to make this even more sinister, they would be inclined to call this other “work” ministry. Paul is clear that these freeloaders are engaged in work, but their “work” is not really productive; it is a pretext for gossiping and causing trouble.”
Hmmm. Who could this possibly remind you of?
NickT
@lou:
http://www.salon.com/2013/06/04/the_question_libertarians_just_cant_answer/
Cacti
@NickT:
Somalia’s pretty close.
NickT
@Citizen Alan:
Romans 13 vv 1-7 is generally good for agitating wingnuts:
Nerdlinger
@Cacti: Haiti as well.
NickT
@Nerdlinger:
You know, we’ve got a perfectly good Papa Doc and Baby Doc of our very own. Maybe there is a chance for libertarian paradise to flourish here with lots of zombie cultists.
Baud
@NickT:
It’s clearly referring to sales taxes and FICA, not capital gains.
Chris
@NickT:
It probably helps that “libertarianism” is so vague and meaningless a term that everyone from unrepentant Dixiecrats to pot-smoking gay-marriage-supporting abortion-supporting college hippies is claiming the title. As with other concepts like “socialism” or “Christianity,” you first have to define what exactly these terms mean, which no one will agree about in the first place.
Chris
@NickT:
Also, American libertarians would probably argue that the America of the Founding Fathers was the only true libertarian society in the world, but that it deteriorated and was corrupted into socialism by (Lyndon Johnson, Franklin Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Abraham Lincoln, insert-bogeyman-here).
RSA
Something in line with this prebuttal:
Spaghetti Lee
@Citizen Alan:
A Republican dishonestly taking something out of context? UNPOSSIBLE!
Mike in NC
Nobody could have predicted that US Congress is filled with right wing sociopaths.
NickT
@Chris:
Speaking of evil librul oppressors…
http://www.salon.com/2013/06/06/the_tea_party_hates_jan_brewer_now/
Nerdlinger
@NickT: GG as press secretary, naturally.
Cacti
@Chris:
Yeah, if you just overlook that whole human chattel slavery bit that fueled the economy of half the states.
I’m guessing those African folks didn’t think involuntary servitude was in their rational self-interest, as shown by the many who ran away, and the few who tried to overthrow it by force.
e.a.f.
the idiot can’t read or either can not comprehend what he reads. It says, “unwilling”. There is no evidence any one on food stamps is unwilling to work.
Being on food stamps means you don’t have a job because there aren’t any jobs, it means you could be too ill to work; it could mean you work full time but don’t make enough to pay for food.
Anyhow the guy ought to remember there is a division of state and religion in the U.S.A. Guess he forgot about that too, just like he forgot he got all those subsidies.
It is o.k. for corporations to receive welfare but not individuals who need it. like corporations are people also, they just hve more money than individuals living below the poverty line and that is their fault.
No food stamps for those unable to earn eough money to pay for food is setting the U.S.A. back to 1951 when Alabama actually had cases of children dying of starvation.
With guys like this idiot, the U.S.A. will become a 3rd world country sooner than later. Children who do not eat properly grow up with all sorts of illnesses. Of course there are those who believe they should not be offered health care either. It is not unreasonable to conclude some, like this politican believes those who are not wealthy should just up and die. Only the wealthy may live.
Baud
@Chris:
Much of American economic history involved taking Indian lands and handing them out to white settlers. You can’t get much more socialist than that.
Tom_B
The aforesaid bozo mistakes not WANTING to work with not being ABLE to get work; a common condition in the post- housing crisis, post- Chinese communists taking over the world economy.
Ken
Despite what he says now, I’m sure he’ll be one of the biggest complainers at People’s Glorious Revolution Re-Education Camp 27 when the guards cut his gruel ration because he didn’t meet his quota.
Cacti
@e.a.f.:
55% of food stamp recipients are either children or retirement age.
schrodinger's cat
Looks like Congressman Fincher took lessons from the Austerity Cat.
pokeyblow
Tax the churches. Now.
