Those darn CPT ingrates

I hate to even acknowledge the media and blogging frenzy over this, because it’s not worth more than a minute of your valuable time, but, because I’ve posted about Tom Fox before, I feel I need to write a follow-up. Please note that this is in no way an “apology” “justification” or “explanation”, it’s simply to catch you up on the facts since the Stenography Media has been foaming at the mouth, giving you bullshit for about 24 hours now.

Here goes then. As you have undoubtedly heard by now, three of the four members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams (the murdered Tom Fox having been the fourth), have been rescued by the US and British military, in what appears to have beeen a fine display of intelligence-gathering and rapid response. When they arrived at the location where the hostages were held (a house in Baghdad), no kidnappers were present, which meant it was a bloodless operation. As you may recall from some of Tom Fox’s statements, before he was kidnapped and killed, he had specifically stated that should he be kidnapped, he didn’t want anyone killed during his rescue. I believe that is something all the members subscribe to. At any rate, clearly, all ended very well, as both the hostages were rescued, and no violence was necessary to accomplish it.

Here is where the right-wing, and their apologist mass media kicked in. After the hostages were rescued, they didn’t immediately thank the militaries involved for performing the rescue. This promptly started a firestorm in the mass tv media, which promptly blared (and this is CNN, mind you) “Rescued Hostages specifically fail to thank the troops who rescued them!” (or something along those words, that being the gist of the CNN line). Meanwhile, the right-wing blogs conducted their usual campaign, none of which is worth either repeating here or scrawling on the wall of a public bathroom.

This take on the story makes it look like the CPT members somehow went out of their way to insult the soldiers involved.

Here is the fun part. Even as that headline was present on the CNN screen, they were interviewing a statement by a CPT spokesman who was saying (of the troops involved); “We respect their courage and commitment…” then adding something about being grateful that no violence was necessary to rescue the hostages, which I don’t remember verbatim. I do remember those words very clearly. Does that sound like the “deliberate insult” the media is making it out to be? You decide.

Yesterday, the CPT added this to the official statement about the rescue on their website;

Addenda
23 March 2006, 9 p.m. ET
We have been so overwhelmed and overjoyed to have Jim, Harmeet and Norman freed, that we have not adequately thanked the people involved with freeing them, nor remembered those still in captivity. So we offer these paragraphs as the first of several addenda:

We are grateful to the soldiers who risked their lives to free Jim, Norman and Harmeet. As peacemakers who hold firm to our commitment to nonviolence, we are also deeply grateful that they fired no shots to free our colleagues. We are thankful to all the people who gave of themselves sacrificially to free Jim, Norman, Harmeet and Tom over the last four months, and those supporters who prayed and wept for our brothers in captivity, for their loved ones and for us, their co-workers.

I don’t think I need to add anything to that, it’s pretty obvious, yes? All right then.

I will add a postcript of my own. Clearly, the media and our right-wing “friends” wanted the CPT members to make statements completely opposite to what their previous stance on the war had been all along. Something along the lines of “We were against the war and warfare in general, but now that we benefitted personally, we think the whole thing is fucking awesome! Who wants to drop some fuel-air explosives?”

I don’t personally subscribe to every part of the CPT’s ideology and agenda. Obviously, since I’m not a member. However, I do recognize (as should anyone with any vestige of a brain) how absurd it is to expect and demand that someone act completely out of character, especially people so firm in their beliefs (whether you may think they are right or wrong).

In other words, they wanted them to become hypocrites, and join that giant club. Perhaps taking the cue from Glorious Leader in the White House, continuing to claim he’s Conservative, while increasing the country’s debt limit (and very soon, actual debt) to 9 trillion dollars? And as we all know, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Don’t let me get into the whole “How Bush is practicing all the bad parts of Socialism” speech. No, I’m not kidding. Protectionist tariffs, subsidized farming, exporting raw material while importing finished products (see “massive deficits in trade with China” anywhere where real news is reported – in other words, the newspapers, Internet, or Frontline)… Any of this ring a bell? It sure does to those of us familliar with Socialism. Not the Swedish or Australian or Canadian kind. The East-European kind. Maybe the neocons have taken the whole “New Europe” thing to heart just a bit too much.

