No new garden pics this week, so here’s another form of Sunday uplift for the handful of you not otherwise occupied with the holiday weekend.
Dave Weigel, at the Washington Post, “Crowds flock to Georgia to pay tribute to cancer-stricken Jimmy Carter“:
The cars and SUVs and RVs began lining up outside Maranatha Baptist Church early Saturday evening. Jimmy Carter, a Maranatha parishioner and the 39th president of the United States, was due to teach Sunday school the next morning.
It would be Carter’s second lesson since he announced that he would undergo treatment for brain cancer. His first post-cancer lesson drew nearly 1,000 people to a church built for a few hundred, so the church decided to offer pews on a first-come, first-served basis. Guests arriving by 12:01 a.m. Sunday would be admitted to the church parking lot, where they would have to sleep in their cars.
Cynthia Alfont, a 47-year-old immigrant from the Philippines, flew from California to Knoxville, Tenn., then drove six hours straight to Plains. Georges Kabongo-Mubalamate, a refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, flew from his job in Maine then drove three hours from Atlanta. Kent Schroeder, 62, packed his sister and mother into his SUV and drove the hard 14 hours from Illinois.
“We’re gung-ho people!” chirped Schroeder’s mother, Pat, who was 93 and could walk only with assistance…
The eldest of four children, Jimmy Carter was also the longest lived. As Carter pointed out last week, the other three died young after battles with cancer. It has been 25 years since Carter buried his sister Gloria, longer still since the death of his evangelist sister Ruth and his occasionally infamous brother, Billy…
… Carter slipped into the room at 10 a.m. sharp, with no fanfare.
He asked where people had come in from, then gave a detailed update on his disease.
“Doctors tell me they’ve made the most progress in the last five years in lung cancer and melanoma,” Carter said, “so, I’m lucky.”
Then it was on to the lesson. Carter’s subject was “forgiveness,” and his Bible passage was Matthew 18:21-22: “‘Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.’ ”
This did not mean that the son of God was setting an upper limit on how much to forgive, Carter said. It meant that forgiveness should be boundless…
“Wars between two countries, civil wars inside a country, disagreements between a husband and wife that lead to divorce, are all caused by the same thing,” he said. “That is an honest and sincere difference of opinion and an unwillingness to communicate.”…
Further reading, from the always excellent (if depressing) Rick Perlstein: “The Prophetic President : How Jimmy Carter’s 1977 voting reform proposals revealed the dark Id of conservative Republicanism“.
***********
Apart from meditating on the truism that the good do die young — because some people will be missed if they outlive Methuselah, or Dick Cheney — what’s on the agenda for the day?
sm*t cl*de
Dr Francie Kelsey.for instance, recently died aged 101, way too young.
Botsplainer
Movement Conservatism is evil. As each of those fuckers die, I’d like the location of their graves just so when I visit a city, I can drop a steaming deuce on their stone.
My list (not exhaustive, and few of which are dead yet) includes:
Richard Viguerie
James Dobson
Rousas Rushdoonie
Gary North
Charles Colson
Billy Graham
D James Kennedy
Phyllis Schlafly
William F Buckley
Dinesh D’Souza
Tony Perkins
….
OzarkHillbilly
They die old and middle aged too. Come to think of it, so do the not so good and the just plain bad. We all owe a death. Few of us choose the timing or the manner, leaving that to the vagaries of chance.
OzarkHillbilly
@Botsplainer: Personally, I’d dump my cat’s used litter on their grave. That way feral cats will pay nightly visits for all of eternity.
bystander
It’s not mentioned in the article but I’m certain that many who are sitting vigil for Sister Kim’s turn in the Colosseum have run down to Plains to show their admiration for Jimmy Carter.
sharl
Does the Washington Post now delete comments after a certain time? Because that Weigel article originally had well over 100 comments, but at this moment shows only five. There were a number of negative comments – as one might expect given the rather determined (and successful) efforts of the right wing to demonize Carter – but the last time I read through those original comments I didn’t see many truly vicious ones; IMO most of the negative comments were respectful, though often grudgingly so.
It was nice to see more leftish Christians there, and I dusted off my WaPo username to interact with a couple of the more thoughtful ones. As I noted then, I had left the Methodist church (amicably), and religion in general, in my teen years back in the late 60s. I have forgotten much, so I asked about the faith of Jimmy Carter vs. that of George W. Bush (the comment I responded to brought up the latter guy). Specifically, I wondered about the role of one’s Personal Jesus in saving an individual – in the case of GWB, from substance abuse and general self-destructive behavior – and whether one’s PJ could become a toxic and destructive thing if unleashed upon the wider world (e.g., a “crusade” to bring glorious Freedom to Iraq). On the other hand, Carter’s expression of faith seems to handle both the private and community aspects with honor, respect, and devoted dedication.
A commenter came back with a lovely answer, that the commonly adopted modern version of a personal savior is a false, contrived version of Christianity, insofar that it blows off service to the community (beyond the individual church itself). He cited John Wesley, founder of the Methodist church (sorry I forgot the lessons of your catechism teachings, Pastor Risch!), so I need to do some homework on that, I guess. But from that link, it appears that evangelism – as practiced in the U.S. anyway – has come a long way, and in a direction that Wesley would not be happy with.
Botsplainer
@bystander:
Y’know, the thing I’m maddest most about with regard to the loudest, proudest, most moral crusading movement conservative Christians is the theft of my previous beliefs.
My immigrant paternal great-grandparents were the families that helped start my Eastern Orthodox parish. While I was initially raised in my mother’s sect (Southern Baptist) and had been part of one of the milder churches of that now-psycho denomination, I converted into Orthodoxy when married. Generations of my family were baptized (including my kids), married and buried out of that church. As a congregation, it draws multiple ethnicities (Lebanese, Greek, Russian, Ethiopian and a polyglot of married and unmarried converts including people of color). We have gay couples, do community works, have an AWESOME annual festival and a really positive, well educated priest. Plus, I have a bunch of cousins there.
