Monday, March 31, 2008

The Praxis of Cross Carrying as it Relates to Peace

This past Sunday at Mass, Father Matt preached a homily that began with various examples of contradictions in the New Testament and then proceeded to talk about Jesus' utter consistency on non-violence - "...turn the other cheek..."(Matt 5:39). Father boldly stated that the Church, for the past 1700 years, has dropped the ball on Jesus' ethic of peace. He did not deny that we all want peace - and most especially George W - but that most of us are not willing to carry the cross necessary for peace. I assume he means that most of us are not willing to say "No" to violence as a means of settling disputes on a global scale - or at least require our leaders to.

It's hard telling though because not a word was mentioned on the praxis of carrying the cross of non-violence, i.e., what's it look like? I have a feeling that the rousing applause that ensued as soon as Father finished talking would have been a little less enthusiastic if he'd been a little more specific. My parish likes to think of itself as really radical, and they like to think they've got the inside scoop on what Jesus really meant while the hierarchy all the way up to the Pope are just curmudgeonly old men who love to oppress the laity, forget about the poor, and keep women and same-sex desired (SSD) folks down. You'd think I was joking, but it's almost that simple (despite all this I believe most are good folks anyway).

You might think with all the above being said I wholeheartedly disagree with what Fr. Matt preached. Not exactly. What I disagree with is what I believe to be his pandering to the parishes' sensibilities while letting them off the hook when it comes to specifics. It's one thing to say we're against the war, or violence in all forms, it's quite another to really try and live it.

I'm reminded of the legendary story in which Henry David Thoreau winds up in jail for not paying his taxes as a protest against the Mexican-American War. While in jail Ralph Waldo Emerson says, "Henry, what are you doing in there?" To which Thoreau replied, "Ralph, what are you doing out there?"

See, I feel like if you're really going to carry your cross then you need to really make it hurt. If you don't want to support the war, or our government, then you do all you can to not suck off its teats, and certainly not paying your taxes would be a real sign of your lack of support. Or, how 'bout getting rid of 501(c)3 status so the Church can really separate itself from the Government's support...if we really want to carry our crosses. And, finally, what about just simply learning to live off the land ...off the grid so to speak.

Had Fr. Matt said the above, or that we needed to get going down this road so we can put our money where our mouth is, I would have stood up and applauded - because that's when we're really going to be living consistently for peace (at least in our little corner of the world). Until that time, talking about peace and hatin' on Bush and Cheney ain't going to do a thing but make Volvo-driving-NPR-listing-gourmet-coffee-drinking-baby-boomers get nostalgic for the good ol' days.

Sunday, March 30, 2008

Goverment Regulations


"The Lord's Prayer is 66 words, the Gettysburg Address is 286 words, and there are 1,322 words in the Declaration of Independence. Yet, government regulations on the sale of cabbage total 26,911 words." - David McIntosh

Royals player Joey Gathright goes Car Jumping

Friday, March 28, 2008

C.S. Lewis on Priestesses



I found this provocative (among a certain set at least) article linked to on 3rd Blog from the Right. Kinda wondered what your thoughts were.


Priestesses in the Church?


by C.S. Lewis

"I should like balls infinitely better," said Caroline Bingley, "if they were carried on in a different manner ... It would surely be much more rational if conversation instead of dancing made the order of the day."

"Much more rational, I dare say," replied her brother, "but it would not be near so much like a Ball." We are told that the lady was silenced: yet it could be maintained that Jane Austen has not allowed Bingley to put forward the full strength of his position. He ought to have replied with a distinguo. In one sense, conversation is more rational, for conversation may exercise the reason alone, dancing does not. But there is nothing irrational in exercising other powers than our reason. On certain occasions and for certain purposes the real irrationality is with those who will not do so. The man who would try to break a horse or write a poem or beget a child by pure syllogizing would be an irrational man; though at the same time syllogizing is in itself a more rational activity than the activities demanded by these achievements. It is rational not to reason, or not to limit oneself to reason, in the wrong place; and the more rational a man is the better he knows this.

These remarks are not intended as a contribution to the criticism of Pride and Prejudice. They came into my head when I heard that the Church of England was being advised to declare women capable of Priests' Orders. I am, indeed, informed that such a proposal is very unlikely to be seriously considered by the authorities. To take such a revolutionary step at the present moment, to cut ourselves off from the Christian past and to widen the divisions between ourselves and other Churches by establishing an order of priestesses in our midst, would be an almost wanton degree of imprudence. And the Church of England herself would be torn in shreds by the operation. My concern with the proposal is of a more theoretical kind. The question involves something even deeper than a revolution in order.