Anyway, that concludes my venting on this subject. Kool-Air drinker blogs can now resume with their previous activity of explaining just how everything would be just great in Iraq, if the media just didn’t ever mention anything bad was happening.

“Does the tree really fall if no one hears it?” converted into “Does the war really go badly if no one knows it?”. Genius. Who would have thought neocons and their fans were Buddhists, deep down? Live and be surprised.

A quick (but important) word from George Washington

As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

- The Treaty of Tripoli, entered into by the USA under
George Washington.

This Week’s “Country on it’s merry way to a Nasty Opressive Theocracy” Dishonorable Mention goes to…

…Indonesia! My sympathies to you, Indonesians.

I can see what you are thinking, my dear readers. “What happened to Saudi Arabia? Or Pakistan? Or Iran? Or the Comoros? Or…” and so on. But notice, I said “on the way to”. So, they’re not quite there, as there is still a slight and possibly mostly imaginary separation of “Mosque and State”, as some reporters have said it, still in place.

What specifically brought this particular post on? Well, as often happens, a story in the usually-praiseworthy Los Angeles Times.

Apparently, one Yusman Roy, a former boxer and convert to Islam (his mother was a Dutch Catholic, so naturally he was as well in his younger days, but converted later), has recently been jailed for a term of two years for a truly abominable, heretical crime – believing that Muslims should be able to pray in a language they can understand (i.e. their own language), and trying to spread said belief.

Wow. What a concept. Now, I normally don’t like to get into arguments about what’s “wrong” with any given religion, or how one religion may or may not be “better” than another religion. Why? Because, whatever my personal beliefs or not, the whole point of the concept of “faith” is believing in the inherently unprovable, and knowing so. That’s why for example the concept of Intelligent Design is, whatever your opinion on it’s scientific merit, very, very bad theology. Trying to apply pseudo-science to matters of religious faith to artificially create “proof” to support your beliefs damages the very foundation of the concept of faith. Basically, the bottom line goes something like this; “You believe in God, right?” “Sure, of course, the mostest, more than you!” “All right, so why try to ‘prove’ something you know already?” It’s a piece of very damaged logic.

But I got distracted. My point was, since religion should be a very personal item, meaning everyone has at least different beliefs, based on things they take on faith that one certainly shouldn’t impose on others, believing so, it’s hard not to be hypocritical when passing value judgements on some particular technicality of someone else’s practice of their own religious faith.

All that said, I can say with no internal logical conflict whatsoever that this is the height of stupidity unsupportable by any kind of sensible logic or good theology. By “good”, I mean, “sensible application of”, when you think of theology as a discipline of learning, or a vocation.

Now, this could be from my Christian cultural background. If memory serves, we’ve sorted this stuff out many hundreds of years ago. Granted, it didn’t go easily, but eventually, pretty much everyone agreed it makes sense that when you’re talking to God, you should know what you’re saying. Also, when you are “receiving” the “word of God” (i.e. reading the Bible), it doesn’t hurt to understand what it’s saying (without going into the legitimacy of the great editorial liberties taken with said text over the many centuries it took it to make it into the current incarnation).

No-brainer, right? Unfortunately, not so for Indonesia’s Council of Ulemas, which is apparently somewhere between the Congregation For the Defense of the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly the Inquisition, now with a catchy semi-corporate name) and the Inquisition (back when they’d burn people out of their houses, then imprison them, and the fun would just be getting started).

Now, some quotations from the Times’ fine article;

Roy’s desire to pray in Indonesian has sparked such an outrage that he was convicted last year in criminal court of “spreading hatred.” Animosity toward Roy ran so high that police posted guards to keep an angry mob from torching his house and school.

Roy is one of at least 10 Muslims incarcerated in recent months for what the Indonesian Council of Ulemas, the country’s most influential Muslim body in setting religious policy, has deemed deviant thinking.

Indonesia is a democratic, secular country, and there is no constitutional basis for using Islamic law in court in most regions. But insulting a religion is a crime, and a fatwa, or religious edict, issued by the Council of Ulemas can carry great weight as evidence of an alleged offense to Islam.

