Presented without (much) comment:
The latest measles outbreak is in Texas, where the virus has sickened 25 people, most of whom are members or visitors of a church led by the daughter of televangelist Kenneth Copeland.
Fifteen of the measles cases are centered around Eagle Mountain International Church in Newark, Texas, whose senior pastor, Terri Pearsons, has previously been critical of measles vaccinations. [via TPM]
The church in question understands how to deal with such awkwardness:
We know the truth; we are healed according to Isaiah 53:4-5 and I Peter 2:24 and are standing against any plague that would try to attack us as a body. So agree with us that this will stop now according to Matthew 18:19.
But nonetheless hedges its bets:
Kenneth Copeland Ministries’ position regarding dealing with any medical condition involving yourself or someone in your family is to first seek the wisdom of God, His Word, and appropriate medical attention from a professional that you know and trust. Apply wisdom and discernment in carrying out their recommendations for treatment. This would include: vaccinations, immunizations, surgeries, prescriptions, or any other medical procedures.
For my part, I’d skip the other stuff and head straight for one of the greatest inventions ever in the service of human well-being, the prophylactic vaccine.
I’ll close here, without diving into any “it’s not whether you believe in evolution, it’s whether evolution believes in you” species of snark.
Image: Titian, The Sick Man, c. 151
Emerald
Betcha the Rev. Pearsons secretly got her own vaccines. And her family.
Betcha.
Yatsuno
It’s just…too easy. But since it’s Texas no way do the parents face any possible child abuse consequences.
Hunter Gathers
What, are these people too scared to meet their maker? Are they afraid they won’t be able to afford the cover charge?
zombie rotten mcdonald
so when the yurks get to heaven, I imagine they complain to Gawd about how He didn’t save them from the virus and he says “you simple-minded jerks! I sent you all those vaccines!”
Belafon
“Don’t look out the windows! God’s wrath is bringing down the heathens. Our merciful God is punishing you for your sins, but we all are short of grace. God will forgive us! He is not being kind to those who fail to follow him!”
I just imagine the windows on the church being black.
beltane
I bet that Isaiah, Peter, and Matthew would have vaccinated their kids if this option was available to them. Why do these people even bother feeding and clothing their children, isn’t God supposed to take care of that if you pray hard enough?
schrodinger's cat
You can ignore the facts only for so long.
RepubAnon
I’m sure that prayer will be fully as effective in stopping the measles as it was in stopping the Black Plague, the Spanish Flu, and all the other epidemics humanity has suffered over the years.
the Conster
I remember years ago when a religious nutjob couple were being tried for manslaughter for denying their child a lifesaving treatment, and they both were wearing glasses. Apparently their god wanted them to clearly see their child die. I hate these people.
MattF
Well, well, well. So, there is, in fact, a combination of mindless stupidity, greed, and self-rightousness that has negative consequences. And it happened in Texas, of all places.
Cacti
Has Dr. Jenny McCarthy weighed in on this one?
Hungry Joe
@schrodinger’s cat: I’ve found that “for only so long” can be very long, indeed.
Yatsuno
@Cacti: How many of them have autism huh? WIN!!!
Belafon
@schrodinger’s cat: Except, according to these people’s trump card, there are no facts, only God’s will.
schrodinger's cat
Bet they are GOP voters. You cannot deny facts forever, including scientific ones.
Belafon
Also, reading the weasel words in the last paragraph, I’m under the impression there’s an implied “don’t let us know about it” so that we can keep claiming that God will protect you.
Comrade Dread
I’ll translate. If your religion is telling you that God wants you to stand by and do nothing to alleviate human suffering when it is within your power to help, then your religion is wrong. Vaccinate your kids.
OldBean
Two boats and a helicopter…
schrodinger's cat
@Belafon: It would be OK if they wanted to let superstition and ignorance define the way they chose to live themselves, but they are not satisfied unless all of us follow their example. That’s my problem with all kinds of religious fundies.
Belafon
@Comrade Dread: You know, if I believed in a supernatural being, yours sounds like one I would like to follow.
Keith P.
Leeches might be of use in this situation. Maybe trepanning.
spudgun
I love Titian.
Sad_Dem
@Comrade Dread: Indeed. That’s what galls me about such behavior from people who call themselves Christian. I want to yell at them, “Do you read the Bible??!!??!?!?!” But I know the answer to that question. They don’t, even though it answers a lot of the questions that congregants have been asking their religious leaders over the years. Imagine that!