Kay
Representative Latta comes here and tells farmers poor people are taking all the subsidy money.
I don’t get anything about this. It’s nonsensical. “Poor people are taking all your federal subsidies!” How do you say that with a straight face?
Not to mention that food stamps ARE an ag subsidy. They’re buying FOOD with them.
Redshift
@e.a.f.:
Evidence? Who needs evidence. He knows it’s true. Just like the rest of the 27%, who think the cause of poverty is “too much government welfare that prevents initiative.” (h/t the Rude Pundit.)
Mike with a Mic
http://www.businessinsider.com/conservatism-is-the-problem-2013-6
EPIC, especially…
Amusingly, Sullivan responds to my disavowal of the conservative title by insisting that I really am a conservative, whether I know it or not — a “conservative Whig,” to be specific. No, I’m not.
I’ve never quite understood Sullivan’s attachment to the term “conservative.” It seems to me that conservatism is whatever ideology is shared by most of the people who call themselves conservatives — roughly, that taxes should be low and non-progressive; that the safety net should be strictly limited and particularly should not include a universal health care guarantee; that more financial risk should be shifted away from the government and toward individuals; that the government should promote some concept of “traditional morality.”
I don’t believe those things and neither does Sullivan, so I’m not a conservative and neither is he. What members of the Whig party favored in England in the 1700s doesn’t enter into the question. I’ve had a lot of similar conversations over the years with libertarians who are upset that the left somehow got control of the term “liberal.” They need to let it go, too.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/conservatism-is-the-problem-2013-6#ixzz2VUeMgL21
schrodinger's cat
@Mike with a Mic: Sullivan’s blog has become unreadable off late.
Mnemosyne
@NickT:
IIRC, conservatives in Southern states loved the hell out of those passages during the Civil Rights Movement. Funny how worms turn.
Redshift
@Mike with a Mic:
Or in fewer words, “policies that preserve and increase the privileges of the aristocracy.” That’s really all that “conservative” has ever meant, though the specifics and the means of getting the peasants to support it change over time.
Mike with a Mic
@schrodinger’s cat:
I usually wait for driftglass to blast him and then wander over to see what he’s up to. The “filler” in his blog of poems, videos, and other nonsense is lower quality than most gaming forums I frequent.
the Conster
@Mike with a Mic:
He thinks he’s so in touch with the zeitgeist, but he’s clinging to to the term “conservatism” like it’s some kind of talisman against the mean gay leftists who outed him in the 90s. To borrow a meme, “Republicans are conservatives” isn’t going to happen, because conservative=stupid, and Sully and his ilk keep trying to hammer square conservatives into round intellectualism.
RSA
@Mike with a Mic: Excellent link. Another conservative apostate–thanks, Tea Party!
Mike with a Mic
@Redshift:
I don’t know I think it’s the people who define it, though in general in America you’d be right. I’d say my parents are conservative people in their 80’s. In that they watch their money, take care of what they own, value their family, and care deeply about their impact on the world. Penny saved is a penny earned, waste not want not types to the core. But they were born in Europe and are left wing by the standards here, outside of the whole my father having fought in two wars thing. But they’d consider themselves conservative, they always vote Democratic though.
Though I’d say most of that style, Ike/TR style, conservatives are now Democrats like them.
Poopyman
@schrodinger’s cat: You want “muses”? Here’s something to stimulate … I dunno. Not me. And I swear I don’t know anyone in these creatures.
Here’s the URL so you know what you’re getting yourselves into:
http://you-just-need-to-shut-up.com/absolute-worst-pictures-of-men-and-cats/
qwerty42
Well, darn, how’s this one:
Ezekiel 25:17 The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children.
And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.
So does Congressman Fincher represent the shepherd, the weak, or the tyranny of evil men?