Indonesia, which has more than 190 million Muslims, the world’s largest Islamic population, has become increasingly conservative since the 1998 collapse of President Suharto’s military regime. In recent years, the government has grown more active in enforcing religious law.

I’m pretty sure the concepts of “democratic, secular country” and “insulting religion is a crime” are pretty damn incompatible. But, after all, whether someplace is a “democracy” or not is judged on a sliding scale these days, as we all know. Still, this shows why I was saying earlier that said separation of religion and state could be pretty much imaginary at this time. It’s a short step indeed from “insulting relgion is a crime, and the most radical clerics get to decide when you insulted religion” and “The Grand Ayatollah will now explain why you should stone your daughter at once.”

Sumardi Tappaya, 60, a high school religious teacher on the island of Sulawesi, was locked up in January after a relative told police he had heard Sumardi whistling while he prayed. The whistling was declared deviant by the local ulemas, and Sumardi is now in jail awaiting trial on charges of religious blasphemy. He faces five years in prison.

Ardhi Husain, 50, who ran an Islamic center in East Java that treated drug addiction and cancer with traditional medicine and prayer, was sentenced in September to five years in prison for writing a book that the ulemas said contained 70 “errors,” such as claiming that Muhammad was not the last prophet and that non-Muslims could go to heaven. Five editors of the book also received five-year terms. An employee who sold a copy to a neighbor received three years.

After Husain’s arrest, a mob burned down his facility. No one has been arrested in the attack.

There is another convict listed in the article, but she really does seem to be running a cult and there’s little doubt one can say she’s insulted religion;

Lia Aminuddin, 58, who claims to be the Virgin Mary and leads the quasi-Islamic God’s Kingdom of Eden cult, was arrested in December on blasphemy charges after thousands of angry protesters surrounded her headquarters in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital. The ulemas and demonstrators accused her of insulting Islam by claiming that she was married to the archangel Gabriel and that God spoke to her through him. (In Islam, Gabriel, or Jibril, is revered as the archangel who communicated God’s word to Muhammad.)

Still, every country has religious crackpots (the kind that aren’t preaching mass murder, that is), and jailing them isn’t exactly a uncanny sign of a “democratic, secular” society.

Then again, China is doing it, and we don’t seem to mind. Of course, maybe that’s because China is just not a democracy, period, and on the sliding scale of “bad stuff China does”, supressing religion isn’t so bad? It’s probably all that massive debt the Government owes to China (“Your Wars and Tax-cuts, brought to you curtesy of the Chinese Communist Party!”), or perhaps the all-pervasive influence of China’s biggest Corporation, Wall-Mart.

At any rate, here are a few more excerpts from the LA Times article;

The Indonesian Council of Ulemas, which is made up of 43 Muslim scholars and leaders of major Islamic organizations, was formed in 1975 to guide Muslims on how to live in accordance with Islamic principles. Muslims make up more than 85% of the nation’s population.

The council has recently issued fatwas banning women from leading prayers if a man is present and prohibiting Muslims from praying alongside members of other religions. Provincial and local branches of the council also have issued numerous fatwas regulating Islamic practices.

Ma’ruf Amin, a vice chairman of the Indonesian Council of Ulemas and the chairman of its fatwa committee, says the ulemas’ role is to define proper behavior for Muslims and to set boundaries that protect the purity of Islam.

He denies that the ulemas are promoting hatred, and says Muslims who engage in deviant practices are bringing violence upon themselves.

“These kinds of people are the ones who cause all the trouble, and the people wouldn’t bother to riot if there was no one who deviated,” Amin said. “These kinds of people should not exist.”
Right. He’s not promoting hatred, he just says “these kinds of people should not exist”. Insert your own concentration camp wisecrack here.

On the upside for the hardliners, reputable scholars like this one endorse the “no bilingual prayer” stance;

Some moderate Muslim leaders charge that the Council of Ulemas has been infiltrated by hard-line groups, particularly the Islamic Defenders Front.