I have every respect for those who wish women to be priestesses. I think they are sincere and pious and sensible people. Indeed, in a way they are too sensible. That is where my dissent from them resembles Bingley's dissent from his sister. I am tempted to say that the proposed arrangement would make us much more rational "but not near so much like a Church".

For at first sight all the rationality (in Caroline Bingley's sense) is on the side of the innovators. We are short of priests. We have discovered in one profession after another that women can do very well all sorts of things which were once supposed to be in the power of men alone. No one among those who dislike the proposal is maintaining that women are less capable than men of piety, zeal, learning and whatever else seems necessary for the pastoral office. What, then, except prejudice begotten by tradition, forbids us to draw on the huge reserves which could pour into the priesthood if women were here, as in so many other professions, put on the same footing as men? And against this flood of common sense, the opposers (many of them women) can produce at first nothing but an inarticulate distaste, a sense of discomfort which they themselves find it hard to analyse.

That this reaction does not spring from any contempt for women is, I think, plain from history. The Middle Ages carried their reverence for one Woman to a point at which the charge could be plausibly made that the Blessed Virgin became in their eyes almost "a fourth Person of the Trinity". But never, so far as I know, in all those ages was anything remotely resembling a sacerdotal office attributed to her. All salvation depends on the decision which she made in the words Ecce ancilla; she is united in nine months' inconceivable intimacy with the eternal Word; she stands at the foot of the cross. But she is absent both from the Last Supper and from the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost. Such is the record of Scripture. Nor can you daff it aside by saying that local and temporary conditions condemned women to silence and private life. There were female preachers. One man had four daughters who all "prophesied", i.e. preached. There were prophetesses even in Old Testament times. Prophetesses, not priestesses.

At this point the common sensible reformer is apt to ask why, if women can preach, they cannot do all the rest of a priest's work. This question deepens the discomfort of my side. We begin to feel that what really divides us from our opponents is a difference between the meaning which they and we give to the word "priest". The more they speak (and speak truly) about the competence of women in administration, their tact and sympathy as advisers, their national talent for "visiting", the more we feel that the central thing is being forgotten. To us a priest is primarily a representative, a double representative, who represents us to God and God to us. Our very eyes teach us this in church. Sometimes the priest turns his back on us and faces the East - he speaks to God for us: sometimes he faces us and speaks to us for God. We have no objection to a woman doing the first: the whole difficulty is about the second. But why? Why should a woman not in this sense represent God? Certainly not because she is necessarily, or even probably, less holy or less charitable or stupider than a man. In that sense she may be as "God-like" as a man; and a given women much more so than a given man. The sense in which she cannot represent God will perhaps be plainer if we look at the thing the other way round.

Suppose the reformer stops saying that a good woman may be like God and begins saying that God is like a good woman. Suppose he says that we might just as well pray to "Our Mother which art in heaven" as to "Our Father". Suppose he suggests that the Incarnation might just as well have taken a female as a male form, and the Second Person of the Trinity be as well called the Daughter as the Son. Suppose, finally, that the mystical marriage were reversed, that the Church were the Bridegroom and Christ the Bride. All this, as it seems to me, is involved in the claim that a woman can represent God as a priest does.

Now it is surely the case that if all these supposals were ever carried into effect we should be embarked on a different religion. Goddesses have, of course, been worshipped: many religions have had priestesses. But they are religions quite different in character from Christianity. Common sense, disregarding the discomfort, or even the horror, which the idea of turning all our theological language into the feminine gender arouses in most Christians, will ask "Why not? Since God is in fact not a biological being and has no sex, what can it matter whether we say He or She, Father or Mother, Son or Daughter?"

But Christians think that God Himself has taught us how to speak of Him. To say that it does not matter is to say either that all the masculine imagery is not inspired, is merely human in origin, or else that, though inspired, it is quite arbitrary and unessential. And this is surely intolerable: or, if tolerable, it is an argument not in favour of Christian priestesses but against Christianity. It is also surely based on a shallow view of imagery. Without drawing upon religion, we know from our poetical experience that image and apprehension cleave closer together than common sense is here prepared to admit; that a child who has been taught to pray to a Mother in Heaven would have a religious life radically different from that of a Christian child. And as image and apprehension are in an organic unity, so, for a Christian, are human body and human soul.