Thing is, all the shouters in the news really got me thinking about the entire body of work regarding religion in general and Christianity in particular. How the notion of Christ’s sacrifice is bullshit; if Jesus is divine as the doctrine goes, then there was no sacrifice. About how the biblical God is a petty, psychopathic prick with a vendetta against Its claymation playthings, and would be, if a human among us, be confined to a straightjacket with a Thorazine drip.
Voltaire said it best:
Elizabelle
Good morning, all.
Dog keep President Carter and his family. Good to see him get more respect and love during his lifetime.
@sharl: There you were, classing up a WaPost comments thread (often a digital sewer). Hope it turns up again.
EZSmirkzz
Interesting read at the Guardian on all of you PFY’s. I’m not disputing the perceptions of the author, but I do disagree with the idea that younger generations are any less capable than any other generation, especially when dealing with the hypocrisy of the boomers.
You’re in the good company of the “Greatest Generation,” who didn’t internalize the negative assessments of themselves by the Baby Boom. I think to a large extent we competed with our parents, and now have to compete with our children and grandchildren, and that competitive mindset drives a lot of our assessments of younger generations. It’s bullshit of course, but it is the game being played by, ” the generation that was going to change the world,” as one of the Ramones said, “but lost the car keys.”
Keep your chins up peeps.
OzarkHillbilly
@Botsplainer: Mr Deity and the Evil
Baud
@Elizabelle:
I’ll take History’s Greatest Monster over the entire GOP any day of the week.
Matt McIrvin
@Botsplainer: Sadly the Orthodox Church has psycho right-wing splinter groups, too. An online acquaintance of mine actually became a priest in one of them. It got increasingly hard to read the stuff he wrote; he seemed to be increasingly keen on obedience as the greatest of all virtues, and at one point stressed the need to abandon reason itself in the service of obedience. Very strange and sad.
Cervantes
@Botsplainer:
“Theft”?
OzarkHillbilly
@OzarkHillbilly: “I assume you have no problem with childhood cancer?”
“Yeah, it’s good.”
“Celine Dionne?”
Elizabelle
Have not seen Villago Delende Este for a while, and we’ve put up some Villago bait from time to time.
MIA? On vacay?
satby
Good morning all!
It’s good to read that President Carter can see in person some of the appreciation and admiration that many people hold him in. He has lived a good long life and done so much for people, and to have that acknowledged before he goes is so much better than after he’s gone. I hope the have word soon that the last Guinea worm has been eradicated, what a capstone on his remarkable life that would be for him, and how satisfying that would be for him to hear. A great man!
satby
@Elizabelle: he was commenting on the last thread I’m pretty sure.
Gene108
Paul Weyrich from 1980 succinctly explaining why movement conservatives want low turn out elections.
debbie
@Botsplainer:
I can just hear Colson defending Kim Davis! Bet his grandmother would be looking for a securer hiding place.
Chris
At least Carter will have outlived Reagan, Thatcher, and Khomeini.
MattF
Carter was the first recent example of a deliberate right-wing campaign to make a caricature take over the reputation of the actual person. It still happens– right-wing political tactics is still all about constructing a negative narrative about their opponents– but I think the tactic is wearing thin.
ETA: And, to state the obvious, have the media buy into the caricature.
Bruuuuce
Rutgers and sports are a bad combination. At least they got the guys off the team before the game. To be fair, they could have suspended the kids from the team pending convictions. Given the school’s history, I can’t entirely blame them for booting them altogether.
OzarkHillbilly
@MattF:
Ummmm…. You really think only the right does that? That is Politics 101. Just take a quick perusal of Hillary’s latest speech.
MattF
@OzarkHillbilly: Fair point. But I still think there was something novel about what happened to Carter.
OzarkHillbilly
@MattF: THIS was a novel attack ad. And very effective.
mclaren
@EZSmirkzz:
Speaking for myself, 20-something people and teens today aare orders of magnitude better iinformed, more competent and more constructively socially engaged than the boomers were in the 60s. And i was alive in the sixties.
I think young people have a rotten self-image today because of the cannibalistic inhuman levels of competition they face. When I was in high school, a 4.0 gg.p.a. was really something.
Today you need a 4.2 g.p.a.(straight a-pluses) in a.p. advanced courses merely to be considered for a good college.
It’s psychotic. It’s evil. It’s grinding an entire generation into dust. And that’s before you consider the insane cost of a good college today.
If I were a millenial, I’d cut my losses and take poison.
Botsplainer
@Matt McIrvin:
There was a cohort of wingnut converts that made their way in via the OCA (a post Russian Revolution/Cold War construct due to perceptions that ROCOR was compromised by KGB). They tend to be earnest sorts of Midwest and Southern fundamentalists that are more Orthodox than the Patriarch of Constantinople, and are overly enamored of monasticism.
The more ethnic jurisdictions took a couple of hard blows by giving them teaching and the occasional ecclesiastic position, but have now either shunted them off to meaningless chores or even transferred them out to OCA.
Botsplainer
@Cervantes:
Theft. I was very comfortable and could have remained so for the rest of my life, had it not been for them making the entire body of theology ridiculous.
GregB
President Carter is such a decent man.
His moral weight dwarfs the entire Republican field running for President 1000 times over.
Plus I just found out that he approved the use of the Georgia state prison for use in the first version of The Longest Yard.
That alone makes him better than the turd caucus running for the Whitehouse on the R’s side.
Schlemazel
@OzarkHillbilly:
Pasta! I had not thought of Mr. Deity in ages, thanks for the reminder. That is some great work he does. Now I have to go check & see if he has done new tuff in the last decade.