Defenders Front Chairman Habib Rizieq, who declares himself a follower of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, says it is important to keep Muslims from being swayed by ideas deemed to be heretical, such as bilingual prayer. “All deviant teaching has to be banned,” he said.

Here is the link to the full article;

The Full LA Times Article

As you have to be a website member though, you may not be able to access it.

So, instead of going on with vague ranting, I leave you with some theological technicalities;

The disadvantage is greatest when it comes to salat, the prayers performed by the faithful five times a day while facing Mecca. Many scholars interpret Muhammad’s guidance to “pray like you see me praying” to mean that salat can be performed only in Arabic. But other scholars disagree, saying there is nothing sacred about Arabic itself.

In theory, Indonesian Muslims learn the meaning of their prayers in their own language as they memorize the Arabic words. But Roy estimates that at least 70% of Indonesia’s Muslims don’t know what their prayers mean. Most Indonesians defer to Arabic speakers in interpreting the Koran, he says, which can make them vulnerable to the teachings of militant Muslims.

“Because of their lack of understanding, they do not have high-quality prayers,” he says. “That is why there are people who are angry and commit violence. If they had high-quality prayers, they would not become terrorists.”

He certainly has a point. How hard is it to lead religious followers into terrorism, when they have almost no understanding of their own religion beyond what they’re told? The mind boggles.

And finally;

Roy seems to accept his fate with equanimity. Serving two years in prison for his faith, he says, helps atone for his violent crimes that went unpunished. He says prison has only affirmed his belief in bilingual prayer, and he plans to continue pushing for its adoption once he is freed.

Roy’s sentence is only six months shorter than the term given radical cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, the purported spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiah. The Southeast Asian affiliate of Al Qaeda is believed to have killed at least 225 people in suicide bombings in Bali and Jakarta.

Good luck to you Roy, in bringing Islam to understanding something that was perfectly obvious to Christians hundreds of years ago – and I say that without making a value judgement between the religions in other respects. After all, the Christian sect Mel Gibson belongs to believes Mass should only be performed in Latin. I give Mel the benefit of the doubt though, since I can only assume that he believes the followers should fully understand Latin when practicing his brand of Christianity.

And that concludes my pseudo-theological rant of the day. If you made it this far, I am suitably impressed, thanks, and I hope you got something useful from it.

So does this mean being smart to begin with guarantees it?

From the LA Times;

Read My Words, Go to Heaven, Leader Says

From Times Wire Reports

March, 21 2006

Turkmenistan’s autocratic leader told his nation’s youth to read his book three times a day in order to go to heaven, Turkmen television reported.

President Saparmurad A. Niyazov said at a concert to celebrate a national spring holiday that young people should read the Ruhnama, a book that dispenses moral and spiritual guidelines for the country’s citizens. “A person that reads Ruhnama becomes smart … and after it, he will go straight to heaven,” Niyazov said.

That seems pretty scientific. Does it mean if you’re pretty smart to begin with you can skip the reading step and go “straight to heaven” anyway?

No need to make more wisecracks about “Turkmenbashi” (father of Turkmens & Turkmenistan, as he likes to be called), since I’ve done that before. Consider this post a cheap crappy sequel with a completely different cast and written by one of the producer’s assistants (directed by the third grip from the left);

Supervillain Dictator Sends Own Book To Space

Come to think of it, the previous one was pretty cheap too. Damn, I was even lazier about posting back then.

And the Dictatorial Bastard of the Month award goes to…

Philippines president Gloria Arroyo! Congratulations. Here at The Strange Goat, we are great believers in all sorts of equality. I see what you’re thinking – why not come up with a gender-neutral name for this glorious award then? Well, who are we kidding? How many nasty female dictators are out there right now? See? Truly, our dear Gloria is a trendsetter. She’s braking the Glass Dictator Ceiling in fine style.

Now some of you may be reasonably well informed on the state of the Philippines today, and you may be annoyed at this choice. After all, other dictators are having protesters shot by the hundreds as we speak. She hasn’t murdered her opponents by the truck-full… yet, at any rate.

However, bear with me, and you’ll see that she deserves this special, special distinction. Even if she can’t possibly match Imelda Marcos’ legendary 5000 pairs of shoes.