The innovators are really implying that sex is something superficial, irrelevant to the spiritual life. To say that men and women are equally eligible for a certain profession is to say that for the purposes of that profession their sex is irrelevant. We are, within that context, treating both as neuters.

As the State grows more like a hive or an ant-hill it needs an increasing number of workers who can be treated as neuters. This may be inevitable for our secular life. But in our Christian life we must return to reality. There we are not homogeneous units, but different and complementary organs of a mystical body. Lady Nunburnholme has claimed that the equality of men and women is a Christian principle. I do not remember the text in scripture nor the Fathers, nor Hooker, nor the Prayer Book which asserts it; but that is not here my point. The point is that unless "equal" means "interchangeable", equality makes nothing for the priesthood of women. And the kind of equality which implies that the equals are interchangeable (like counters or identical machines) is, among humans, a legal fiction. It may be a useful legal fiction. But in church we turn our back on fictions. One of the ends for which sex was created was to symbolize to us the hidden things of God. One of the functions of human marriage is to express the nature of the union between Christ and the Church. We have no authority to take the living and semitive figures which God has painted on the canvas of our nature and shift them about as if they were mere geometrical figures.

This is what common sense will call "mystical". Exactly. The Church claims to be the bearer of a revelation. If that claim is false then we want not to make priestesses but to abolish priests. If it is true, then we should expect to find in the Church an element which unbelievers will call irrational and which believers will call supra-rational. There ought to be something in it opaque to our reason though not contrary to it - as the facts of sex and sense on the natural level are opaque. And that is the real issue. The Church of England can remain a church only if she retains this opaque element. If we abandon that, if we retain only what can be justified by standards of prudence and convenience at the bar of enlightened common sense, then we exchange revelation for that old wraith Natural Religion.

It is painful, being a man, to have to assert the privilege, or the burden, which Christianity lays upon my own sex. I am crushingly aware how inadequate most of us are, in our actual and historical individualities, to fill the place prepared for us. But it is an old saying in the army that you salute the uniform not the wearer. Only one wearing the masculine uniform can (provisionally, and till the Parousia) represent the Lord to the Church: for we are all, corporately and individually, feminine to Him. We men may often make very bad priests. That is because we are insufficiently masculine. It is no cure to call in those who are not masculine at all. A given man may make a very bad husband; you cannot mend matters by trying to reverse the roles. He may make a bad male partner in a dance. The cure for that is that men should more diligently attend dancing classes; not that the ballroom should henceforward ignore distinctions of sex and treat all dancers as neuter. That would, of course, be eminently sensible, civilized, and enlightened, but, once more, "not near so much like a Ball".

And this parallel between the Church and the Ball is not so fanciful as some would think. The Church ought to be more like a Ball than it is like a factory or a political party. Or, to speak more strictly, they are at the circumference and the Church at the Centre and the Ball comes in between. The factory and the political party are artificial creations - "a breath can make them as a breath has made". In them we are not dealing with human beings in their concrete entirety only with "hands" or voters. I am not of course using "artificial" in any derogatory sense. Such artifices are necessary: but because they are our artifices we are free to shuffle, scrap and experiment as we please. But the Ball exists to stylize something which is natural and which concerns human beings in their entirety - namely, courtship. We cannot shuffle or tamper so much. With the Church, we are farther in: for there we are dealing with male and female not merely as facts of nature but as the live and awful shadows of realities utterly beyond our control and largely beyond our direct knowledge. Or rather, we are not dealing with them but (as we shall soon learn if we meddle) they are dealing with us.

Monday, March 24, 2008

Progress?

From the Kansas City Star.

Fist you think Guitar Hero is so gay. This one is for you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0DHSk7SF2A

Do we really want a Republican for pres?