Cervantes
@Chris:
And David Broder!
Raven
@mclaren: yea and that draft is a bitch too
gelfling545
@OzarkHillbilly: True but we could more easily spare some of them than President Carter. Any time will be too soon.
gelfling545
@EZSmirkzz: People who want to make these “the new generation is hopeless” arguments have always existed. We all live in the times we are given & individually do our best or worst or just muddle along in them. We don’t know how this or any other generation would respond to a WWII situation like the “Great” generation for the simple reason that they have not (thanks be to whomever) been presented with one.
I find that many people seem to confuse the “Baby Boom” generation with the “Silent” generation.
Betty Cracker
Wow, reading the anti-voting reform quotes from Reagan via the Perlstein link takes me back. Was there a retrograde cause that bastard didn’t lend his quavering voice and relentlessly sunny with an edge of indignantly optimistic persona to furthering? If there’s a hell, he’s roasting in it. Save a nugget or two for the Gipper, Botsplainer!
nominus
GoFundMe says GoFuckYou news.yahoo.com/no-kim-davis-cant-beg-041235821.html
catclub
Bruce Bartlett thinks trump can win without the Latino vote by getting black votes.
washingtonpost.com/opinions/donald-trump-doesnt-need-latino-voters-to-win-the-nomination/2015/09/04/…
I am not seeing it. He mostly goes back to far history, but has to elide much of recent history.
wilfred
Carter has a better chance of being remembered as a great man than most, if not all, of his contemporaries. He will have earned it.
He and Mondale were the last pre-Lieberman Democrats, the ones who support all ‘progressive’ social issues as long as brown skinned Muslims are killed in the hundreds of thousands. Black lives may matter, but they sure don’t. They do to Carter.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone:)
MomSense
@Elizabelle:
I’ve seen him. Still no Violet, though and no Ruemara. She posted once or twice after a commenter scolded her for being hit and run or something like that. Ugh. Hope they are both well. Miss them.
MattF
@catclub: Bartlett may have forgotten about Trump’s birtherism, but I doubt that black voters have. Minorities have acute sensitivities to dogwhistles.
rikyrah
@catclub:
um……NO
OzarkHillbilly
@MomSense:
I love that complaint. “How dare you have a life.”
Amir Khalid
@catclub:
I’m not seeing it either. Bartlett admits that black Americans despise the Donald just as much as Latino Americans do, and for much the same reason: they know he despises them. No matter how aggressively he campaigns at them, I just can’t see the Donald winning over either bloc.
Zinsky
@sharl: Shari – I consider myself a far-left, social justice Catholic. We believe this notion of a “personal relationship with Christ” is simply a rationalization for selfishness and is completely contrary to the teachings of Christ. Christ taught that we are all part of the “body of Christ” (i.e. Corpus Christi) and the body cannot be healthy when one part is suffering or afflicted. Evangelical Christians, at least a large percentage of them, think the accumulation of wealth and shunning of the poor, the addicted and the homeless, etc. is OK. However, I believe that this is delusional and so far from what Christ taught, that it shouldn’t even be considered Christian.
beth
@nominus:
I’m sensing an opportunity for some industrious tech-minded right wing nut job – Go Fundie Me, anyone?
OzarkHillbilly
Heh: Chart: Almost Every Obama Conspiracy Theory Ever
with explanations for all of them.
Germy Shoemangler
@rikyrah: Trump has a long history of discriminatory housing practices in his properties. He had to pay fines, and still ignored court orders. Also, he took out full page ads during the central park rape case calling for the immediate execution of the “perpetrators” and refused to back down after they were found innocent.
MattF
Q: Does your cat love you?
A: No.
Cervantes
@MomSense:
Last comment I could find:
That was on August 11. Needless to say, I could have missed more recent comments.
Betty Cracker
@MattF: Hoo-boy. Now you’ve done it!
schrodinger's cat
@catclub: First of all what is the percentage of black voters in the Republican primaries?
Germy Shoemangler
@MattF: Our cat has a nightly ritual where she jumps on my bed while I’m reading and bumps her forehead against my chin while purring loudly. Then she bumps and rubs against me, purring. She bumps noses with my wife. Whenever we enter a room where she is sitting, she’ll flip over on her back and stretch, waiting to be petted.
I was away on business for a few days. My son told me she spent most of the time sitting on my chair. When I returned, she seemed excited, writhing on the floor and purring.
I think she loves us.
EZSmirkzz
@mclaren: Not wanting to over generalize too much on the topic, I tend to agree, although I think generational divides are false dichotomies in and of themselves. I think it is fair to look at things as they were 25 or 50 years ago compared to how things are today, and assess the improvements and decadence of individual criterion.
I also think humans tend to categorize over much as a shortcut to thinking too much about the topic at hand. Having grown up in Los Alamos NM during the cold war it shouldn’t surprise anyone that I’m not overly impressed with the assumption of college degrees being indicative of either intelligence, or smart. It isn’t high school dropouts setting policies and defining the cultural and social mores of either the country – as defined by the people we meet and know, or the nation – as defined by our foreign and domestic policies. If something is f’cked up you can bet there is a college degree behind it.
That is not to say that a degree is necessarily a bad thing, but the primary benefit of the college experience is the personal network people develop which serves as a primer and boost to any career, whether one is actually competent in their chosen field or not. It certainly doesn’t seem to inspire any improvement in moral or ethical behavior, and as such serves a secondary purpose of being able to defend oneself from other educated people, which the young, by extension are ill equipped to do until they have been subverted by the educational system and the institutionalized thinking patterns have been stamped into their heads like so many fenders on the next generation of automobile, which is still just a f’cking car.