Anoniminous
As the count increases I prepare to invest in Texas funeral home stocks.
Buy before the rush, says I.
Elizabelle
Your headline is just perfect, Tom.
I am laughing.
Linda Featheringill
Don’t bury your wingnuts before they expire.
Measles are not usually deadly, otherwise I wouldn’t be here [to your delight or dismay as the case may be].
The measles vaccine hasn’t been around for very long and a large portion of the population had the disease several years ago.
The disease can kill and if it wipes out someone you love, nothing I say will ease that pain.
But most victims will survive quite well, thank you.
boatboy_srq
Translation: Big Gubmint Soshulized Medicine Obamacare-delivering “physicians” are to be avoided at all costs, because you might get
enlightenededucatedcuredsomething from Them.slag
I wonder why so few (if any) of these people are up in arms over the fact that their insurance policies likely cover vaccines. As do Medicare and Medicaid. Doesn’t vaccine coverage violate their “religious freedom”?
Citizen_X
This. One of the greatest, most beneficial achievements of medical science, and the anti-vaxxer idiots want to throw it out the window.
Elizabelle
Isn’t measles particularly dangerous to pregnant women and their unborn children?
You know, the annointed and their carrying cases.
Elizabelle
This is going to be a huge issue if we ever get another pandemic like the Spanish Influenza of 1918.
Aimai
@Linda Featheringill: yes but if a pregnant woman catches the disease her child can be born profoundly deaf. In addition measles for infants can be deadly. He’ll even mumps, if caught by an older male, can result in sterility. None of us are acting like this is the plague but its not harmless, either.
David Brooks (not that one)
@Anoniminous: Uncharitable. These are real children. I hope there are plenty of other Christians, outside this “church”, praying for their recovery.
Cermet
Tragic that these stupid people are allowed exceptions – vaccinations should be 100% mandatory unless a medicinal condition prevents it.
This type of behavior is just too stupid to believe and proves that religion is an illness, as well. These shit-for-brains endanger everyone, not just their own spawn. I’ve never heard of any common vaccine that doesn’t offer massive benefits at minuscule risk.
I got every single available one for my daughter – even ones not mandated. There are illnesses that rarely strike but are extremely deadly if they do – consider the risk, if health care pays for it – get it. I too have every one available. It’s the only thing that can protect nearly 100% against really killer illness at no real cost and so little effort.
shelly
Don’t ya love people who treat their religion like an order-up menu? And of course, the excuse when God doesn’t pony up is cuz you didn’t pray hard enough.
300baud
During a big storm, a fellow hears a blaring loudspeaker coming up the street. He goes outside and it’s a bus telling people that the area will be flooded; they should hop on to evacuate. He says, “I’m staying here, God will save me!”
A few hours later the water is rising and an orange rubber boat comes down his street. A guy sees him in the window and shouts at him to get on board so he can be taken to safety. The man shouts back, “I’m staying here! God will save me!”
By dawn, things aren’t looking good. A helicopter spots him sitting on his roof, with water everywhere. They try to lower a ladder, but they wave him off, “I’m staying here! God will save me!”
The waters rise further, and the fellow eventually is swept away and drowns. Arriving in Heaven, he cries out: “God, why didn’t you save me?” God replies, “Look, asshole, I sent you a bus, a boat, and a helicopter. What more do you want?”
Gex
@slag: Sadly the answer to that is vaccines are covered for both sexes, therefore it is okay. If they could find a way to eliminate vaccines for women only, I’m sure they would.
danimal
@slag: It does seem like there is a good argument to counter the “forcing conservatives businesses to pay for health insurance that includes birth control is tyranny” spin going around. If a conservative Christian businessman doesn’t want his employees to have access to birth control because it offends his religious freedom, then a Jehovah’s Witness businesswoman can deny her employees blood transfusions, a Jenny McCarthyite (hey, look, I created a new cult!) businessman can deny vaccinations, and so on.
If the whims of a corporate leader can be imposed on his or her employees via the selected provision of health insurance, I would argue that the employer is infringing on the liberty of the employee in a direct, tangible way. The conservative argument for controlling the availability of birth control falls apart once the principle is applied to other medical interventions.