George W. Bush: accomplishments as president
* Attacked and took over two countries.
* Spent the surplus and bankrupted the treasury.
* Shattered record for biggest annual deficit in history.
* Set economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 12 month period.
* Set all-time record for biggest drop in the history of the stock market.
* First president in decades to execute a federal prisoner.
* First president in US history to enter office with a criminal record.
* First year in office set the all-time record for most days on vacation by any president in US history.
* After taking the entire month of August off for vacation, presided over the worst security failure in US history.
* Set the record for most campaign fund-raising trips than any other president in US history.
* In my first two years in office over 2 million Americans lost their job.
*Cut unemployment benefits for more out of work Americans than any president in US history.
* Set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a 12 month period.
* Appointed more convicted criminals to administration positions than any president in US history.
* Set the record for the least amount of press conferences than any president since the advent of television.
* Signed more laws and executive orders amending the Constitution than any president in US history.
* Presided over the biggest energy crises in US history and refused to intervene when corruption was revealed.
* Presided over the highest gasoline prices in US history and refused to use the national reserves as past presidents have.
* Cut healthcare benefits for war veterans.
* Set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously take to the streets to protest me (15 million people), shattering the record for protest against any person in the history of mankind.
* Dissolved more international treaties than any president in US history.
* My presidency is the most secretive and un-accountable of any in US history.
* Members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in US history. (the 'poorest' multi-millionaire, Condoleeza Rice has an Exxon oil tanker named after her).
* First president in US history to have all 50 states of the Union simultaneously go bankrupt.
* Presided over the biggest corporate stock market fraud of any market in any country in the history of the world.
* First president in US history to order a US attack and military occupation of a sovereign nation.
* Created the largest government department bureaucracy in the history of the United States.
* Set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending increases, more than any president in US history.
* First president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the human rights commission.
* First president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the elections monitoring board.
* Removed more checks and balances, and have the least amount of congressional oversight than any presidential administration in US history.
* Rendered the entire United Nations irrelevant.
* Withdrew from the World Court of Law.
* Refused to allow inspectors access to US prisoners of war and by default no longer abide by the Geneva Conventions.
* First president in US history to refuse United Nations election inspectors (during the 2002 US elections).
* All-time US (and world) record holder for most corporate campaign donations.
* My biggest life-time campaign contributor presided over one of the largest corporate bankruptcy frauds in world history (Kenneth Lay, former CEO of Enron Corporation).
* Spent more money on polls and focus groups than any president in US history.
* First president in US history to unilaterally attack a sovereign nation against the will of the United Nations and the world community.
* First president to run and hide when the US came under attack (and then lied saying the enemy had the code to Air Force 1)
* First US president to establish a secret shadow government.
* Took the biggest world sympathy for the US after 911, and in less than a year made the US the most resented country in the world (possibly the biggest diplomatic failure in US and world history).
* With a policy of 'dis-engagement' created the most hostile Israeli-Palestine relations in at least 30 years.
* First US president in history to have a majority of the people of Europe (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and stability.
* First US president in history to have the people of South Korea more threatened by the US than their immediate neighbor, North Korea.
* Changed US policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.
* Set all-time record for number of administration appointees who violated US law by not selling huge investments in corporations bidding for government contracts.
* Failed to fulfill my pledge to get Osama Bin Laden 'dead or alive'.
* Failed to capture the anthrax killer who tried to murder the leaders of our country at the United States Capital building. After 18 months I have no leads and zero suspects.
* In the 18 months following the 911 attacks I have successfully prevented any public investigation into the biggest security failure in the history of the United States.
* Removed more freedoms and civil liberties for Americans than any other president in US history.
* In a little over two years created the most divided country in decades, possibly the most divided the US has ever been since the civil war.
* Entered office with the strongest economy in US history and in less than two years turned every single economic category heading straight down.

Please fellow canteeners let us think twice before we vote yet another republican into office. If not for our sakes but for our childrens sake.

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Dutch


With all the political talk lately, I thought it fitting to reflect on some quotes from a true great.


  • My philosophy of life is that if we make up our mind what we are going to make of our lives, then work hard toward that goal, we never lose - somehow we win out.

  • Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence.

  • We should declare war on North Vietnam. We could pave the whole country and put parking strips on it, and still be home by Christmas.

  • They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong.

  • Some people wonder all their lives if they've made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem.

  • If the federal government had been around when the Creator was putting His hand to this state, Indiana wouldn't be here. It'd still be waiting for an environmental impact statement.

  • Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged.

  • Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.

  • We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.

- Ronald Reagan

Who's This Guy?

Friday, March 21, 2008

Is this an Accurate Assessment of Obama's Speech?

Justifying a Scandalous Dereliction

By Charles Krauthammer

The beauty of a speech is that you don't just give the answers, you
provide your own questions. "Did I ever hear him make remarks that could
be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes." So said Barack
Obama, in his Philadelphia speech about his pastor, friend, mentor, and
spiritual adviser of 20 years, Jeremiah Wright.

An interesting, if belated, admission. But the more important question
is: which "controversial" remarks?