That being said, no education is wasted, and there are those who will continue to learn until they reach the point of a philosopher and that they understand that they don’t really know anything, or they stop learning, having been educated beyond their intelligence, and presume they know something that everyone else does not, starting with knowing knowledge is one thing that can be given away not only kept, but increased in the doing so.
Me baby? Imma rock ‘n’ roller.
Baud
@wilfred:
And that’s why he had to be primaried by Kennedy.
Cervantes
Hagiography is one thing but there are limits. President Carter, before he became President, was, among other things, a Georgia politician. Look into it and you’ll find things he did that you’re (probably) not comfortable with. I’d say you don’t have to take my word for it — but, really, you can.
All of which is not to say that he did not change; or that he should not be honored: he did, and he most certainly should be. Like everyone else, though, he’s not perfect. I admire him a great deal.
Elizabelle
@MomSense: Didn’t realize Violet and Ruemara were MIA. Oh dear.
Come back, come back, pals.
Schlemazel
@OzarkHillbilly:
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
It does seem selfish.
Just One More Canuck
@MomSense: what thread was that on?
EZSmirkzz
@gelfling545: Agreed.
WaterGirl
@Germy Shoemangler: One of my kitties adores my niece, who usually visits from across country once a year.
Willow hung out on “April’s bed” for weeks after she left, finally going back to her regular spot after 3 weeks. Of course they love us.
Cervantes
@Baud:
I don’t understand your comment.
As previously asserted, a large part of EMK’s motivation in 1980 was due to Carter’s intransigence on national health care. If you accept this assertion, how should I understand your comment?
schrodinger's cat
@MattF: May be your cat doesn’t, but mine do.
Cervantes
@EZSmirkzz:
Henry Kissinger. Charles Murray. Ted Cruz. (I could go on.)
I suppose we could argue that their records prove they were never really educated; or we could define “not wasted” in terms of their own objectives.
MomSense
@Cervantes:
I’m hoping she is just busy and will return at some point.
There is a new dice and card game for the 10-12 and up called PBL Robots (Pro Bionic League).The creators are friends with one of my sons so we have been doing some playing/testing. It’s a fun game and if you have a geek young person in your life, it would be a cool gift. Plus it is really new so the young geek in your life would be impressed that you knew about it before they did.
MomSense
@Just One More Canuck:
It was one of the BLM threads and it was pretty ugly.
Cervantes
@Betty Cracker:
The Harvard comma?
schrodinger's cat
I am reading Nisid Hajari’s book on the partition of India and Pakistan, which got many glowing reviews and am not liking it all. It is riddled with mistakes, has an extremely gossipy tone, with descriptions of the characters that make it sound like a third rate Hollywood screen play. It plays the entire partition saga as a power play between two unlikable protagonists. Has ” insights” like Nehru liked buxom women and Jinnah’s wife wore revealing clothes.
Baud
@Cervantes:
Not to different from your comment. I admire Carter, but it’s not as if he wasn’t regarded by some as the Lieberman of his day.
Matt McIrvin
@Botsplainer:
This bit sounds like the guy I knew. Also, a strong emphasis on literal miracles and their exclusivity to the Orthodox church.
Schlemazel
@Cervantes:
CRAP! You just demolished one of my dearly held beliefs! I have always thought that people are better off if they are educated to understand the world better but I have no response to your point . . .
Germy Shoemangler
hunter s. thompson remembers Jimmy Carter’s Bob Dylan speech (1974)
The other source of my understanding about what’s right and wrong in this society is from a friend of mine, a poet named Bob Dylan. After listening to his records about “The Ballad of Hattie Carol” and “Like a Rolling Stone” and “The Times, They Are a-Changing,” I’ve learned to appreciate the dynamism of change in a modern society.
I grew up as a landowner’s son. But I don’t think I ever realized the proper interrelationship between the landowner and those who worked on a farm until I heard Dylan’s record, “I Ain’t Gonna Work on Maggie’s Farm No More.” So I come here speaking to you today about your subject with a base for my information founded on Reinhold Niebuhr and Bob Dylan.
I remember when Carter won the presidency. What a blast of fresh air after Nixon and his VP.
WaterGirl
@MomSense: I tried to send you an email message on your HM account, but it came back as account expired. :-(
nominus
@beth: I’m sure The Huck already has schemes within schemes. He has to be loving this, he doesn’t even have to do anything this primary season, the lawd just delivered the perfect grifting scheme right to his feet.
OzarkHillbilly
@Schlemazel: Might as well laugh. Especially because the joke is on you (and me, and….)
“God is a stand up comedian playing to an audience that is afraid to laugh”
MomSense
@WaterGirl:
I’ll send you an email. Had to set up a new account.
WereBear
Briefly on wifi at a favorite cafe. My New York plate omelette: salmon, cream cheese, romaine, capers. Spending weekend at lake without Internet. Ten downloaded books so I’m all right.
Gorgeous gorgeous weather in this stretch of the Adirondacks.
Have a Happy all ya’ll !
KS in MA
@Zinsky:
Well said. You have lots of company among Protestants.
Baud
@MomSense:
The NSA finally tracked you down?
Cervantes
@schrodinger’s cat:
Did not like it, either, on the whole.
Some good stuff in it but too many glaring omissions. (Can omissions really be said to be glaring? Or is that an oxymoron?)
Germy Shoemangler
@WereBear: The omelette sounds delicious. And enjoy the weekend. Perfect weather.
We’ll be having a picnic in Congress Park. Last month we enjoyed Shakespeare in the park and many free live concerts.
OzarkHillbilly
@schrodinger’s cat: My cat likes the fact that I feed her. Other than that, not so much. My wife on the other hand, she absolutely adores.
Baud
@Cervantes:
It’s like saying “the silence is deafening.”
MattF
@Botsplainer: Possibly of interest: There’s been recent social science research into how and why societies develop ‘moralizing gods’.