Face
Why the fuck does someone throw “International” into a church name? Does it double as an airport to Heaven?
Haydnseek
Christians are constantly telling me about what a super wonderful place heaven is. They make death seem like the ultimate, eternal perfect vacation! If this is true, then why is murder a capital crime, rather than a valuable service?
Mark B.
God’s just testing their faith. They’ll come back stronger than ever after this.
Comrade Dread
@Belafon: I think an atheist who spends his life doing what he can to help his neighbors is closer to being a disciple of Christ than someone whose sole contribution to this life is warming a spot in a pew for 90 minutes a week. Our actions count for more than words.
@Sad_Dem: Admittedly, I’m only three gospels into the New Testament, but it was reading these books and studying them on my own that caused me to leave fundamentalism, because the Jesus of the synoptic gospels at least doesn’t bear much resemblance to the Jesus I was taught in church for 37 years.
Linda Featheringill
@Aimai:
You’re right, of course.
But folks who propose exposing children to these diseases early and often use the same facts, with different conclusions. For example, if a girl has measles when she’s young, she won’t get them when she is grown up and pregnant.
I don’t support that particular philosophy but some do. And they live to tell about it.
Roger Moore
@Sad_Dem:
I’m sure they do read the Bible. As somebody who actually has read the Bible cover to cover, I can assure you that there are plenty of parts that will warm the cockles of the most wingnutty soul, e.g. God promising collective punishment of Israel for the sins of the few. Combine that with a long tradition of twisted interpretations of the remainder, and they can read the Bible without the slightest fears that their beliefs will be upset. For example, did you know that the part where Jesus says to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s means you don’t have to pay income tax, and that the mention of “my brethren” in Matthew 25 means that you only have to be nice to other church members? Because those are actual interpretations used by right wing churches to justify their behavior.
boatboy_srq
@Comrade Dread: Alternate additional translation: See, there’s that unGawdly six-day work week again; You’ll notice that the Pharisees didn’t think that work on the Sabbath was appropriate, and they got smacked for it. Proof positive that the five-day, 40-hour work week that Teh Yoonyuns fought for is really a tool of Satan.
Mark B.
Ninety minutes? Dude, not during football season! You gotta be home before the kickoff.
bcinaz
Evolution will eventually deal with “too stupid to live”; in the meantime all of us will have to pay for the willful ignorance of the few.
boatboy_srq
@Roger Moore: Chuckle: I was one of the folks who queued up to see Last Temptation when it was in theatres. There were the usual FundiEvangelicals out heckling the crowd, trying to convince us (and themselves) that we were all Hell-bound just for watching it. We stood it for about half an hour until a handful of us realized we knew The Book at least as well as they did, and started matching them verse for verse. They shut up after about five minutes of that, completely befuddled that their Holy Writ actually said all that.
Haydnseek
@OldBean: For the win!
MattF
@Linda Featheringill: Many ‘childhood diseases’ are a lot more serious when you get them as an adult, pregnant or not. I recall that we used to have ‘chickenpox parties’ so kids would be exposed and immunized at an early age. Of course getting chickenpox as a child means that you may get shingles as a codger, but there’s a vaccine for that, as it happens.
Haydnseek
@Sad_Dem: The bible doesn’t answer a motherfucking thing.
Paul in KY
That Titian guy doesn’t look all that sick to me.
boatboy_srq
@Linda Featheringill:
You are kidding. I had the measles vaccine when I was a young’un, and that was [mumble-mumble-mumble] years ago when [mumble-mumble] was President. It’s been around since at least the 60s.
Cermet
@Linda Featheringill: Glad you consider those few fully preventable deaths as no big deal except for people who lose their loved ones – so big of you to share those worthless thoughts. Further, thanks for sharing what a low life you are and stating the obvious that measles isn’t deadly for healthy people in most first world countries – however, try not learning anything that might challenge your IQ – you don’t have much to spare. Did it ever cross your mind that most people in the world do not have Amerikan healthcare, clean water, lack of internal parasites or large amount of food and as such, measles can and does kill many thousands of them unless vaccinated? But for you, that irrelevant detail still makes the illness minor, I guess. Just brown and black children; they aren’t on your radar screen as anything but acceptable deaths.
