What’s on for today, Prairie Pops? Weekend is close enough to get excited about. The temps in Kansas are up from sub zero and the wind has settled down too! What would you like to share today?
fnord
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What’s on for today, Prairie Pops? Weekend is close enough to get excited about. The temps in Kansas are up from sub zero and the wind has settled down too! What would you like to share today?
fnord
Filed under The Public Square
PrairiePopulistsAndProgressives.net 
Renew allegiance to Golden Rule
The Golden Rule is the kind of religion I can get behind completely! I’ve always thought kindness and love were what religion should be about.
Since every religion has a form of The Golden Rule why do we have so many problems in expecting just treatment while ensuring it for all others?
If only some of the people weren’t so concerned that someone might get something they feel they don’t deserve!
Republicans whine about people getting something they don’t deserve but what I think they are really saying is that they don’t want other people to get something that they, themselves, might not be getting.
When the motivation is ME-ME-ME – that leaves very little room for any type of real spirituality.
Notice I used the word spirituality and not religion. There is a definite difference.
One can have all the religion they can stand but that does not make them spiritual.
Religion is man-made and those rules seem to have changed since my childhood.
For example – the C Street Family religion and other churches now preach about attaining power and money. My Bible and my religion tells me that money is the root of all evil.
So when did the rules change and who changed them? Most likely, they were changed by those in power who want to justify their rampant and unabashed greed.
But that is only a guess on my part.
Alot of churches today are nothing but corporatized businesses. Is it any wonder there is no room for something like spirituality?
Some “Ethic of Reciprocity” passages from the religious texts of various religions and secular beliefs
Last night’s concert at Northwest High School was great! Those kids are talented!
What would the season be without kids and music? Not nearly as fun! This is probably true of every season.
I grilled a cheese sandwich last night and when I flipped it over there, toasted into the bread was a perfect image of Jesus! (Tall, lanky Jewish guy, y’know?
Needless to say this was a profound spiritual experience for me. I was mesmerized as the other half of my Swiss and Cheddar on Rye sizzled quietly in the skillet and confronted all sorts of spiritual and theological questions.
It dawned on me I could get Fox News out here to see my cheeses Jesus.
Then I had second thoughts. With that kind of publicity I’d probably be overrun by priests and pilgrims and cripples and could end up with a front yard littered with discarded crutches and wheelchairs. And who wants to go through that clean-up nightmare in this kind of weather.
And I was hungry.
So I ate it.
My question is this: Does this count as communion?
In my book, yes!
And damn good comedy too. 🙂
cheeses Jesus — I may not get that one out of my head for awhile.
No, man. I think you just committed blasphemy. In fact, I’m pretty sure of it.
Say ten Hail Marys and fifteen Our Fathers and rap the knuckles of your left hand with a ruler five times. That should stand you back in good stead with the Big Guy, I think.
I’ll put “Christ” back in “Christmas” when Republicans put “Christ” back in “Christianity
This was an opinion in today’s WEbsite under the Opinion Line Extra section.
Do you ever read those and think, “I’d probably like that person”?
My first thought was – now who read my mind?
LOL
Saw this on the Cox Internet website as I was checking my e-mail….
It’s sad to hear of anyone divorcing – especially when there are kids involved – but in this case I think it is the best and only thing to do for Jenny Sanford. I have to give her credit – she did not stand by her man when she knew he was not doing what was right.
And to think, Mark Sanford was one of the GOP’s rising Social Conservative stars with his eyes on the presidency.
The pathetic Grand Old Party has another one bite the dust….
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SC first lady announces she’s filing for divorce from gov who called mistress his soul mate
12-11-2009 08:53 AM CST |By BRUCE SMITH, Associated Press Writer
CHARLESTON, S.C. (Associated Press) —
South Carolina’s first lady, a former Wall Street vice president who helped launch her husband’s political career, announced Friday she is filing for divorce months after his tearful public confession of an affair with an Argentine woman.
“This came after many unsuccessful efforts at reconciliation, yet I am still dedicated to keeping the process that lies ahead peaceful for our family,” Jenny Sanford said in a statement.
A spokesman for her husband, Gov. Mark Sanford, had no immediate comment. The divorce complaint was filed Friday in Charleston County Family Court.
Jenny Sanford’s announcement came after a week of wrenching twists in her relationship with the governor. A legislative panel rebuked him for his conduct, he told reporters he still wanted to reconcile with his wife, and she said in a television interview that it was a simple decision to not stand with him as he publicly confessed the affair.
“Certainly his actions hurt me, and they caused consequences for me, but they don’t in any way take away my own self-esteem,” she told ABC’s Barbara Walters. “They reflect poorly on him.”
Her divorce complaint did not mention money, property or custody arrangements for the couple’s four sons.
