Red, White, and Blue in the Face!

Today, Hearst News Service officially confirmed that Helen Thomas, their White House correspondent, is “retiring”.

Ms. Thomas, though a respected journalist for decades, managed to bring her reputation crashing down around her ears when she responded to a request for “any comments on Israel”. Helen responded “Tell ‘em to get the hell out of Palestine”. When asked where they should go she said they should go back to Poland, Germany, and the United States (in other words the old “go back where you came from” line).

I remember as a boy living in North Carolina –  not the deep South nonetheless I recall hearing adults say within my hearing that those “_______s should go back to Africa where they came from”. My parents both born and raised in the South did their best to counteract what their children heard about race and about religion. We Catholics weren’t well liked and were definitely a minority — John Kennedy’s bid for president really brought out the worst in folks regarding their anti-Catholicism down there. I remember kids I didn’t even know (and how did they know I was Catholic?) coming up to me in the lunchroom to say their parents were worried that if Kennedy was elected he’d bring the Pope over to run the country or that we’d all be forced to worship idols. Nevertheless, I was astonished at the coldhearted behavior many of my fellow school students reflected (no doubt learned from their parents and others in their families).

Despite the lessons of history ignorance still abounds. Kennedy was elected and my fellow Americans weren’t forced to convert, worship idols, or swear an oath of fealty to the Pope in Rome. So too, the Civil Rights act was passed without causing the country to fall into the trauma predicted by the nay sayer’s.

The history of the Jewish people in the Middle East is as old as any other people there. To deny that you may as well also be a holocaust denier!  The Israelis have every right to defend themselves and to maintain security for their country. How can we expect mutual respect and tolerance from Israel’s neighbors who have NEVER afforded the Israelis that respect and tolerance. For decades the Israelis had no objection to Arabs living, working, and prospering in Israel. Somehow though this wasn’t enough. The anti-Semitic voices never quieted, never stopped and the Israelis have done their best to defend themselves against almost constant threats and attacks.

Yes, Helen Thomas apologized but read the apology

“I deeply regret my comments I made last week regarding the Israelis and the Palestinians, they do not reflect my heart-felt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance. May that day come soon.”

Can that day come when ignorance and racism are steadfast bedfellows throughout most of the planet? Can respect and tolerance ever come to the fore when there are people willing to believe and speak aloud what Helen Thomas couldn’t keep herself from blurting out in public? Perhaps there should be a U.N. sponsored nation created for bigots and racists and they should be forced to get the hell out and move there.

God help us.

(1 Corinthians 13:13) And now there remain faith, hope, and charity, these three: but the greatest of these is charity.

How to be charitable toward Ms. Pelosi is becoming more of a dilemma. By now the news has made the rounds of the usual blogs and internet spots that Madam Speaker is, once more, laying out her faith for all to see and hear. I will say that her latest statement is simply nonsense.

CNS News: At a May 6 Catholic Community Conference on Capitol Hill, the speaker said: “They ask me all the time, ‘What is your favorite this? What is your favorite that? What is your favorite that?’ And one time, ‘What is your favorite word?’ And I said, ‘My favorite word? That is really easy. My favorite word is the Word, is the Word. And that is everything. It says it all for us. And you know the biblical reference, you know the Gospel reference of the Word.”

“And that Word,” Pelosi said, “is, we have to give voice to what that means in terms of public policy that would be in keeping with the values of the Word. The Word. Isn’t it a beautiful word when you think of it? It just covers everything. The Word.

“Fill it in with anything you want. But, of course, we know it means: ‘The Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us.’ And that’s the great mystery of our faith. He will come again. He will come again. So, we have to make sure we’re prepared to answer in this life, or otherwise, as to how we have measured up.”

“Fill it in with anything you want”? For a charitable point of view you can always read what The Anchoress has to say (and she says it well).

Pelosi simply defies explanation. On the one hand she’s a devout Catholic but on the other hand believes that women “have the right to choose” (that choice of course is to kill an unborn child by procuring its abortion). Nowhere to my recollection does Catholic teaching allow for this and it doesn’t make a difference how devout your faith! The closest thing I can find in Church teaching is:

 Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm – without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself – the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity “are very rare, if not practically non-existent.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2267)

This paragraph of course addresses the death penalty –  not abortion. Abortion is dealt with in a different tone:

Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law:

You shall not kill the embryo by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish.

God, the Lord of life, has entrusted to men the noble mission of safeguarding life, and men must carry it out in a manner worthy of themselves. Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception: abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes. (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2271)

and

Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life. “A person who procures a completed abortion incurs excommunication latae sententiae,” “by the very commission of the offense,” and subject to the conditions provided by Canon Law. The Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy. Rather, she makes clear the gravity of the crime committed, the irreparable harm done to the innocent who is put to death, as well as to the parents and the whole of society.(Catechism of the Catholic Church 2272)

and

From its conception, the child has the right to life. Direct abortion, that is, abortion willed as an end or as a means, is a “criminal” practice (GS 27 § 3), gravely contrary to the moral law. The Church imposes the canonical penalty of excommunication for this crime against human life. (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2322)

Oh, there was a small nugget of sense in what Speaker Pelosi said . . . “So, we have to make sure we’re prepared to answer in this life, or otherwise, as to how we have measured up.”