Last time we checked in with our “staunch ally in the War on Terror” (a club so touchingly accepting of minor flaws, like dictatorial policies – just check on the assorted ’stans, or the Comoro Islands, if you don’t believe me), she was stealing the 2004 election. Apparently, a video was accidentaly released featuring her telling the head of the National Electoral Commision to “make sure” she won “by a million votes”. Insert your own Katherine Harris joke here. At any rate, apparently members of Congress and other leaders were understandably annoyed, what with blatant evidence being public and all, and tried to get rid of her. As we all know, that didn’t work, and she put down the “coup”, as she refers to it. Lucky for her, she has enough right-wing support to have pulled it off. That said, there actually apparently may have been an attempt by parts of the military to overthrow her (the extent of it remains unclear – see THIS LINK – it was more along the lines of soldiers participating in protests than dragging her out behind her house and shooting her, as more commonly happens in coups). But there is no evidence whatsoever that this group of Representatives was involved. Apparently, her best evidence is testimony from a manicurist (no, I’m not kidding), claiming he had seen the five meeting with a general (who was later arrested for the “coup” attempt) at some farm. Congressional records not only show that all five were present in Congress that afternoon, but that in fact two of them made speeches at the time they were supposed to be off at the farm.

But dang it if those insolent Congress-persons aren’t still annoyed with her, and so have continued speaking out against her. How dare they, she must have thought. Just because some of them are the same bunch who got rid of that rat bastard Marcos (staunch ally in the Cold War), doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be at least a little more afraid of her, right? Sure he was much scarier, what with murdering opponents left and right, whereas she more reasonably stuffs them in jail or house arrest, but still. Can’t a girl get some respect? Sigh.

And so, with at least as much reluctance as Imelda showed when she bought her 4357th pair of shoes, she decided to arrest the five offending Congressmen and one offending Congresswoman. At this point, she had already got rid of her annoying opponents in the military (who were understandably annoyed with her election-stealing and all), since they’re fairly easy to fire, jail, or forcibly retire, as long as you have enough of their counterparts and troops behind you.

Alas, there was an annoying bump in her glorious plan (get it, Glorious? yes, I know, ouch with the pun). It turns out the Congress-folk were a harder nut to crack. Their fellow people’s representatives, apparently annoyed that Gloria there had no evidence whatsoever against the six, or a warrant for that matter, decided she shouldn’t be able to easily arrest them and eventually execute them for treason and coup (those being the offences she accuses them of). So they promptly voted them immunity as long as they stay on the grounds of the Congress. Alas, only five of them made it to the building on time (four men and one woman). The sixth of the brave bunch, Representative Crispin Beltran, 73, was snatched by police on the way.

Want to hear the excuse, and the number-one reason Gloria took away this month’s award? Here goes. Representative Beltran was arrested on a 21 year old warrant for sedition dating from the days of Ferdinand Marcos, then charged with rebellion against Arroyo, a capital offense. Yep.

Am I making a horrible, deranged, perverse joke? I wish! You have to love the sick perversity of it though. Perhaps in her next speech, Gloria will suggest that Germany starts arresting former German resistance members and Jews on outstanding warrants issued by Roland Freisler (if the name doesn’t ring a bell, Mr. Freisler was the legendary Nazi show-trial judge, who sentenced an endless stream of Hitler’s political enemies to death, until he was killed in an Allied bombing raid).

Do you think I’m going too far by making this analogy? Well, I don’t think so. We all know what a murderous, corrupt, fascist rat bastard Ferdinand Marcos was. So arresting someone on an outstanding warrant from the Marcos regime, even if everyone knows it’s just a pathetic excuse, it disgusting beyond easy description. Sure, it may not be as disgusting as mass graves, or tossing murdered political opponets out of military helicopters out over the ocean so the bodies would never be found (a Pinochet favorite, back in the day), but it’s pretty damn disgusting. Like I said, now we can only await for the Freisler warrants to be reactivated. Or perhaps the Cambodians will reactivate the Khmer Rouge pogroms. Maybe there are some still alive whom Stalin was planning to kill? The fun could go on and on. Of course, eventually the world would run out of former warrants and have to switch back to the present time, ending the fun and games.