“The defendant has engaged in a sexual relationship with a woman other than plaintiff,” the complaint reads. “Plaintiff has not condoned that relationship and is informed and believes that she is entitled to a divorce … from the defendant on the grounds of adultery.”
After news of the scandal broke in June, Jenny Sanford said she was willing to reconcile with the two-term Republican governor. She weathered the publication of e-mail exchanges between her husband and his lover and an Associated Press interview in which Sanford called the Argentine woman his “soul mate” and admitted “crossing the line” with other women while he was married.
Jenny Sanford had called her husband’s behavior “inexcusable” but said she was willing to give him another chance.
Mark Sanford, 49, disappeared for almost a week in late June to see his Argentine lover, Maria Belen Chapur, leaving his staff, his wife and the rest of the state in the dark about his whereabouts. Initially, his staff told reporters he was hiking on the Appalachian Trail.
Jenny Sanford said she learned about the affair in January when she came across a copy of a letter her husband wrote to Chapur. In the months following, her husband asked several times to visit the other woman, she said.
“It’s one thing to forgive adultery; it’s another thing to condone it,” she told the AP during an exclusive interview two days after Sanford’s news conference during which he revealed the affair.
“He was told in no uncertain terms not to see her,” she said. “I was hoping he was on the Appalachian Trail. But I was not worried about his safety. I was hoping he was doing some real soul searching somewhere and devastated to find out it was Argentina. It’s tragic.”
Days later, after the governor told AP he was relying on religious faith to help salvage his marriage even though the love of his life was in Argentina, Jenny Sanford said it was up to the people of South Carolina whether they wanted to give their governor a second chance.
“His far more egregious offenses were committed against God, the institutions of marriage and family, our boys and me,” she said.
Born Jennifer Sullivan, the first lady grew up near Chicago. Her grandfather founded the Skil Corp., a power tool manufacturer. She graduated from Georgetown University in 1984 with a degree in finance, then worked for the Wall Street investment banking firm Lazard Freres & Co., where she was a vice president in mergers and acquisitions.
The Sanfords met in New York in the 1980s when Mark Sanford also was working in finance, at Goldman Sachs.
The couple married in 1989 and relocated to South Carolina, where Sanford worked in real estate before serving three terms in Congress. Jenny Sanford managed several of her husband’s campaigns. Until revelations of the affair, he had been considered a possible 2012 Republican presidential candidate.
The couple separated two weeks before news of the affair became public. Jenny Sanford and her sons sought refuge at the couple’s beachfront home on Sullivans Island while Sanford remained in the state capital of Columbia, occasionally visiting his family.
Unlike some political wives, Jenny Sanford did not stand next to her husband when he revealed the affair with Chapur, whom he met on a trip to Uruguay in 2001.
Even afterward, the governor seemed undecided about which road to take.
“I don’t want to blow up the kids’ lives. I don’t want to blow up 20 years that we’ve invested,” he told AP. “But if I’m completely honest, there are still feelings in the way. If we keep pushing it this way, we get those to die off, but they’re still there and they’re still real.”
Jenny Sanford said the couple had been to counseling since she found out about the affair.
“We both indicated a willingness to continue working on the marriage, but there’s not room for three people in a marriage,” she told the AP. “I’ve done everything in my power possibly to keep him from going to see her and to really make sure she was off the table, including asking him to leave.”
A few thoughts:
This morning they were talking about the five Americans student who were captured in Pakistan trying to receive training at a terrorist camp. These were kids who grew up in the United States and the thought came how could they be convinced that there was a struggle against their religion. That they could believe that they should be getting training to be used in the U.S.?
Then it occurred to me, ever so often I get e-mails telling me of the war against not just Christmas but Christianity itself. That I encounter others who are firmly convinced that they are true in spite of the lack of real proof.
Stories of Christians being treated poorly and anything to do with Christianity being denied and forbidden.
I am aware enough and thoughtful enough to see what is the reality and reasoning.
Usual it women who notice this and are disbelieving, but after seeing bits of interviews with Tiger Woods mistresses. I notice them saying this and it is explained with a riddle: What has Tiger Woods wife and his many girlfriend have in common? They all thought they were the only one!
Twice now a woods girlfriend has said that the reason they came forward is that they were hurt when they found out they were not the only one. What they thought his wife was a house keeper?
“What they thought his wife was a house keeper?”
That’s a good one, tstb! So it was OK that there was a wife, they just couldn’t handle other girlfriends. And, of course, the fact that they participated in a relationship with a man they knew was married leaves them completely innocent of all wrong doing. Uh huh.
I was just changing radio channels when I stopped on some sports guy rambling on about how this waitress at some pancake house actually thought she was going to bag her Tiger Woods.