In all things charity except towards the unborn child I guess.

Passing the Health Care Reform bill is apparently a make or break proposition for the Dems. Nancy Pelosi, for whom I have lost whatever shred of respect I may have previously had, maintains consistently that she “will do whatever is necessary” to ensure the bill is passed into law. Obviously that includes continuing to lie to the American people about the status of health care reform legislation within her own party.

Chuck Schumer meanwhile, is outdoing himself in efforts to find more ways to get around the Constitution and his duty as a representative of the people of the State of New York. He has been recorded as saying that the Dems are looking into a way to pass the health care reform legislation by simply changing the rules to suit themselves despite the limitations the Constitution may appear to put on the Senate’s ability to make their own rules.

I am beyond words at this point (well, ok, maybe not). Do these people have no shame whatsoever? They will do what they want and to hell with  the American people and damn the Constitution.

The plain, simple fact is that the Dems, despite their self-righteous proclamations of openness and transparency, have yet to evidence either of those things not to mention failing miserably at honesty while their cup of hyposcrisy overfloweth.

Oh and by the way, I still haven’t changed my voter registration. I’ve been a registered Democrat all my voting life. Can’t remember the last time I had the desire to vote for a Democrat though.

I am convinced that the Speaker of the House of Representatives has finally and publically pronounced to all the world that she has completely lost her mind. Or is it possible I’ve misunderstood or misheard her?

Speaking to the press (they really should get someone to speak for her if you ask me) she remarked about the health care legislation that “ . . . we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.”

Please tell me she didn’t really mean what I heard her say.

I’m working from home and have been watching the so-called health care “summit” at the White House. The sham show at the White House is so transparent I can’t believe they’re trying to pull this one over our eyes. The “summit” is nothing more than a very thinly veiled attempt to make the Administration look like the “good guys” and the minority party to look like the “bad guys”.

They’ve been yakking for hours now and as best I can tell have accomplished zero, changed no minds, come to no consensus, compromised on nothing. President Obama, the Democratic members, and the Republican members have done nothing differently but finally at around 3:40PM EDST they really ticked me off.

Responding to Senator McCains remarks regarding the use of “reconciliation” to pass health care reform legislation President Obama said he thought “most Americans don’t care about procedural matters”. What! Perhaps many Americans don’t care and aren’t paying attention but most Americans certainly do care and are paying attention. Most Americans have said loudly and clearly they don’t want what the Administration is offering in the way of health care reform. My personal reason for rejecting Obamacare is that we’ve seen we cannot trust them to do the right thing. Candidate Obama made much ado about getting rid of the special influences, knocking off the back room deals, and making government more transparent. He’s done none of these things and in fact has jumped right into the “business as usual” way of working. he has proven beyond all reasonable doubt that no politician can be trusted.

I’m sick and tired of these people thinking they know better how to handle our lives when our government has proven time and time again that it cannot do better. We need to stop this foolishness Mr. President. It is not too late to begin anew a discussion of health care reform that will be right for America and right for the common good. Your current proposal simply bankrupts all Americans and the country to boot.

Is there no one left in Washington who has any idea what to do for the good of the country rather than for the good of their own agenda?

Though not quite what we’d hoped for. President Obama gave his State of the Union address and lo and behold suddenly he’s concerned about spending and debt! Never mind most of the country were shouting STOP! while the Democrats diddled away billions; never mind most of the country were shouting NO! as the Democrats tried to pay their way into a health care catastrophe; never mind Pelosi and friends hid behind closed doors while dealing over their health care reform; never mind . . . oh well, you get the point.

Suddenly now, President Obama understands that America does not want what he wants, does not believe in his kind of change? I don’t think so. The turnaround is too convenient, too, dare I say it . . . transparent?

He can carry the message that the Americans in Massachusetts have given loudly and clearly to our government:

You are our representatives, not our masters. You work for us, not for yourselves. We are mad as heck and we’re not going to take any more of your arrogance.

I firmly believe Scott Brown was elected, not because he was a Republican, but because he was not a Democrat.

After years of slamming the Bush administration hard for being a “culture of corruption” the Democrats in just one short year have proven they only offer the same or worse!

We are a Democratic Republic with a representative government. When the government stops representing us it’s time to get rid of the government. Scott Brown may well be only the tip of the iceberg.

My wife has been searching for skin care products and makeup that would be suitably non-allergenic yet affordable. Being an up and coming techno-geek she turned immediately to Google for help in finding what she sought. 

I confess to being fairly oblivious to all things related to women’s skin care, makeup, clothing etc. especially when my wife is glued to the long-armed shopper that is the computer but within half an hour of starting her search she managed to get my attention.