Aimai
@Linda Featheringill: yeah. But no. People’s immunity can lapse. Given a situation in which most people are vaccinated a small community or a family can find that their children miss the window for “safe” infection and therefore never catch the disease early enough. Basically, as well, planning to infect your child rather than vaccinate them is like deciding to crash your car to tea h your child not to rely on seatbelts.
Haydnseek
@300baud: Why bother sending boats, helicopters, etc. Why not just eliminate the fucking storm in the first place? Many people attempt this joke. They are all lacking the logic gene.
Comrade Dread
@boatboy_srq: One of the things I’ve often pointed out to people who reason like this is that the Mosaic law established one of the first systems of welfare:
Moses was a big government liberal trampling on property rights and enabling the moochers.
It’s also worth pointing out to Christian objectivists (an oxymoron if there ever was one) that on at least one occasion, the disciples of Jesus were poor enough and hungry enough to avail themselves of these laws.
Emerald
@Sad_Dem: You’re right. They don’t read the Bible except for selected passages, according to Bob Altemeyer. The fundies tend to simply believe whatever their leaders tell them.
Altemeyer found that non-religious people know more about the Bible than your typical fundie.
Chris
There’s a non-Biblical parable about a priest in the middle of a flood who rejects help from all the people driving (then sailing (then flying)) by his house and offering to take him to safety, because “God will save me!” He drowns, goes to heaven, bitches at God for not saving him, only to have God tell him “you idiot. I sent ALL THESE PEOPLE to save you.” It’s still the best parable ever written about the role of religion in material life.
Oh, you believe in God? That’s wonderful. Now take the fucking vaccine.
Chris
God damn it, 300Baud.
(Alternatively, there’s always the “trust in God, but tie up your camel” parable).
Chris
@Emerald:
Which is a crowning moment of funny of they’re also Protestant.
schrodinger's cat
I was just reading the India Ink blog over at the NYT and found this
Battling Superstition, Indian Paid With His Life. I hate god botherers of all stripes.
Mark B.
Martin Luther may have believed that truth is revealed through reading scripture rather than listening to church leaders, but the modern Protestant churches don’t adhere to that. About the only part of the Lutheran doctrine that remains is that they don’t believe in the divinity of the Pope.
Roger Moore
@Haydnseek:
Sure it does. It has lots of practical advice for people living late-second/early-first millennium BCE agrarian lifestyle, like what to do if your house gets mildew (Leviticus 14:33-53) or your ox fatally gores somebody (Exodus 21:28-32). Whether that makes it a reliable guide for somebody living in the third millennium CE is left as an exercise for the reader.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
Lock them all in their church, put a big fence around it, and prominantly displayed ‘Quarantine’ signs. Ostracize the hell out of ’em.
KG
The Lord helps those who help themselves… so help yourself and get vaccinated, you idiots.
ETA: also acceptable, the old story about God sending a radio report, a boat, and a helicopter to save a man drowning in a flood.
ETAx2: damn, beaten on the report, boat, helicopter line.
Paul in KY
@boatboy_srq: Maybe Linda is a geologist & ‘not very long’ is like 500 years or something ;-)
Roger Moore
@Haydnseek:
I think that part of the message of the joke is that God doesn’t work that way. He acts through the behavior of his followers rather than by directly intervening in the world, so the real acts of God are the acts of Godly people following His commandments.
Paul in KY
@Haydnseek: Becauser the Lord thy God ™ does not work in ‘Old Testament’ style miracles anymore. Since the Coming of Jesus, he/she’s decided to be more subtle.
Jay in Oregon
I’m reminded of the Drafa plague from the Babylon 5 episode “Confessions and Lamentations”.
It was a heavy-handed HIV allegory: a virulent airborne disease afflicts the Markab, an alien species on the station (and on all of their planets and colony worlds), and they attempt to cover up the outbreak because centuries of religious propaganda taught them that only the unclean and sinful people get infected by the plague. Eventually, they decide that it is exposure to other races that has made them “unclean”, so they seal themselves into their section of the station to meditate and pray for healing. Since it’s an airborne plague, that doesn’t go so well for them.
It’s notable because the episode actually eliminates the Markabs from the Babylon 5 universe; they are never seen again, although the episode acknowledges that there are remote colonies or individual ships that may have escaped the plague, but Markabs cannot set foot on Babylon 5 or any planet that had the disease without contracting it.