Mike with a Mic
@the Conster:
In a sad and sick way I “get” Sully. I spent time in the parts of DC he did. Where there are lots of liberals that are straight up the comedic farce Rush makes them out to be, and the conservatives are the rational and sane sort he seems to thinks are all over the place. That’s who you go through life dealing with there. But the on the other hand that’s because DC is liberal as fuck so some of the left there is really crazy left and a lot of the right is what would be the left in most other areas.
The problem is that he’s never ripped off of the blinders to realize that outside of DC, and now NYC, that’s just not the fucking case. And those areas are pretty tiny compared to all the rest of the shit that festers all over the other parts of the country.
I don’t agree with him, and he’s wrong, but at times I kinda see where he’s coming from. But it’s his own dumbass fault for choosing to live in that bubble, because that’s not reality.
Ruckus
I actually don’t give a shit what this assholes book that he stole from a motel night stand says. His mistaken religious beliefs are bullshit in the first place and have no place in the law in the second place.
michelle
It’s not even a direct quote.
eemom was right.
You are playing with others’ writing in a way that no academic or honest person would.
shame on you.
shame on you.
you delete this, I will not write and whine to Cole or anyone
but shame on you:
Even if this quote were not taken out of context — whoever wrote 2 Thessalonians was chastising not the poor but those who’d stopped working in anticipation of the second coming — Fincher ignores the fact that Congress is a secular body that supposedly doesn’t base policy on an ancient religious text that contradicts itself more often than not. Not that one needs to break a sweat countering his “argument,” but 45 percent of food stamp recipients are children, and in 2010, the U.S.D.A. reported that as many as 41 percent are working poor.
You left that out.
Yatsuno
@Hal:
Why for do you make the eemom cry?
michelle
@ AL
” I think that Jesus guy would most certainly have some creative rebuttal waiting when Rep. Fincher shows up at those pearly gates”
But let the Jesus/God sort them out. Let’s do nothing now.
MikeJ
@qwerty42: I’m tryin’, Ringo.
srv
Worst Person is easy. Just wait until Susan Rice, National Security Advisor, gets onstage at the hill for BENGHAZI 2! PRISM OF LIES!
Tom Donilon left a sweet present for the Genocide Twins.
McCain may just finally blow a heart valve now – Susan is the most Pro Courtesy Bomb Syria ally he has in the admin. Between a Benghazi and an ASSad, he is.
Misterpuff
@Chris: BoBo-level analysis of “The New Atheists”
Todd
@qwerty42:
Pulp Fiction’s finest line.
Steeplejack
@michelle:
What do you think has been misrepresented or distorted? The quote you add “for context” is Bittman amplifying his criticism of Fincher. It doesn’t change his point; it strengthens it.
Mr Stagger Lee
Forgive me for firebagging here,but didn’t a number of Democratic senators vote for cutting SNAP? At least the Republicans admit being assholes and being cruel, what is the Democratic excuse? Also, will the president veto this act of insanity and if he doesn’t? I wait with baited breath to hear the justification of starving the poor from some of you.
Suffern ACE
@srv: O.K. But why is Susan Rice supposed to take the fall for PRISM? She was the UN Ambassador and the NSA is part of Hagel’s department.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mike with a Mic:
They can blame those damn French for that. The concept of a political “right” and “left” comes from the French Revolution.
The Republic of Stupidity
@Omnes Omnibus: And from the sounds of it, this pathetic waste of human skin would STILL have room left over… perhaps for his head…
Villago Delenda Est
Why doesn’t George R.R. Martin use Twitter?
Because he’s killed off all 120 characters…
Jay in Oregon
@NickT:
Khal Drogo had ideas about giving men the riches they deserve.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Jay in Oregon: Viserys Targaryen, what a guy.
srv
@Suffern ACE: Well, Tom ain’t available anymore and Hagel is a white guy. Someone has to go read the talking points. Why was the UN Ambassador point-person for Benghazi?