So, the five remaining lawmakers (now colloquially referred to as “The Batasan Five”), are living in the Congress building, sleeping in a spare office (the female representative, Liza Maza, gets the couch, the rest sleep on the floor), and waiting for Gloria to inevitably come up with a lame excuse to issue warrants against them and have them arrested after all.

On the upside, at Representative Teddy Casiño put it, at least they’re never late, even if it does involve walking around early in the morning carrying their pillows.

Amusingly enough, apprently Gloria there was actually involved with these same people she is accusing of such evildoing, in an attempt to oust then-president Joseph Estrada in 2000. Should she arrest and execute herself based on that previous “crime”, then? If she’s trying make a true Vonnegut-worthy satirical joke, that would do it for sure.

Here is a link explaining then-vice-president Arroyo’s revolutionary ardor;

Have a look

As the article points out;

The other photograph shown to reporters had Arroyo, along with Ocampo and other militant leaders, raising their hands as they called for Estrada’s ouster. A big banner was on the background with a large “Oust” inscription.

What was surprising, according to Ocampo, was that during that time Arroyo did not even seem to consider that conspiring against a legitimate president was illegal.

“Why was it so different now? We’ve just been asking her to resign, to step down and yet we were charged with rebellion,” he added.

Indeed. She became president after participating in the forcible ouster of the man she was Vice-President to. You just have to love the hypocrisy of the assorted “Staunch Allies in the War on Terror”, as they spread terror in their own countries. Doesn’t that actually create more potential future terrorists than their “help” ever helps arrest? Why yes, yes it does. Alas, people who have never read a book by Chalmers Johnson are apparenty oblivious to the contradiction.

Here is a link explaining a bit furter the election fraud allegations against Arroyo (insert another Katherine Harris joke here).

Have I been cluelessly talking out of my ass this entire time? It’s not impossible. But my main beef, and the part I have no doubt about, is this – you should never arrest people based on a 20+ year old warrant originally issued against someone for opposing a rat-bastard insane scumbag dictator. If you do, you’re swimming through the sewers, and so shouldn’t complain about being smeared with the appropriate smell on you.

Anyway, here is to hoping Representatives Joel Virador,Teddy Casiño, Liza Maza, Satur Ocampo and Rafael Mariano make it out of this all right, and the Philippines make it at least a few more years without massive bloody upheavals. They certainly deserve the peace and rest.

“All-Out Civil War in Iraq: Could It Be a Good Thing?”

You have to love Fox News, and the hillarity they bring to us all. Well, perhaps “love” isn’t the right word. But then again, both love and Fox can make you confused and have a vaguely unsettled feeling in the pit of your stomach (that is, make you sick with nervousness), so perhaps “love” is the right word. In the purely scientific way, that is.

Anyway, The Balanced Ones once again bring us their trademark hillarity (I’m a bit behind on bringing this up, as usual), in a “news” segment on the very appropriately named “Your World with Cavuto” (because, really, there is the actual world, and then there is the very special other world where regular Fox “News” viewers live), where they ask that special question.

Here, enjoy the lovely graphics;

http://mediamatters.org/items/200602240003

At least you can never blame them for inconsistency. Always trying to find the upside.

Then again, maybe you can blame them for inconsistency. Because as you probably remember, not long before this segment (some nine days, about three time the attention span of the usual Fox viewer), they aired the segment (on that very same program, no less) asking the equally “brave” question ” ‘Civil War’ in Iraq: Made Up by the Media?”;

http://mediamatters.org/items/200603020002

One can only suggest that perhaps the proper title for the March 1st Cavuto segment would have then been “Is the Imaginary Civil War in Iraq invented by the Evil Pinko Media a Good Thing?”.

It’s good to keep reminding people of the difference between “Opinion and Commentary” and “News”. Fox largely airs Opinion and Commentary. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, as long as you present it that way. Which they usually don’t. MSNBC used to air mostly news, but sadly, no doubt in the continuing hunt for ratings, they’ve been moving further and further right and offering more “commentary” as opposed to news.