I suppose it’d be too much to ask for anti-vaxxers to reap the results of their stupidity, but that affects children as well…
Paul in KY
@schrodinger’s cat: I’m surprised that didn’t happen earlier to that poor man. He pissed off alot of unstable/power hungry people.
raven
@KG: No, no no:
” The Alps are a simple folk, living on a diet of old shoes.
And the
Lord Alps those who alp themselves. “
Villago Delenda Est
@Chris:
Bill Moyers (who is an ordained Baptist minister) has pointed out that the Southern Baptist Convention, with their demands for doctrinal orthodoxy, are betraying the entire point of the Baptist movement in the first place.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Jay in Oregon: IIRC, Franklin developed a vaccine. Too late for the Markab on the station, certainly, and he would have a hell of a time convincing any remaining Markab to accept it.
Joey Maloney
@David Brooks (not that one): I hope there are plenty of other Christians, outside this “church”, praying for their recovery.
I’d rather they were doing something useful – like, I don’t know, beating Kenneth Copeland into a bloody pulp while screaming “where’s your God NOW, asshole?” – but, whatevs.
IowaOldLady
You know, ordinary life is hard. Bad things happen that you can’t avoid. And yet people complicate their own lives by elaborate religious requirements that bring down preventable harm on themselves and others. Why do people do that?
raven
@IowaOldLady: Um, because they are fucking stupid?
boatboy_srq
@Chris: Isn’t it odd that a movement that started with “Every Xtian Should Be Able To Read The Bible and Interpret It For Him/Herself” has become “Everyone Who Identifies as Xtian Can Only Use Teh Buk (As We’ve Translated It) For All Wisdom Without Question”? Questioning Authority was baked into Protestantism at its birth – and now the Unquestioning Adherence To (Apparently Randomly-Selected) Authority is killing it.
Ruckus
@Linda Featheringill:
The basic problem is that when most or all people are not immunized most people get sick. Some of them die.
I had measles because the vaccine had not been invented when I was a kid. In fact I had most of the communicable diseases for that reason and I’m still here. But I wouldn’t want to subject my kids or anyone else’s to them. They sucked donkey balls. I knew three people with polio, a girl from school and two of my friends moms. That was hell.
The fact that being vaccinated keeps you from spreading dangerous diseases to others is reason enough to demand that everyone take them.
Shakezula
@Sad_Dem: The Bible is meant to be waved, not read.
Besides which, it is full of [whispers] people of the Jewish persuasion.
Not to mention all of that hippie stuff about loving thy neighbor and taking care of the poor and rich people probably not making it to the big post-mortem party.
I do wonder if preachers at mega-churches ever read the bit about Jesus kicking ass in the temple.
IowaOldLady
@raven: As good an explanation as any. Stupidity makes me crazy.
Ruckus
@IowaOldLady:
If it makes you crazy think about what it does for the stupid people.
Jay in Oregon
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
Dr. Franklin did devise a vaccine but he never got to administer it to any Markabs.
You’d have to get to the remaining Markabs before they get exposed (every non-Markab is potentially a carrier) AND convince them that the vaccine is necessary because the plague that wiped out their species was not an act of God before they got exposed.
It was left as an open question whether the Drafa plague was a biological weapon similar to the Drakh plague that was introduced to Earth in the B5 spinoff Crusade. In a later episode, Sheridan blows up the jumpgate in the Markab system to make it harder for scavengers to strip their homeworld of resources. It’s possible that in the long run there ends up being a population of Markabs that get vaccinated, but the race is still effectively dead.
boatboy_srq
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Yes, yes, and probably, respectively. Distribution of the vaccine on B5 was the moment when viewers learned that the only survivors there were Delenn and Lennier (who being Minbari were unaffected by the disease).
boatboy_srq
@Shakezula: Perhaps if they referred to it as The Bludgeon, the purpose would be more clear. One more reason Technology is the root of all Evil: one does so much less damage with an iPad than with 4,000 hardbound pages of The Printed Word (it’s in the DMs Guide: 1xD4 v 1x(D20,+4 for the binding +4 for the brass latch)).
geg6
@Linda Featheringill:
It’s much deadlier than you are implying here. Here’s some numbers from the CDC from 2000-08:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5847a2.htm
And some information about cases here in the US, which highlights how many people Jenny McCarthy has killed and/or infected:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6020a7.htm
Even when the patients live, there can be very severe complications such as pneumonia and encephalitis. It’s nothing to mess with and the assholes who are ruining herd immunity in this country should be prosecuted for murder or attempted murder, IMHO. Starting with Jenny McCarthy.