Germy Shoemangler
@Cervantes: I remember Lisa Simpson complaining about Krusty the Clown’s autobiography, calling it “self-serving with many glaring omissions.”
schrodinger's cat
@Cervantes: Can you elaborate, what do you think he should have included.
Germy Shoemangler
@Baud: Reminds me of the Stephen Leacock quote from Nonsense Novels:
“Lord Ronald said nothing; he flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions.”
Doug R
@EZSmirkzz: It’s all demographics, the moralization is just rationalization to explain their luck. A modern Calvinism, if you will. As a late boomer/Gen Xer (’62), there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t resent those smug boomers.
I’m actually impressed with how well the Millennials are coping, as long as they look up from their phones long enough to cross the street safely.
Betty Cracker
@EZSmirkzz:
That’s undoubtedly true for some folks. particularly people who attended ultra-elite colleges with the children of the country’s movers and shakers. But it is way too broad a generalization to apply to college graduates at large. I can assure you the connections I made while obtaining my four-year degree from the state cow college haven’t advanced my career a whit.
What it did early on was convince prospective employers to give me a chance at jobs I wasn’t remotely qualified to perform on the assumption that I could eventually learn the role. I agree 100% that a degree is no indicator or intelligence or moral rectitude. But in the absence of other reliable information, it tells an employer you’re capable of finishing a mildly rigorous program of study.
@Schlemazel: Education, like religion, native intelligence, practical skills, etc., can be used for good or ill. It comes down to individual character, I think.
Cervantes
@schrodinger’s cat:
Sure. If you have the book in front of you, see what the author says about Allama Iqbal.
That’s one example.
schrodinger's cat
@Cervantes: I haven’t yet encountered Iqbal. I have barely read 100 pages so far.
What I find most grating is the moral equivalence between Nehru’s idea of inclusive and pluralistic India and Jinnah’s idea of a homeland solely based on religion.
Just One More Canuck
@MomSense: There seems to be quite a few self appointed blog monitors here
MomSense
@Baud:
I wish. Would be preferable. Say anything about gun control in CD2 and you will be hunted for life.
Cervantes
@Baud:
Yes, that’s an oxymoron — of the paradoxical variety.
Schlemazel
@Betty Cracker:
yeah, evil does as evil is I guess & education is not a cure for that in some people.
Another Holocene Human
@sharl:
From my reading on Patheos, it would seem like the worldwide English-speaking Evangelical movement don’t really recognize what is going on with the American one.
The general lack of overall education and religious education (really!) among Americans also seems to facilitate this trend of big memes and trends in preachering (and grifting) jumping between denominations and philosophies. Ideas like prosperity gospel have been imported to congregations you’d never expect, for example.
I’ve been reading Pimp Preacher but to be honest I saw rumblings in the local paper’s Letters to the Editor years ago, that the Black Church (which, of course, encompasses multiple disparate Protestant denominations and in Louisiana, Catholics too) is being roiled by Prosperity Gospel, George Bush’s Faith-Based Initiative, and other systems from white Protestant churches designed to fleece the flock rather than nurture them.
White Evangelicals seem like some of the most religiously uneducated people you will meet. They aren’t educated because that might lead to questioning, but they end up quitting anyway because their churches went whole hog into politics and the culture wars and it turns young people off. Some of them have a great facility with the English language and have been taught some apologetics, but they know more about the obedience gospel their church beat into them than Christianity, imo. Their churches use secular marketing techniques to attempt to keep youth engaged and reel more in. But in a few years they abandon “The Real Thing” for another brand.
Elizabelle
@WereBear: Enjoy!!! Low tech reading is good.
Cervantes
@schrodinger’s cat:
Just don’t hold your breath!
Guy used to write for things like Newsweek — and it shows.
Anyhow, it was a complicated story, as you know, and at this point I’m resigned to not having one definitive version.
EZSmirkzz
@Cervantes: Given your sample we undoubtedly would have lower the bar and narrow the focus of the remark. I should add that while I think Kissinger is a war criminal, I don’t discount his observations out of hand as I do with the other two.
I grew up cutting a bruised spot out of an apple and then eating the rest of it, and so with people. I don’t think we should throw people away because of a bad spot, ( as in criminal justice reforms please,) although with Henry I’m thinking we may be whittling it down to the core.
Another Holocene Human
@Botsplainer: Or at least to get your football team into the end zone.
Baud
@MomSense:
Goddamn Bernie supporters.
(I’m kidding)
In all seriousness, take care of yourself.
satby
@KS in MA: Recovering Catholic, but I agree too.
The “faith, not works” parts of Evangelism is especially galling to me, because those believers always turn out to be the most selfish, greedy, and integrity-free people I have ever run into.
Another Holocene Human
@Elizabelle:
Villago posted two days ago on Wonkette.com.
schrodinger's cat
@Cervantes: I know what you mean. I remember reading an article or may be it was a blog post, where he blames India’ pre-Independence leadership for Pakistan’s current problems. He particularly is unhappy with Gandhi.
Hajari is argues that, India’s leaders should have left all of Punjab and all of Bengal to the tender mercies of Pakistan.
EZSmirkzz
@Doug R: I don’t think resenting them does me any good, nor them any harm, and given the current political horse manuring I’m not at all sure that persuasive arguments will work anymore either. What I think I can do is is encourage younger people to not give up on themselves or their country, and in doing so perhaps correcting the policies of their nation. As this and other blogs make clear, we’re all doing what we can.
satby
And in other news, I have officially decided I’m nuts.
WTF was I thinking???
But the room is getting there… rest of the house, not so much.