As this guy kept rambling on – it was quite clear that he was not putting the blame onto Tiger for his part in all this cheating – but rather it is all these waitresses that seem to think they are the ones who can bag Tiger as some sort of trophy.
From where I sit, Tiger is just as much to blame as these girlfriends. It takes two to tango – as the saying goes.
It just galls me to think that now Tiger will probably weasel his way out of all this as now he is the victim somehow?
My, oh my, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.
These Christians who complain about being persecuted need to be reminded to read their own Bible and what it says about the person who leads strives to lead a Christian life.
One such Scripture verse is this:
Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,
—2 Timothy 3:12
I wonder, do these self-proclaiming Christians even read the Bible they profess to love so much?
As for Tiger Woods and his multiple girl friends, I am sorry but I cannot muster up any sympathy for any girlfriend who thought she was the only one.
Come on now…one working brain cell would have told them differently.
As for Tiger himself, I really cannot muster up any sympathy for that guy. I was never a golfing fan but I always had the impression that Tiger Woods was a decent man with a lovely family.
It just goes to show you – a person can portray any kind of mask they want to portray to the general public. But somehow the truth always finds it way out. For most people, when the truth comes out, it is not displayed on international and national news. But, in Tiger’s case, his celebrity and the mere mention of his name brings intense scrutiny.
Maybe he fell into the same trap so many elected officials seem to have – they always fall for the oldest temptation in the book – sex.
Just caught this on Huffington Post…..
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Palin Poll: Struggles Among Women, African-Americans, Non-Elderly
First Posted: 12-10-09 02:27 PM | Updated: 12-10-09 02:51 PM
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin faces major electoral limitations if she chooses to mount a 2012 bid, despite a slight increase in the country’s opinion of her, according to a new public opinion survey.
Public Policy Polling released a study on Thursday revealing that, one year after bursting onto the national scene, Palin still has not made inroads among a variety of key demographic groups. Most significantly, among women the Alaska Republican has only a 37 percent favorable rating compared to a 51 percent unfavorable.
“She has had a reverse gender gap in her numbers since about two weeks since John McCain picked her as her running mate,” explained PPP pollster Tom Jensen. “I think that women voters pretty much decided quickly since she went on the national spotlight that they didn’t like her much and that hasn’t really changed.”
It isn’t just a gender gap that hampers Palin. Only five percent of African-American voters said they had a favorable rating of the former Alaska Governor. Meanwhile, only 37 percent of Hispanics offered a favorable view — which would seem small if not for the fact that only 31 percent of Hispanics voted for McCain in 2008.
Indeed, much of Palin’s political support comes from constituencies that have been trending Republican for many election cycles. Forty-eight percent of white voters have a favorable view of her as well as 50 percent of voters over the age of 65 (a majority of every other age group had an unfavorable opinion). Among geographical regions, Palin was most popular in the South (48 percent approval) and the Midwest (48 percent) — as opposed to the Northeast (32 percent) and West (27 percent).
The former governor was viewed favorably by 41 percent of the country, up two percentage points from the last time the firm surveyed potential voters. But the jump, said Jensen, was due primarily to growing dissatisfaction with President Barack Obama and not to any growing popularity among the masses.
Courtesy of Huffington Post – again:
Jon Stewart is like a dog with a bone – isn’t he? Give em hell Jon….
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Stewart Catches Glenn Beck Digging For Gold (Huffington Post | Dan Abramson
First Posted: 12-11-09 08:27 AM | Updated: 12-11-09 09:35 AM
With the value of gold on the rise, Jon Stewart was determined to get to the bottom of what may have caused the increase. The likely fanner of these flames: yep, Glenn Beck.
After noting that gold goes up when people are panicked or concerned, Stewart sat back and enjoyed the greatest hits from “Beck’s hour-long nightly fear-cast.” That alone wouldn’t be enough to credit Beck for initiating this gold rush, but his role as spokesman for Goldline, an internet site where you buy gold, surely sealed the deal. Stewart recapped:
“Glenn Beck is paid by Goldline to drum up interest in gold, which increases value during times of fear; an emotion reinforced nightly on Fox by Glenn Beck.”
Calling Beck’s ethics into question, Stewart finished by stating, “You can’t spell ‘gold’ without G-O-D
Saw this on Cox website… I wonder how many other states Constitution have a law where elected officials have to believe in God? Is Kansas one of them, I wonder?
This is interesting though – this time the complaining person is a leader of the black Southerners.
Maybe Sarah Palin has found someone she can hitch her wagon to and get even more support from Southerners?