? Martin
@Roger Moore: And the rest they attribute to wrongful translation.
Pluky
@Elizabelle: That would be German measles (rubella), not regular measles (rubeola).
Shakezula
And as the virus continues on its merry way, we’ll start pointing fingers because clearly people who insist on getting sick after this point aren’t clapping hard enough and are possibly sodomizing demons. Parents with children who develop measles should abandon their evil little spawn outside of Copeland Ministries’ Super Fun Work Camp(TM).
Steve M.
I always enjoy seeing folks like this pinned on their own petard, but God-botherers don’t have a monopoly on this brand of stupid. Many people who don’t realize that Jenny McCarthy is an idiot own Priuses with Obama bumper stickers.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@Linda Featheringill: @Aimai: @Ruckus:
Hell, yes. The great majority of the time, allowing or encouraging one’s child to contract a preventable disease will not seriously harm or cause long-term consequences for that child, but the window during which the kid can spread the disease to others is variable, unpredictable, and sometimes undetectable, and the consequences for those other unwilling participants can be – have been – catastrophic. A number of infants here in California have died in the past few years because they contracted whooping cough before they were old enough to be vaccinated, from other children whose ignorant or selfish (or both) parents didn’t have them vaccinated when they could have been.
My sister-in-law, who is a pediatrician, has reluctantly stopped seeing patients whose parents have not had them vaccinated because of this risk to other kids, especially babies, who could be exposed in her waiting room. I think that’s what it’s going to take, as a regulatory/policy matter, to beat some sense into the anti-vaxxers.
geg6
@boatboy_srq:
Yes, I had the vaccine (for rubeola only, the more serious type of measles which causes encephalitis and pneumonia) when in elementary school. That was in the early 60s.
Sadly, I ended up getting the German measles (rubella) about a year later. That is the type that causes problems with infant deafness if the mother is exposed during pregnancy. But they are only the three day measles and I was only out of school for a week.
schrodinger's cat
@Steve M.: Sure God Botherers don’t have a monopoly on stupid, but they sure have cornered a huge market share.
Chris
@Shakezula:
Very likely they do, and then come up with ways to rationalize the money-lenders in the Temple as liberal scum. They probably think the money-lenders were the equivalent of union bosses, or something.
Part of the simplistic, good-guy/bad-guy binary worldview of conservatism is that they manage to read themselves into any story they like as the good guys. They’re the kind of people who can read Les Miserables and come away with a warm happy feeling that they and Jean Valjean would’ve been totally on the same page in real life – after all, that wasn’t MURKA he was rebelling against, it was the filthy French – after all, look how Christian the story is, and everyone knows that we’re the real Christians – after all, Javert was just like them thugs in the IRS and the ATF reducing me to Jean Valjean like poverty by taking mah guns and money! – while managing to overlook all the blatant, blatant leftie themes in the book. Because they don’t want to notice said themes. It would ruin the experience of reading the book (whether it’s the Bible, Les Mis or anything else) and imagining yourself as one of its heroes.
catclub
@Roger Moore: “Jesus says to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s”
You mean it has nothing to do with pizza? huh!
The Red Pen
@Roger Moore:
Otto West: Apes don’t read philosophy.
Wanda: Yes they do, Otto. They just don’t understand it.
@Jay in Oregon:
B5 was awesome in so many ways.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Comrade Dread: “Pharisees” is an ancient term for Christians, right?
The Red Pen
@Steve M.:
When I went to Netroots Nation 2008, there was a vaxxer booth. It helped cement my plan to never go to Netroots Nation again.
The Red Pen
@Chris:
They weren’t money-lenders, they were money-changers.
At the time, Jews were required to perform certain sacrifices in the Temple. The material (frequently doves) had to be bought with proper Jewish money, not filthy Roman money. Hence, there were convenient “money changers” who would exchange Roman money for Jewish money — at ridiculous exchange rates, of course.
I think a good modern equivalent would be employers that force employees to be paid with a debit card that is loaded with fees. There is some overlap with the payday loan industry, I guess.
The Jewish authorities (representing God in the matter) mandated the currency conversion, but let the “free market” handle it. Not really a situation that can be easily painted as a failure of liberalism.
