I see I've had a few visitors since I was last here. My apologies to anyone who may have stopped by to fuel up on a little home-brewed vitriol.
I loathe the month of August and cannot wrap myself around anything to love or to hate.
Oh, sure....I equally loathe the religious right; hypocrites; life-blood-draining, mind-rotting ideas; liars; political pimps; pissant officials and the Texas school board. And I love small and large animals, bees, lemon-meringue pie and English films.
But I'll have to wait until September to regale you with this hate-nourishing, love-spilling spew. August days are the horse latitudes for me
Stay cool and out of stagnant waters.
-30-
My last child was born in 1968. I was a merry little homemaker then; oblivious to any untoward signs of national insanity.
Life was good. Religion was in the churches, and politics pretty much stayed in Washington, D.C., or in the local village and state government houses.
Except for the rotten residual of Viet Nam, the crazies who said Apollo 11 was a hoax and the singularly fascinating presidency of Richard Nixon, there was a normality about the times that seems eerily archaic.
Little did I dream that was the beginning of the end of an entire era of rational thinking.
The late '60s and early '70s marked the beginning of a new form of life for America - the land of freedom of (and from) religion was exiting and those favoring a Theocracy were (unbelievably!) gaining a foothold.
This is when televangelism reared its ugly heads - lotsa, lotsa heads: Jimmy Swaggart (the sexual deviant), Jim Bakker (another one), Pat Robertson and James Falwell, et al.
The immoral Moral Majority took off on the wings of TV, the Charismatic Movement, unspeakable greed and the naivete of "just plain folks" (the heart of America) who believe anyone who can memorize and launch full throated homilies from the Christian Bible, often while weeping, is to be believed about any aspect of life.
Especially when they tell you all you have to do is pray for the material things that every good Christian deserves and God, or Jesus, or the televangelist will provide them.....just send cash, keep going to church and vote against anyone who wants to give your tax dollars to the undeserving poor.
And therein lies the genius of these forerunning foot soldiers of God: It's all in the voting. Who'd a thunk it? Starting with school boards, community projects, village and state positions and ultimately the state houses, the U.S. House of Representatives, the Senate and, holy Nellie, the Presidency of the United States of America. God in his wisdom is running the country....right into the ground.
Back then I didn't pay much attention to the televangelists bleating for money and agitating for governmental representation. I figured every normal person was ignoring it. Maybe they were. But maybe we are now in a vast left wing minority of normality - and we ignore this at our peril.
Beware, normal people. The Apostolic Reformation has begun and it promises to take us to an Idiocracy the likes of which have not been seen since the Inquisition.
-30-
I caught the tail end of an interview Piers Morgan conducted with Bob Woodruff - the ABC newsman critically injured in Iraq five or six years ago.
The subject appeared to be his perceived life-after-death experience. Unfortunately I missed the Nightline program alluding to this phenomenon.
I'm not going to offer any enlightenment on the discussion; only the part where Piers commented on Woodruff's belief that he had died and then saw his body from above. He said he felt he chose to come back from what looked like a nice, bright and safe place.
No argument from me. I believe this is entirely possible. What I have a quibble with was Piers' observation that this would flummox atheists whom he maintains are at odds with any notion of life beyond death.
As an atheist, this assertion mystifies me. Even if one does not believe there is an old man with a white beard hanging out in the sky and decreeing who will "live" in heaven or hell, this does not mean that all atheists deny the possibility of life after death. Why does such a belief have to come with a side order of gods and demons?
I am in constant awe of life, the universe, nature....all the mysteries that dance in our heads. Never will I believe anything of life is really lost. We should know from our experience on Earth that all things live and die and recycle. It can be a messy process and create massive pain (as in the Texas-size mess of man-made crappy plastic in the Pacific), but ultimately Nature finds a use for everything.
Even us.
-30-