Another Holocene Human
@mclaren:
And their job prospects are bad. Boomers never had it so bad, maybe the late boomers if they came out of grad school into the 1980 recession had a blip (GenX had it a lot worse, but some of that cohort got very, very lucky too), but even so, they didn’t have the debt, or the soul crushing competition. When the Boomers came through, their parents expanded the schools, paved the way for them. Millennials are being told to gear up for community college, or that their school underperformed and they have to be bused, even though MILLENNIALS TEST SCORES ARE HIGHER THAN BOOMERS EVER WERE.
It’s gross.
raven
WASHINGTON — Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) on Sunday announced that after some “emotional soul-searching,” she had decided to support the pending Iran nuclear deal.
satby
@raven: That’s big of her.
Hope you’re feeling better.
Cervantes
@EZSmirkzz:
The problem with his “obervations” is that so few of them are honest or candid, especially when they involve him in some way. Early on, with his superiors, he was always dishonestly angling for privilege. Now, of course, with so many murders to his name, it’s a matter of lying for posterity’s sake. I’ve known him for a very long time and have never once felt that he can really be trusted.
Possibly amusing aside: His consulting firm, Kissinger Associates, has been recruiting in elite universities for about thirty years. At one time the posters they used to put up (asking students to attend interviews) were quite efficient, possibly too efficient:
Tongue in cheek? Maybe … but come to think of it, it’s the closest thing to honesty I ever saw from Hank.
Another Holocene Human
@Raven: Why draft when economic desperation forces the underclass to sign up and go to war utterly unprepared and underequipped, side by side with people who wouldn’t have been accepted in a previous generation or people who are serving to finish out a prison sentence?
And now that they’re back and nobody will help them with SHIT they can blame themselves for walking into that recruiting office, I mean nobody made them do that, right?
I know someone who helped a friend AWOL. The rest of his unit got mowed down within months of deploy. They weren’t fucking adequately trained. Ignorant, desperately poor country boys who I guess can’t survive when they’re facing machine guns and IEDs in the Middle East.
sukabi
@MattF: the media HELPS construct it, and gleefully disseminates it.
Cervantes
@satby:
I will say it again: you are a mensch.
(In a manner of speaking.)
I trust you will have a great year (or so) with them!
raven
@Another Holocene Human: Uh, so you know smart city boys that can “survive”machine gun fire and IED’s?
Cervantes
@raven:
I wondered at that.
Another Holocene Human
@WereBear:
Lettuce in an omelette? Oo la la, they shore do things differently in the big city.
raven
@Cervantes:
Botsplainer
@Matt McIrvin:
I shit you not, those converts are the sort that pray before they fuck. I know a lovely Greek woman who made the mistake of marrying one. She tried, but the sex, never very frequent or very fun in the first place, dwindled to nothing after 3 years of marriage. After that, zero sex for five years, but they made every single service, even the Lent cycles. She got smart and tossed in the towel, and found somebody more suitable. These days, he makes himself scarce and writes anti-Muslim blog pieces.
EZSmirkzz
@Betty Cracker: I can’t say that I disagree with anything you’ve said, noting that you move from the specific to the general in your reply, while I had spoken in general. I don’t have any kicks against colleges, or college degrees.
In fact there is a lot to be learned from teachers and administrators of universities, and in general they are the most sharing of people with their knowledge, and insights, as you will find, all conveniently located for the curious. You don’t even have to enroll if you are looking for an education, only if you are seeking the degree.
I wouldn’t want to venture a guess at how many enrollees are there for the degree as opposed to the education like President C+ either. But yes, I did over-generalize.
MattF
@Cervantes: FWIW, I think that Kissinger was primarily Nixon’s tool and has to be seen in that light. K, alone, never had the political heft to be a second Bismarck– and he never found another soulmate like Nixon– but Nixon/Kissinger was a formidable combination.
Doug R
@OzarkHillbilly: They earned it.
srv
@Elizabelle: Whut? Villago was on the last thread. ruemara was around a month ago.
In other news, being as honest and sincere as possible on this blog, I will admit Trump does troll on occassion. But he does it for the laughs:
All that liberal shrieking you hear is worth it. Trump will pick someone much more skilled. Perhaps Liz Cheney.
Mandalay
@raven:
Or more precisely, she hid under the blankets until it was clear which way the vote would go, and then threw her support to the winning side.
MattF
@srv: Trump/Cheney would be… special.
srv
@Cervantes: Flailing at monsters under the bed again?
Henry is/was the most rational SecState this country ever had. Here’s a recent interview.
It’s funny how hippies grew up about so much, voted for Reagan, but still can’t get over Henry.
satby
@Cervantes: Thanks, I intend that we will to the best of my ability. So long as they don’t expire from shock on the first day ?
Anyway, lunch is over, so off I go.
JPL
@srv: Sarah preaches states rights but what about the rights of those that live down wind, from polluters. I assume Jake didn’t ask her about that.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
For those of you wondering who would win the coveted Palin primary, Jake Tapper, VSP, also thought that was a question worth asking on his Sunday Show (I wonder how his ratings compare to Chuck Todd’s):
JPL
Sorry if this has been mentioned but Fox News corrected Cheney’s bullshit about centrifuges in Iran and who was President at the time.
Cheney should only do interviews with Jake or chuck because they don’t challenge the bullshit.
Another Holocene Human
@satby:
If you talk to a Rabbi about religion, the term “halachic duty” or “halachic obligation” will come up pretty frequently. The term Chosen People could be as self-centered as this whole Justified By Jebus nonsense but in mainstream Judaism it imposed religious obligations, including the obligation to take care of the poor, and not just the Jewish poor. Jewish law even has specific rules about this obligation, so you can’t go libertarian and spin up some nonsense about how your selfish act is helping the poor. You have to materially help them. Money. FOOD.
When Luther was ranting “By faith alone are you saved!” it was in a context where corrupt Church officials were implying that you could buy salvation for a fee, ie, through “works”. It seems like Calvin came up with the philosophy that was twisted into “sin doesn’t matter”. (When Calvin was given some political power he set about trying to stamp out sin by any means necessary, so it would be wrong to say he advocated this view himself.)