MomSense
O/T Update! My friend who lost everything in an apartment building fire was at her cancer treatment when she received a phone call that her cats had miraculously made it out of the building! Yes, the FSM does indeed work in mysterious ways!
Given the smoke and the heat of the fire, it is just incredible that they were able to navigate out of the building. They are at a vet clinic and seem to be ok although they won’t let anyone touch them. She thinks her Maine Coon must have guided the other one out because she is an elderly feline with no claws and poor vision.
So Hallelujah!
schrodinger's cat
@MomSense: Aww so sweet! Somebody should write up this story and post it on ICHC.
Mark B.
@MomSense: That’s wonderful news. I was hoping this would happen but I didn’t say anything this morning because it would have been cruel to raise hopes. If cats have an escape route, they usually use it. Hopefully they aren’t injured.
Chris
@The Red Pen:
I’ve heard some of them paint the robber baron era as an example of “socialism,” because the robber barons “colluded with” (as in owned) the federal government, which clearly means that the source of all the problems was the federal government’s interference on their behalf, which in turns means that it was socialism. (Then they follow up by saying that if the populists and Progressives were alive today, they’d TOTALLY be going after unions, because nowadays it’s union bosses that are colluding with the government in a way that makes them the new robber barons).
Or, if you prefer, just remember the “Bush was a liberal” meme that started cropping up in late 2008.
I don’t think there’s anything that they can’t convince themselves is “a failure of liberalism.” Doesn’t mean that all their arguments will convince the general public and the smart ones know to leave some of these arguments at home. But at home, when they’re preaching to the choir, everything’s fair game.
The Red Pen
@Chris:
True.
Also too, blacks are the real racists.
StringOnAStick
@MomSense: Wow, that is a great, great story. I felt awful about what had happened when you reported her plight earlier. She must be thrilled beyond words that her kitties survived the fire!
MomSense
Thanks, everyone! I’ve been a teary mess about this. Right now she is exhausted so I’ll see what we can do when things settle a bit. She is a long term volunteer at the humane society and just a great person. She still needs a lot of help to find housing, clothes, and all the things.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Chris: When the right person comes along, they’re going to be able to use that very weakness to put a nasty and savage end to American conservatism.
DFH no.6
@Chris: You’re correct.
I recently pointed out to my Republican baby brother that our culture has told countless good guy/bad guy stories over the centuries, and that he and his ilk almost never come out very well on that score (“I got mine, fuck you” and “Devil take the hindmost” not being the typical “moral of the story”).
I told him it was pretty obvious, for instance, that the goddamn Sheriff of Nottingham was on his (authoritarian, pro-filthy rich dudes) side, and we were Robin Hood and the fucking Merry Men (you know, taking care of the poor and all)!
His answer?
No – the Sheriff represented big gov’t liberals, and Robin and his Merry Men represented freedom-loving conservatives exercising their God-given rights to arm and defend themselves.
I love him to death, but we live on different planets, apparently.
Billy Dilly
When I see the words Liberty, Freedom, Patriot or Eagle attached to church, I avoid them because they scream WINGNUT!!!!!
Anne Laurie
@boatboy_srq:
Per the Wiki, the measles vaccine was ‘introduced’ in 1963… just a couple years after I had them, age six. (And I was a back-end boomer, so a large cohort of people my age & somewhat older already had ‘herd immunity’ by 1963.) And I wouldn’t swear to this, but my memory is that my sibs born at the end of 1964 didn’t get the vaccine — even though my parents were covered by the NYC’s government-employee health program — because their pediatrician considered it “optional” and, hey, us older sibs weren’t going to bring them home, were we?
Again, per Wiki, vaccination for measles wasn’t “routine” until the early 1980s. Those of us who lived through it, especially those of us who had the luck of living in the “developed” world, don’t necessarily have the immediate “ooo, scary” reaction we do (quite rightly) to polio or diptheria. Not saying we shouldn’t, but there’s so much to worry about in everyday life, I agree with LInda that some parents & guardians have been fortunate enough not to prioritize this one.
PurpleGirl
@MomSense: Oh, that is so good to hear. As she works to get back to a “normal”, she’ll at least have her fuzzy babies. And please keep us informed about her and the kitties.
MomSense
@PurpleGirl:
I know! So relieved.