Suffern ACE
@srv: Because Libya was a UN sanctioned mission (supposedly).
srv
@Suffern ACE: Then she should have had some Blue Beret commandos and UN Dronze on call. What was she thinking?
NonyNony
@michelle:
WTF are you talking about? The paragraph that was omitted was replaced with ellipses “…” – a standard notation that “academic” people use all of the time to omit a paragraph that isn’t necessary to their point. That paragraph is a digression about how the theological implications of Fincher’s citation of the Bible are factually wrong and so you could just ignore that. It isn’t central to the point Anne is making here, so she elided it by inserting ellipses at that point.
I also think that Bittman is a bit naive here. He assumes that Bible-oriented religious people who claim to use the Bible as the foundation of their religious beliefs want to know the actual context of the words that they’re citing. This is, most of the time, incorrect in my experience. Bible-oriented religious people use the Bible to reinforce beliefs that they already have and as a set of clobber texts to beat their opponents about the head with. They memorize quotes and whip them out as needed, but thinking deeply about the meaning of the texts is actually discouraged by their pastors.
mclaren
Alas, Anne, religious desserts are yummy delicious sugary treats. You mean religious deserts.
Petty? Anything the conservatives can use to ridicule us will be used. If we can’t get them to agree with us, at least let’s make sure our grammar and spelling and English usage is bulletproof.
Cacti
@mclaren:
Ahem
Linnaeus
And then I will profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
Suffern ACE
@srv: o.k. it probably should have been Petreaus on the TV anyway, since it was actually his stuff getting blown up. But since that probably wasn’t supposed to be there, and Hillary was sick, it might as well have been Susan Rice.
Xenos
What is slowly and steadily making an atheist of me and my family is the unavoidable fact that the more fervently any person seems to believe in Christianity, the more corrupt and bullshit is his understanding of the Bible and religious history. The scammers, bullies, and thugs have pretty much discredited an entire religion. This seems to apply for all the Abrahamic religions.
The Age of Aquarius had better arrive soon, as the age of Pisces looks as antiquated and played out as that of Aries and Taurus.
MikeJ
I really thought he was going to go with, “the poor will always be with you, so fuck ’em.”
Steeplejack
@mclaren:
Yes, let’s.
Flying Squirrel Girl
After 15 years of elevated blood pressure, today I was told I have hypertension. At 43 and healthy (or so I feel) I hate the idea of a daily medication regimen. I am very healthy and hate more than anything to admit that I might not be, silent killer and all that. I think I’m finally ready to give in, but it’s hard. It’s real hard. Just trying to work through this, any and all advice greatly appreciated.
kdaug
Suspect “that Jesus guy” wouldn’t have survived in our time.
Oh, wait…
Suffern ACE
@Flying Squirrel Girl: O.K. It is not so bad. I hated the idea, too. Thinking I’ll have to take these pills every day. But you know what? When my blood pressure is normal, I actually feel a lot better. That is one of the odd things about getting used to having high blood pressure. You don’t recognize that you aren’t well.
Forum Transmitted Disease
Matthew 25:31-46 something something something.
As I understand it, New Testament trumps Old Testament every time.
Chris
@Mike with a Mic:
They have this really fucked up notion that “liberal” was supposed to mean “small government” (or “no government” or at least “less government”), which is… really not true, to put it charitably. Liberalism (“classic” or “modern”) has always centered the notion that people have inalienable human rights (something libertarians are quite happy to ignore when it suits them) – there’s nothing that says the protection of those rights has to be via “small government.”
There was opposition to government absolutism, yes, but that wasn’t a concern about the size of government, it was about the ability of a sovereign to do whatever he pleased with no restraints – something they wanted restrained with checks and balances and some form of law. Size of government doesn’t come into it. And arbitrary, absolute power is just as dangerous when private individuals like American robber barons amass the same kind of power, something early twentieth century liberals understood very well. The Roosevelts and people like that didn’t simply hijack the word “liberal” because they thought it sounded nice – it was the same struggle against absolutism and for the universal rights that the absolutists were trampling.
burnspbesq
@Ruckus:
Nice to know who has a clue about the Bill of Rights and who doesn’t.
the Conster
@Mike with a Mic:
He’s a gay Tory, which is actually a thing in the land of his birth. He’s an authoritarian who wants an American Big Gay Daddy, and Big Gay Reagan Thatcher Daddy isn’t walking through that door.