Calvinist churches have always downplayed basic religious obligations of Christianity, including the Great Commission. From the earliest days of Christianity there was a clear religious obligation to share your wealth with the community. It’s not so much that giving alms is your salvation, but that if you’re a believer, giving alms is what you do.
My point is that there is an idiotic conflation going on between the notion of religious salvation and what this religion demands of believers. Free Market Jesus doesn’t require believers to lift a finger. Well, except to help the pastor, wouldn’t want him driving around in anything less than an Escalade and being embarrassed around the other preachers, would ya?
PurpleGirl
@Zinsky: Evangelical is supposed to mean “announcing the good news” of new life in Christ. Those contemporary Christianists who want to afflict the afflicted, the poor and downtrodden aren’t announcing the good news and they aren’t spreading the gospel. The message is supposed to inclusive.
That’s why the progressive, liberal synods of American Lutheranism when they merged named themselves the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). Dr. Tiller was a member at an ELCA congregation, where he was killed. For a few years when I was an active Lutheran, I was in the group that took my congregation out of the Missouri Synod and into ELCA.
Just my two cents.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
And on the fourth day, god took a carbon dump. Also, too
On which network was the man who wanted to put her a heartbeat away from the Oval Office calling for a re-invasion of Iraq?
Another Holocene Human
@raven: Emotions and soul, two lies in one phrase, that’s efficient.
High score on Nintendo’s Liars’ Poker is hers for sure.
EZSmirkzz
@Cervantes: So Henry’s a bonifide asshole. That doesn’t detract from his intelligence or smarts, or his ability to weld his education like a club, which was my point. Given our current economic mess he should be indicted for opening the door to China, (tongue firmly in cheek.)
If you gather enough information from other sources on any given topic or policy that he advocates you can glean some useful insights. For instance I think it is fair to say he is concerned more with order than liberty as are most conservatives, and thus they are anti-democratic because democracy is by definition disorderly. This is the arc of conservatism, whether it manifests itself as militarism, racism, and any other number of isms used by conservatives to divide and conquer and thus impose order on the people. Hello Augustus!
PurpleGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: I guess, then, that I’m a hit-and-run commenter too. I often have to leave a thread and am not here to answer something someone wrote back to me. And, yes, I do have a life apart of Balloon Juice.
Another Holocene Human
@raven:
Well, look at the stats, they’re getting mowed down right here at home.
Ruckus
@satby:
They may have been looking for something to rationalize their behavior/personalities. Having “god” give your life the thumbs up could be just the thing they need to justify their assholyness.
Cervantes
@EZSmirkzz:
Sure. As I said to begin with, if we want to conclude that he is educated and that his education was not wasted, we can define “not wasted” in terms of his objectives. (Even there it’s a mixed record, as that Wall in DC attests, but then again, even there, it would appear he did achieve some of his objectives.)
No question.
gelfling545
@Another Holocene Human:
And actually I’d wager that many atheists know more.
Cervantes
@srv:
You’re right that Kissinger is a monster.
Don’t know about that — but I’ve never seen him as irrational.
What are you trying to say here?
Ruckus
@gelfling545:
As many have stated, the reason they became atheists was because they actually studied religion. And found it woefully lacking for them in many, many ways.
Ruckus
@Cervantes:
What are you trying to say here?
Nothing that makes any sense or is tied to reality?
John M. Burt
@Botsplainer: Your description of your Orthodox congregation reminds me of a very happy moment from the childhood of my three Ethiopian children — when we took them to a nearby big city, where a Russian church was hosting an Easter vigil. The priest would give the call in Russian, and the assembled would give the response in all of their languages.
It was a sufficiently memorable experience for me as their Quaker father that I swiped it for my first novel, The Christmas Mutiny. With the help of a local Orthodox clergyman I accumulated the correct phrases for that scene in a great many languages, including Mongol.
As for what’s on the schedule for today, my wife and I are attending our writers’ group and also helping someone move out of her current home and into one which is a fixed dwelling place with a non-dirt floor.
gelfling545
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Not great with English either.
wilfred
@Ruckus:
The atheists didn’t want any idealist conscience inhibiting running up the body counts – Nazis, Stalinists, Khmer Rouge, et al. have done pretty well I’d say.
sukabi
@raven: wonder if that included a very firm “if you don’t support this deal you can start looking for another post” encouragement.
Another Holocene Human
@gelfling545:
There are two big groups of atheists in the US–people who weren’t raised with any religion (family might have been christian, jewish, etc) and thus are only passingly familiar with Christian teachings because of the culture, and people who apostatized out of their birth religion. Of the latter, most of them left more authoritarian flavors, and most of them just by numbers will be Christians. (A lot more just leave for more liberal congregations.) And of those, a very good number studied their holy texts and commentaries much more assiduously and thoroughly than their contemporaries. It’s usually a big factor in why they quit.
dww44
@Cervantes: I was around and voting in 1970 when he ran a successful campaign for governor and while he did play the race card against Carl Sanders, in his inaugural speech as governor in January of 1971:
Actually, the only time I ever personally met Jimmy Carter was on that 1970 campaign trail. He always came across, even then, as a thoroughly decent and honorable man, notwithstanding that to lesser or greater degrees we are all a product of our “raisin”.
By way of saying that to get elected he was not going to let on how liberal he really was nor was he going to disavow the support of marquee segregationist politicians. I remember being personally shocked, in a good way, at the about face he pulled off in that inaugural speech.
Nutella
@Another Holocene Human:
Which is funny when you think that Protestantism used to be defined by a protest against Catholic clericalism, that is, that each congregant would read and interpret the Bible themselves rather than wait for the clerics to tell them what to believe.