Wright's assertion from the pulpit that the U.S. government invented the
HIV virus "as a means of genocide against people of color"? Wright's
claim that America was morally responsible for 9/11 - "chickens coming
home to roost" - because of, among other crimes, Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
(Obama says he missed church that day. Had he never heard about it?)

What about the charge that the U.S. government (of Franklin Roosevelt,
mind you) knew about Pearl Harbor, but lied about it? Or that the
government gives drugs to black people, presumably to enslave and
imprison them?

Obama condemns such statements as wrong and divisive, then frames the
next question: "There will no doubt be those for whom my statements of
condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright
in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church?"

But that is not the question. The question is why didn't he leave that
church? Why didn't he leave - why doesn't he leave even today - a pastor
who thundered not once but three times from the pulpit (on a DVD the
church proudly sells) "God damn America"? Obama's 5,000-word speech,
fawned over as a great meditation on race, is little more than an
elegantly crafted, brilliantly sophistic justification of that
scandalous dereliction.

His defense rests on two central propositions: (a) moral equivalence,
and (b) white guilt.

(a) Moral equivalence. Sure, says Obama, there's Wright, but at the
other "end of the spectrum" there's Geraldine Ferraro, opponents of
affirmative action, and his own white grandmother, "who once confessed
her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more
than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me
cringe." But did she shout them in a crowded theater to incite, enrage,
and poison others?

"I can no more disown (Wright) than I can my white grandmother." What
exactly was grandma's offense? Jesse Jackson himself once admitted to
the fear he feels from the footsteps of black men on the street. And
Harry Truman was known to use epithets for blacks and Jews in private,
yet is revered for desegregating the armed forces and recognizing the
first Jewish state since Jesus' time. He never spread racial hatred. Nor
did grandma.

Yet Obama compares her to Wright. Does he not see the moral difference
between the occasional private expression of the prejudices of one's
time and the use of a public stage to spread racial lies and race
hatred?

(b) White guilt. Obama's purpose in the speech was to put Wright's
outrages in context. By context, Obama means history. And by history, he
means the history of white racism. Obama says, "We do not need to recite
here the history of racial injustice in this country," and then proceeds
to do precisely that. And what lies at the end of his recital of the
long train of white racial assaults from slavery to employment
discrimination? Jeremiah Wright, of course.

This contextual analysis of Wright's venom, this extenuation of black
hate speech as a product of white racism, is not new. It's the Jesse
Jackson politics of racial grievance, expressed in Ivy League diction
and Harvard Law nuance. That's why the speech made so many liberal
commentators swoon: It bathed them in racial guilt, while flattering
their intellectual pretensions. An unbeatable combination.

But Obama was supposed to be new. He flatters himself as a man of the
future transcending the anger of the past as represented by his beloved
pastor. Obama then waxes rhapsodic about the hope brought by the new
consciousness of the young people in his campaign.

Then answer this, Senator: If Wright is a man of the past, why would you
expose your children to his vitriolic divisiveness? This is a man who
curses America and who proclaimed moral satisfaction in the deaths of
3,000 innocents at a time when their bodies were still being sought at
Ground Zero. It is not just the older congregants who stand and cheer
and roar in wild approval of Wright's rants, but young people as well.
Why did you give $22,500 just two years ago to a church run by a man of
the past who infects the younger generation with precisely the racial
attitudes and animus you say you have come unto us to transcend?

(c) 2008, The Washington Post Writers Group

He Means Business!

As the years go bye.

http://members.aol.com/BoycottSBU2000/SBUCARCrashes.html

It Rings True

Religion comes in different shapes and sizes. If you think one way is the only way!! Then you my friend are wrong! Some day we will all meet in heaven. But as long as we are in heaven, We can agree to disagree about certain things!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38V8jnN1Kpw

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Obama Speech: 'A More Perfect Union'

if you have 40 minutes to spare, watch this video. Even if you don't agree with the man, this speech is incredible.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Support the NRA

"If someone breaks into my house, I'll just shut down the power and lock the doors...sweet dreams scum bag" -Bronco


























A few suggestions to put your economic stimulus check to good use, clockwise from top left:
1. Smith & Wesson .40 cal with laser sight
2. Bruger & Thomet TP9 with tactical mounts
3. The Black Widow .22 - perfect for discretely carrying on your person
4. This looks intimidating, but is only a BB gun

My Baptisim and Confirmation


I just wanted to invite everyone on The Meerscham Canteen to join me this Saturday evening at St. Francis Xavier at 8:00 p.m. to celebrate my baptism and confirmation.
Chad Eberhart has been my sponsor through RCIA classes and will be at the Easter Vigil as I continue my journey with the Catholic Faith!