Anne Laurie
@Cermet: Oh, FFS, LInda explictly said ” I don’t support that particular philosophy but some do. And they live to tell about it. “ She wasn’t encouraging non-compliance, just explaining that plenty of us lucky Americans have had the luxury of treating measles as a minor inconvenience.
I should also add that the vaccine was not 100% effective, at least as recently as 1993 — a toddler guest at our wedding broke out in measles spots the week after our wedding, despite having been properly vaccinated. Fortunately, the two pregnant guests were far enough along (and had both had measles as children) that it wasn’t even a minor worry.
johnny aquitard
@David Brooks (not that one):
Once born, it’s not a real child.
They’ll murder for a cytoblast and let a 2-year-old die.
Despite all their protestations of jesus and love and sanctity of life that’s what it comes down to.
drkrick
Kenneth Copeland Ministries =/= All Christians, or even All Protestants. If you compare their doctrine with how Christianity was practiced for the first 1800-1900 years of the common era, you can make a better case for them as heretics than as mainstream Christians. They’re certainly no followers of Jesus.
Roger Moore
@MomSense:
Material goods, at least, can be replaced; living beings not so much.
Chris
@DFH no.6:
Remind him that the Sheriff represented local government, and that in order to bring him down, the King (big government) had to come back from the Crusades.
(I know, I know. It’s useless. Besides, he’ll probably start talking about how Little John was illegitimate, just like Barack the Kenyan…)
Ruckus
@geg6:
Encephalitis
Had that too. Spent 12 years before they said I was OK. Tests, medication and my parents worrying if I’d live to be a teenager.
Fun times.
Shakezula
I wonder how many pregnant women were exposed to people with measles. So much for protecting the unborn.
I also have to ask, why were they specifically measles vaccines skeptics? As I understand it, the anti-vax morons are against a number of vaccines.
Is it because that’s a relatively “safe” vaccination to oppose? (Compared to small pox, polio or even pertussis.)
Roger Moore
@Shakezula:
Actually, smallpox is a very safe vaccine to oppose, since it isn’t given routinely anymore. They stopped requiring vaccinations more than 40 years ago because the eradication campaign had been successful.
boatboy_srq
@Chris: Probably doesn’t hurt to remind him that, rather than being a resource for Big Gubmint Soshulist Redistribution, those taxes were levied so that the King’s Ransom could be paid so he could come back from the Crusades – and then the wars in France, and in the HRE, and…. (it WAS Richard I after all. He needed a lot of ransoming.) There were the payments to the Ottoman Turks, the Austrians, the French – the list has an end somewhere but I can’t remember where.
@Anne Laurie: I suppose it depends on what generation you’re from and what your family did. My grandfather was an MD, and my grandparents (and parents too come to think of it) saw polio firsthand when it was still avoidable (as opposed to treatable/preventable), so they were more cautious than some. I got jabbed early and often as a result.
The Lodger
@Gex: Ref. the PPV vaccine, which applies only to women and girls.
The Lodger
@Roger Moore: Hey, it’s the 21st century and plenty of houses still get mildew. I guess I’ll have to look up the Leviticus passage. (Twenty-one verses. Sheesh.)
RobNYNY1957
@Gex:
You’ll remember that when the human papiloma virus was indicated for the prevention of cervical cancer, they did fight it furiously.
Roger Moore
@The Lodger:
It’s not a simple procedure. There’s what to do first, how to tell if it worked, what to do if it didn’t, etc. The ultimate solution if nothing else works, IIRC, is to tear the house down and dump the materials outside town in an area reserved for unclean waste.
Tsu Dho Nimh
@Elizabelle: You are confusing clasic measles (rubeola) with “german measles” (rubella) Rubella causes fetal death and horrendous abnormalities if contracted during the early months of pregnancy.
It’s the “R” in the much-maligned MMR vaccine: meas;les, Mumps, Rubells
Sad_Dem
@CONGRATULATIONS!: “‘Pharisees’ is an ancient term for Christians, right?” They were Jews. As Jesus put it, they were the kind who strained out a gnat but swallowed a camel. Another reason not to read the red letters of the Bible if you are a fundamentalist Christian. Jesus makes it obvious what he thinks of (1) fundamentalists and/aka (2) those who call themselves “separate” or “better” because they obey some rules to the letter.
HgMn
http://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/timelines/measles
if you want to check time line