Redshirt
@Xenos: For real – the Age of Aquarius arrived on 12/21/12, and we’re now living in it. Soak it up, man!
Chris
@Misterpuff:
And just another piece of “the only reason there are so many liberals is because we’re not conservative enough – there’s a silent majority out there, you’ll see!” self-gratification.
@Xenos:
Certainly applies to Christianity.
The article I linked to isn’t completely wrong when it says that Christian churches’ inability to practice Christianity is a factor in turning people like me away from it. It’s just that those things it smugly dismisses as vague, empty and given too much attention by the church (“social justice,” “being a good person”) are exactly the things that these churches aren’t practicing that cause me to turn away in disgust.
The idea that young people are turning away from religion because churches aren’t loud, obnoxious, dogmatic and literalist enough is… up there with Romney’s “unskewed polls” moment. People who are disappointed with their churches because of that don’t become atheists, they become fundamentalists (and there are hundreds of loud and proud churches that specialize in finding them). Meanwhile, something like 70% of my generation supports gay marriage. These fundies are whistling past the graveyard something fierce – I can only hope they keep it up.
Mnemosyne
@Flying Squirrel Girl:
Unfortunately there’s something even worse than a daily medication regimen — having to go on dialysis after the high blood pressure chokes off your kidneys. Trust me, you would much rather take a pill every day than go through that.
MikeJ
@Chris: Related to that:
http://rachelheldevans.com/blog/win-culture-war-lose-generation-amendment-one-north-carolina
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Ruckus: Thank you for being a voice of sanity.
Jenny
How can anyone who belongs to a reality based community subscribe to faith?
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Jenny: do you not remember where the term “reality based community” comes from?
ruemara
@Flying Squirrel Girl: Don’t fuck with it. Take your meds, exercise, pay strict attention to your diet, watch those interactions and really try to figure out if it’s salt, or something else. I got diagnosed at 30 and the last 7 months were a nightmare of a tremendous resurge, after I got it under control with acupuncture, herbs and exercise. Now I’m on 5 meds with a 24hr/ 12hr/ 8hr/ 24hr sched. :P And I’m a poster child for health, good eating etc etc. Hang in there, it doesn’t have to be bad. You do not want to spend alternating weekends in the emergency room, or have that Monty Python noseplosion. Or kidney tests, or ultrasounds, or merry rounds of EKGs.
And these people passing as Christians feel like they’re killing the human ability to believe in a faith. save it for your church and not in public, you’re an embarrassment.
Cacti
@MikeJ:
As much time, energy and resources as the RCC and Evangelical Protestants have spent on oppressing homosexuals, you would think that was the central tenet of Jesus’s message or something.
Mike with a Mic
@the Conster:
I don’t even fully buy that. I think that if he wasn’t a conservative he’d just be another random gay big city journalist, that’s not marketable. He’s stuck on the concept that true conservatism is the cosmopolitan crap of DC and NYC elites and everyone else is just doing it wrong. The guy honestly believes this and he kinda has to or he wouldn’t have a job. He’s just lucky enough to live an area that feeds the illusion. The dude should move to the heart of conservatism in the US and then take another look.
? Martin
@MikeJ: When wedge-issues attack!
the Conster
@Mike with a Mic:
He writes all the time about how the GOP and conservatism have run off the rails, but instead of rejecting conservatism, he clings to the word because lefty queers were mean to him. That’s his sole rationale while he waits for conservatives to throw up their Big Gay Savior. That’s all the word “conservative” means to him – it’s a signifier – like a gang sign he can flash to the Village. He’s as tribal as he accuses the nutjobs of being.