At this point, the only 100-percent reliable news source on television is Frontline. And man, do I ever appreciate them. Here’s to hoping they last a good long time yet. Which considering their bravery and integrity in bringing you actual news, may be unlikely indeed in the Corporate Government Stenography Media atmosphere today.

Here’s to hoping for the best.

Waiting In the Light

Many of you (that is, a large portion of the several of you who sometimes read this blog) have probably heard about Tom Fox, the Christian Peacemaker activist who was killed in Iraq a few days ago. You may not have heard about his blog from Iraq, titled “Waiting In the Light”. It makes for great reading, and not just because it’s so informative (because unlike the “fair and balanced” news, it’s written from the ground, outside the “Green Zone”), but because it may indeed cheer you up to read thoughts from a Christian, who is, well, actually Christian. It makes for a refreshing new perspective on the war. And if you are, after a moment, embarrased that you were so shocked and surprised to be seeing the real thing, well, it’s not your fault. Not entirely.

After so much jingoism, war-mongering and general hatred we’ve heard from the Religious Right, it’s good to be reminded that there are in fact still deeply religious people out there that follow Jesus’ actual teachings, even if it does (or should) embarrass us to have briefly forgotten there were any left at all. Those people believe in quietly confronting their detractors, whereas the blowhard “Christian” right-wing activists believe in screaming as loudly as humanly possible. And sadly, we live in a time when people seem to prefer, and give credence to screaming. As if volume makes up for content.
As a reminder (and only appropriate comment about televangelists, church=state, and science and medicine=bad activists that isn’t formed of expletives), I give you the words of Jesus himself, for who better to comment on those dubiously claiming to be his followers;

Matthew 6:5 – And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

Matthew 6:6 – But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

Matthew 6:7 – But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

Turns out the Almighty (whichever version you believe in), prefers actions to words. Well, who’da thunk it? What a concept.

As you can plainly see, nothing in there about going on television and wishing Supreme Court Justices would die. Or making rape and incest a continuous nine-month experience for its victims (yes, I speak of the state with five of the ten poorest counties in the country – as another blogger aptly put it; they love fetuses, but once you’re a family, they couldn’t care less about you).

Either way, if there is indeed an afterlife (and I tend to believe there may be, just not the kind people usually think), I have no doubt Tom Fox has received his good reward and is well regarded there.

Now go read his blog, but I’d recommend you save the entries to your computer (including the archives), since now that he is dead, it may not remain online for long.

http://waitinginthelight.blogspot.com/

Why? Why the silence, the tormenting silence?

People always ask me; “Hey, why is your blog so boring and so rarely updated? And no, I don’t care which you answer first.” Ok, by “people” I mean “my uncle’s dog”, and by “ask”, I mean “his eyes silently accuse”.

Psychosis induced by lack of contact with actual humans (what with working at the computer alone all the time) aside, it’s a perfectly good question. And even if it’s not, dwelling on this is sparing you another political diatribe. Right, you can thank me later.

Here’s the funny part. About this time last year, the answer would have been easy – I would have told you my life was killing me with boredom, so God forbid tormenting you, gentle stranger, with hearing about it. Well, my life is still pretty boring. But hey, things I have been doing (what others would refer to as “work”) are actually interesting now, even to strangers!

Alas, the cruel, cruel part is that I can’t tell you about any of it. It’s all a big, multicolored secret. I know, that sucks. On the upside, I’ll be able to share in a few months, and won’t you be glad then?

You reserve the right to decide then? My readers (if I may boldly use the plural at this point) are a wise bunch.

All right, I’ll see about trying to post more often, and more entertainingly, soon.

What? Oh, you want Oscar coverage? Not really? Yeah, I figured so. I’ll say this – I’m in the anti-Crash group (I hear we’ve got about a 50-50 split over it here in LA – which does baffle me a bit). Damn it’s hyperbole and slander. You want more “fair and balanced”? All right, here goes. I think someone said it best the other day; “All those things probably happened to someone at some point. The difference is, it makes a different statement when you put things that may happen over a period of many years, and make them seem like a continuous, daily occurence.” It’s not a verbatim quote, but that’s the gist of it.
That concludes today’s transmission.