It was her first “This is just horrible!” that got my attention. Thinking to myself, “Makeup? How horrible can it be unless what she likes has turned out to be more than 6 months take home pay”, then I thought “Maybe she’s digressed from searching for makeup and started looking through the local obits and found a lost acquaintance listed there”.

Nope. Nothing that simple, nosiree. What she’d stumbled across was a website dedicated to documenting hazardous materials used in producing women’s products. Huh? Yup. You got it. All sorts of dangerous, harmful, carcinogenic, cell and gene altering junk is used to make women’s beauty products. Much to my extreme surprise what was one item that figured high on the lipstick line? Lead. Can you believe it? In this day and age lead is being used in women’s lipstick. Un-be-lievable! What ticked her off mightily was finding out that to limit the use of lead in lipstick was proposed in California but the industry lobbyists swarmed all over ‘em and nipped that baby in the bud before it could eat into any of their profits.

She was scrolling through an endless line of well-known (even I knew some the names) companies and products and exclaimed repeatedly at the list of harmful ingredients and frightened because she had used many of these products most of her adult life.

She got my attention.

You can read what she found:

Cosmetics Database

My hosting service took a big hit in one of the datacenters they use — my site was on the server that died. I’ve essentially been offline here for 9 days.

I’m not going to try and catch up with the news thats been going on except to reference these articles that I had intended to blog about:

“I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he’s African-American,” Carter told “NBC Nightly News.” “I live in the South, and I’ve seen the South come a long way, and I’ve seen the rest of the country that shares the South’s attitude toward minority groups at that time, particularly African-Americans.”

“That racism inclination still exists, and I think it’s bubbled up to the surface because of belief among many white people — not just in the South but around the country — that African-Americans are not qualified to lead this great country. It’s an abominable circumstance, and it grieves me and concerns me very deeply,” Carter said. [emphasis mine]

Former President Jimmy Carter must have lost touch with reality or he’s part of a concerted effort by the Left to shut down the debate, or any attempt at debate, of politics and policy in this country. By his statement Mr. Carter demonstrates an abominable ignorance of and disregard for the viewpoints of those opposing the present administrations policies.

It would be naive of me to suggest that there is no one in America who actually dislikes President Obama – I’m sure there are fringe wingnuts on all sides who for one illogical reason or another dislike him as a person and some who probably dislike him because he is black. But to say that everyone and anyone who disagrees with the Presidents policies or proposals does so because the President is a black man is simply out in left field. The animosity that is being intensely demonstrated is an animosity toward the governments proposals and policies and, I sincerely believe, is being demonstrated not only against this administration and the Democrats but against everyone and anyone in government now and any time over the past 2 decades. The animosity is directed at those who had first contributed directly to the root causes of the failure of the U.S. (and subsequently the global) economy and then had the brass to try and blame the entire thing on someone else (popularly, that someone else is most often President George W. Bush) all the while claiming no responsibility for their own documented actions. As if that wasn’t enough, the majority of these people then lined up like pigs at a trough, and while much of America was staggering under the weight of financial losses and increasing unemployment, proceeded to spend our hard earned dollars on wasteful and fraudulent projects. These self-same politicians who have demonstrated an unabashed hypocrisy in the full view of the American people day after day for the last 8 months are now of the opinion that we, the American people, are simply in their way and obstructing their so-called agenda.

If those who claim we’re upset because we don’t like President Obama because President Obama is a black man would get their heads out of their butts they would see endless examples that would prove them wrong. I myself and particularly proud of Mr. Obama and of this country for electing him as President. No disagreement I have about anything is directed at the person of the President, but is instead a disagreement with the policies of the President. [As an aside I might add that I am disappointed with the people President Obama has chosen to surround himself with – these people reflect a radically Leftist tendency and do not reflect the popular direction in this country but instead oppose the popular direction which has been proven to be largely tending toward conservatism] It is decidedly disengenous to describe those who disagree with political policies and agendas as “racists” and reflects desperation in the Liberal camp.

The Majority Party in this Adminstration and in our Congress along with those who support them have failed to recognize a salient point – Mr. Obama’s election was not a mandate for a near-Socialist agenda but was a mandate for change. Included in the majority that voted for Barack Obama were a large group of moderate, centrist and conservative voters who evidently chose to ignore what Mr. Obama said he was planning to do and instead chose to vote for him simply because they couldn’t vote for John mcCain. The better part of the voters who put Mr. Obama into office are not racists  but are simple, hardworking Americans who want their government to work for them not against them. The evidence for this continues – a recent Gallup poll shows that a significant number of Americans are identifying themselves as conservative rather than liberal. Why? Because they are racist? Good grief – don’t be simple. It’s because they do not identify themselves with the extreme liberal policies of this Administration. How, pray tell Mr. Carter, does that make them racist? Last point – if so many of us white people believe “that African-Americans are not qualified to lead this great country” how do you explain President Obama’s election? Whites, by any measure, are still the majority in this country sir (better than 70% conservatively), so your argument is, on its face, simply illogical.

Mr. Carter, I can’t believe you really meant what you said but in the event you did actually mean it all I have to say is, thank God you aren’t President!