Mandalay
@michelle:
No, the exact opposite is true. She inserted an ellipsis to specifically denote that some text had been omitted, as any “academic or honest person would”. Omitting that text did not significantly affect the meaning of the article at all.
Now let’s see if you have the integrity to apologize to the FPer.
Gian
So he’s in favor of raising the minimum wage so the workers at Wal-Mart won’t need food stamps, right, right?
Yatsuno
@Gian: Oh u funnee!!! No way would he EVER inconvenience a jerb creator in so crude a fashion!
Jenny
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Hitler?
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Jenny: You have to be joking. It’s the George W. Bush administration, speifically Karl Rove:
Source: here.
It has nothing to do with religion, at all.
The prophet Nostradumbass
For the heckling is great, and speaking truth to power caucus.
Jenny
@The prophet Nostradumbass: But that’s my point. How can anyone who believes in the judicious study of discernible reality subscribe to something for which there is no proof?
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Jenny: It happens all the time. Everyone takes things on faith, of varying degrees, for all sorts of reasons. To pretend otherwise is silly.
For this particular case, the “reality-based community” is a reference specifically to politics, and how policy is made.
Your point about religion has nothing, at all, to do with the phrase “Reality-based community”, as Karl Rove meant it.
fuckwit
KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL THE POOR, OH KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL THE POOOOOR!
KILL KILL KILL KILL KILLL THE POOOOR TONIGHHT!
I swear the next Rethug “debt-reduction” proposal will be straight up genocide.
Todd
@Cacti:
There seems to have been a shift of late. They’ve gone from “cult of the fetus” to “sex negative contraception banners” to “anti gay” as their central message over the past 10 years.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jenny: Why does it matter? If someone believes that a deity created the world, but also believes that he or she was given a brain for a purpose and uses it for good, who gives a shit?
jake the snake
There is no hypocrisy here. Rep Fincher has earned his subsidies, those undeserving moochers and looters on food stamps have not earned anything.
fidelio
@rea: Funny how they keep missing that passage.when they browse through the Bible.
Or else they are confident that they’re among the sheep, and not among those nasty goats.
And of course, this one only applies to people evaluationg their behavior, not their opinions about others, for surely theirs is the judgement of the righteous:
McJulie
@Xenos: My religious dad’s interpretation of the “religious right” is this: the devil couldn’t eliminate the message of Jesus, so instead he destroyed it from the inside.
I’m not sure he’s being 100 percent literal about the devil part, but for me it works as a metaphor.
McJulie
@Jenny: I don’t know, it actually seems to me that dogmatic authoritarian types don’t actually have any faith — they use the word a lot, but to them it just means “I don’t have to justify my actions.”
celticdragonchick
my post has gone missing…
Ruckus
@Flying Squirrel Girl:
Understand how you feel. I had high BP and of course didn’t know it, nor could I do anything about it without health care. But I was able to start at the VA and one of the first things they did was put me on meds. I do feel much better and I didn’t even know I wasn’t feeling good! High BP sneaks up on you and the effects do as well. They did have to change what I’m on to a different course but wow does it ever work. BP down and under control, and I don’t feel so worn out and used up. Don’t feel 20 either but still. Take the meds, it really did make a difference for me.
Ruckus
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
Wow. Never been called a voice of sanity before. Either I’ve disguised my self well enough that no one recognized the sanity or your standards are pretty low.
But thanks in either event.
Ruckus
@burnspbesq:
I’m guessing it isn’t you?
BarbCat
Mark Bittman has provided me and the mister with some of the most fulfilling and delicious cookery methodologies I have known in 5 decades. I had no idea he provided public resources as well. Bless that man.
PS Sorry for being so late. Just got out of SM lock-down. Looking for scotch and a gun-less movie to fall dumb to.