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

"I Got a Crush on...Obama" by Obama Girl

I've finally got a reason to vote for Obama.

Saturday, March 8, 2008

Dita Von Teese

Today I was watching E!, bastion of thoughtful cultural critique that it is, and came across Dita Von Teese. What can I say, I'm a sucker for the whole Betty Page/burlesque look. Apparently I'm not alone because this woman is making a killing on the internet according the show I was watching.
It reminded me of the local burlesque troop called the Burly-Q Girly Crew, that I've seen on occasion when I used to frequent midtown bars. In fact, I've even had the stimulating experience of seeing Batman III w/ Etta Vendetta (below). She was supposed to help me with my gardening, but I never got around to planting anything.

Mendy, I'll be waiting for your comment.

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

American Idol


We enjoy watching American Idol together as a family, but even my kids know that something is off about this guy. Listening to young boys that don't yet understand what queers are debate over the someone's sexual orientation is quite amusing.

The conversation went something like this:

"Is that a boy or girl?"
"I don't know...it's Guy's Night, but...."
"Yeah, it kinda looks like a boy, but acts like a girl...?"
"Voice is like a boy, but sounds like a girl the way it talks....I'm confused...."
"Ahhhh...look at it dance!"

After determining that none of them had a good answer, they finally turned to me, "Dad, what's the matter with him!?"

"I don't know boys...I just don't know."

Bass Motives

This is my introduction to The Meerschaum Canteen. I look forward to posting on a more regular basis.

One of many great spoofs of a Hillary ad.


Sunday, March 2, 2008

Dave Ramsey


Dave Ramsey is coming back to Kansas City - May 3rd. I had the pleasure of attending this event last year after being invited to tag along with the General. Mendy and I are planning on going again this year. (Little known fact - Mendy has actually been on his TV show.)

Dave's plan is simple, applicable to anyone, and best of all - it works. In fact, to call it "Dave's plan" isn't really correct, it is more aptly named: common sense.

I've heard many criticize that he's "making money" off people by doing this, and it's just another scheme (including a previous version of me). These people are typically self proclaimed financial guru's that already know how to "leverage" their debt, and say things like "money's cheap these days." True, he's making money at his business, but there is certainly no scheme. In fact, tickets to the day event are only $30, and don't plan on purchasing them with a credit card - his company practices what it preaches and doesn't accept them - cash or debit only.





Saturday, March 1, 2008

McCain "Very Honored" by Bigot John Hagee's Endorsement


The following is from the Catholic League:

McCAIN EMBRACES BIGOT

February 28, 2008

Yesterday, Senator John McCain said he was “very honored by Pastor John Hagee’s endorsement.” The Republican presidential hopeful also called Hagee “the staunchest leader of our Christian evangelical movement,” citing the minister’s pro-Israel stance.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue addressed this today:

“There are plenty of staunch evangelical leaders who are pro-Israel, but are not anti-Catholic. John Hagee is not one of them. Indeed, for the past few decades, he has waged an unrelenting war against the Catholic Church. For example, he likes calling it ‘The Great Whore,’ an ‘apostate church,’ the ‘anti-Christ,’ and a ‘false cult system.’ To hear the bigot in his own words, click here. Note: he isn’t talking about the Buddhists.

“In Hagee’s latest book, Jerusalem Countdown, he calls Hitler a Catholic who murdered Jews while the Catholic Church did nothing. ‘The sell-out of Catholicism to Hitler began not with the people but with the Vatican itself,’ he writes.

“For the record, Hitler persecuted the Catholic Church and was automatically excommunicated in 1931—two years before he assumed power—when he acted as best man at Joseph Goebbel’s Protestant wedding. Hitler even bragged about his separation from the Church. As for doing nothing about the Holocaust, Sir Martin Gilbert reminds us that Goebbels denounced Pope Pius XII for his 1942 Christmas message criticizing the Nazis (the New York Times lauded the pope for doing so in an editorial for two years in a row). Much to Hagee’s chagrin, Gilbert also says that Pius XII saved three quarters of the Jews in Rome, and that more Jews were saved proportionately in Catholic countries than Protestant countries. Indeed, Israeli diplomat Pinchas Lapide credited the Catholic Church with saving 860,000 Jews. No religion can match that.

“Senator Obama has repudiated the endorsement of Louis Farrakhan, another bigot. McCain should follow suit and retract his embrace of Hagee.”