John M. Burt
@Cervantes: I would not expect anyone who voted for Reagan to have enough awareness to despise Kissinger, even though he was and is an even greater moral monster than Reagan.
I am glad Kissinger is still alive, because so long as he is still flying around the world sowing wicked ideas, there is still a chance that his plane will make an emergency landing in one of the growing number of countries where there is a warrant out for his arrest.
Wilfred@146, surely Hitler and Pol Pot are two outstanding examples of leaders with a strong idealist conscience. It was their idealism which enabled them to see only the glorious future world of beautiful Aryans / contented peasants and ignore the horrors going on around them.
Another Holocene Human
@gelfling545: Hm, thought of something else. I used to lurk in the atheist–vs–fundy wars online and there are a number of atheists who read the Bible because what the hell and then quote it back to fundies to show them how stupid it is. Fundies are pretty ignorant sorts, so this could go on for days, but the atheists were unaware, or didn’t care–since it was fundies, and not others, who were trolling them–that you don’t get a clear picture of any flavor of Big Iron Christian theology (and certainly not practice) from the Bible. That it’s just not the explain-all text, although various flavors of Christianity are big on certain parts of the text.
Fundies come out up front stating the Bible is inerrant, but not all Christians believe this. So your typical atheist troll baiting cant about Biblical contradictions is just irrelevant to someone who thinks the text is inspired but flawed.
Mandalay
Pope Francis walks the walk:
He will be criticized for not doing enough no matter what he does, but no single person’s actions can solve the refugee crisis in Europe, and Pope Francis is setting an example for others to follow.
Nutella
@Another Holocene Human:
Partly true. We did have tough competition for jobs since there were so many of us. We were more lucky than we knew, though, only having to deal with the difficulties of finding jobs without huge college debt looming over us as well.
Another Holocene Human
@Nutella: The problem is that the Bible is pretty patriarchal any way you slice it. :(
I was going to say, some of those fundy home churches roll their own, but there are a lot of study guides and stuff out there. Jumping around from book to book in the bible cherry picking verses out of context is very popular these days. Even without the obscurantism of KJV, if you take out one verse from a longer discourse you can make it mean about anything.
In reality the really fundy churches all have gurus. Gothard’s one of the most infamous right now but there are many others.
Fundy-lite and non fundy evangelical doesn’t have to be airhead church but boy does it resemble it these days. I had to go to a SBC church a couple of years ago, talk about shallow. It was all about what he and she wore to church, and whose kids were in the music group. Verses projected on the big screens for praise and worship. Everything everyone’s ever mocked about church all in one package. I don’t even remember why I was there, maybe my wife had a gig.
Another Holocene Human
@Nutella:
Private sector unions were still a thing. Union participation was higher. The stock market was “boring”. “Take this job and shove it” there’s another one down the street. My dad marveled that one of his friends came out of college and got a blue collar job that paid better than the white collar field he was trained in. It was that sort of time.
I read “Rubyfruit Jungle” when I was in college. The protagonist goes to the big city with nothing, makes rent with sex work until she can get a shitty waitress job, then pays her tuition at film school with her tip income. At one point she constructively quits her job by assaulting a slimeball patron who was bothering another girl.
It read like science fiction.
Another Holocene Human
@wilfred: Really? You’re going to start this nonsense here?
Extra troll points for conflating fascists and communists, brah. NSDAP was pro-atheism? Please show your work.
Another Holocene Human
@Ruckus:
There was a research study about ten years ago that purported that asking a deity for forgiveness instead of other people made you more selfish over time.
No wonder young ex-evangelicals cited “church people” as one of the number one reasons they left.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Betty Cracker: Well said.
These days, with the effective unemployment rate so [high], it’s a screening tool – not for an illustration of the knowledge gained – but as a check box. It’s too often a hurdle just to get past the 0-th order screening. It’s not a prerequisite for competence.
The Y-12 plant produced the uranium for the first atomic bomb:
Cheers,
Scott.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Betty Cracker: Grr. Help? A reply got thrown in the dungeon due to an edit.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
John M. Burt
@EZSmirkzz: “I grew up cutting a bruised spot out of an apple and then eating the rest of it, and so with people.”
I cut the bad parts out of apples when I’m squeezing them for cider, but some apples are just too far gone to bother with, and I just chuck the whole thing. Going with your analogy, Kissinger is definitely one to toss directly into the compost bucket.
A gruesome image, but all the more appropriate for the American Pol Pot.
Another Holocene Human @156: Shout out to you for mentioning Rubyfruit Jungle. Strange strange to be thinking of the early 1970s as the Good Old Days. Then again, think of Molly Bolt as she would be today: lawfully married and the successful producer/director of a TV series about a crime-solving cat….
Cervantes
@John M. Burt:
I like your song-list, “Music of the Wartime Period.”
For the next edition consider adding this one: “The Bells of Hell Go Ting-a-ling-a-ling.”
It’s one of my favorites — not that this should sway you!
WaterGirl
@MomSense: I will look for your email! thanks
Ruckus
@wilfred:
What the fuck are you talking about?
sm*t cl*de
@MattF:
That study is a inadvertently hilarious misuse of Attachment Theory, and I approve.
Porlock Junior
@OzarkHillbilly:
A great-uncle of mine, who was a Congregatonal minister, had a favorite little rhyme:
The rain it raineth on the just,
And also on the unjust fella.
But mostly on the just, because
The unjust stole the just’s umbrella.
Porlock Junior
@Chris:
Well, that’s 3 large Guinea worms right there!
Porlock Junior
@Germy Shoemangler:
Thanks. The last phrase is familiar, but I’ve never seen anyone give the citation.
Sondraa
@OzarkHillbilly:
Bravo – love it and I’m going to use sometime in the future .