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Lawsuit threatened over atheist councilman in NC
News .Atheist city councilman in NC challenged by foes citing outdated clause of state Constitution
12-11-2009 02:30 PM CST |By ALYSIA PATTERSON, Associated Press Writer
RALEIGH, N.C. (Associated Press) —
Asheville City Councilman Cecil Bothwell believes in ending the death penalty, conserving water and reforming government _ but he doesn’t believe in God. His political opponents say that’s a sin that makes him unworthy of serving in office, and they’ve got the North Carolina Constitution on their side.
Bothwell’s detractors are threatening to take the city to court for swearing him in, even though the state’s antiquated requirement that officeholders believe in God is unenforceable because it violates the U.S. Consititution.
“The question of whether or not God exists is not particularly interesting to me and it’s certainly not relevant to public office,” the recently elected 59-year-old said.
Raised a Presbyterian, Bothwell began questioning Christian beliefs at a young age and considered himself an atheist by the time he was 20. He’s an active member of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Asheville and he still celebrates Christmas, often hanging ornaments on his Fishhook cactus.
Bothwell ran this fall on a platform that also included limiting the height of downtown buildings and saving trees in the city’s core, views that appealed to voters in the liberal-leaning community at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains. When Bothwell was sworn into office on Monday, he used an alternative oath that doesn’t require officials to swear on a Bible or reference “Almighty God.”
That has riled conservative activists, who cite a little-noticed quirk in North Carolina’s Constitution that disqualifies officeholders “who shall deny the being of Almighty God.” The provision was included when the document was drafted in 1868 and wasn’t revised when North Carolina amended its constitution in 1971. One foe, H.K. Edgerton, is threatening to file a lawsuit in state court against the city to challenge Bothwell’s appointment.
“My father was a Baptist minister. I’m a Christian man. I have problems with people who don’t believe in God,” said Edgerton, a former local NAACP president and founder of Southern Heritage 411, an organization that promotes the interests of black southerners.
The head of a conservative weekly newspaper says city officials shirked their duty to uphold the state’s laws by swearing in Bothwell. David Morgan, editor of the Asheville Tribune, said he’s tired of seeing his state Constitution “trashed.”
Bothwell can’t be forced out of office over his atheist views because the North Carolina provision is unenforceable, according to the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution. Six other states, Arkansas, Maryland, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas, have similar provisions barring atheist officeholders.
In 1961, the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed that federal law prohibits states from requiring any kind of religious test to serve in office when it ruled in favor of a Maryland atheist seeking appointment as a notary public.
But the federal protections don’t necessarily spare atheist public officials from spending years defending themselves in court. Avowed atheist Herb Silverman won an eight-year court battle in 1997 when South Carolina’s highest court granted him the right to be appointed as a notary despite the state’s law.
Bothwell said a legal challenge to his appointment would be “fun,” but believes his opponents’ efforts have more to do with politics than religious beliefs.
“It’s local political opponents seeking to change the outcome of an election they lost,” Bothwell said.
Bothwell, who’s lived in Asheville nearly three decades and wrote the city’s best-selling guide book, said his spiritual views don’t matter to most of his constituents. Bothwell is a registered Democrat but didn’t run on a party ticket in the nonpartisan Council election.
Even if he can’t force Bothwell out of office, Edgerton said he hopes a legal battle would ultimately force North Carolina’s Legislature to determine the legality of the article of the Constitution.
“If the law is wrong, it is the obligation of the Legislature to say it’s wrong,” he said.
Provisions like North Carolina’s tend to stay on the books because lawmakers would rather not spend time weeding out outdated laws, said Duke University Law School Professor Joseph Blocher.
“I mean there are state laws against spitting in the street,” he said. “Why spend the time?”
But the battle is important to Silverman, who says there are scores of other atheist politicians afraid to “come out of the closet.” He cited U.S. Rep. Pete Stark of California, the first and only congressman to publicly acknowledge he doesn’t believe in God.
“We’re trying to change our culture to the point where it’s not political suicide,” Silverman said.
I saw a blurb mentioning Texas as one state with such a provision–didn’t see Kansas.
Doesn’t matter: it’s a settled issue, in the law anyway. Religious tests for public office are a no-no.
Well, isn’t that stupid. Somebody needs to quit crying over a lost election and let the man serve.
Indeed. But I admire his casual attitude about it; long-standing precedent is on his side (although they are no doubt hoping for the Roberts Court to overrule the “religious test” and supremacy clauses–nope, not even they will do that.
On another front, bigotry lost for once:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/us/politics/13houston.html
She may be a great mayor or a lousy one, but strike a blow for history, and normal thinking in a year when craziness was otherwise winning at the ballot box.
A human being ran for mayor and won. My gay friends need that common sense to apply in other areas.
Uh. . .the blurb is in the article. . .duh.
I think Kansas would have been mentioned. 🙂