Proud Parent

My son, the sociology major, made this video with his group - it's on AIDS and religion and he is the announcer...

As a kid who grew up in D.C. he knows lots about AIDS and hypocrisy - religious, politikal and all else

After all he is my kid! And I am very proud of him!!!!

so many rants - so little time

wow - not sure what to rant about lately - there is so much out there my mind is spinning - so instead of worrying about which I'll jump in and start with the weirdest one tonight - what one is that? the alleged "war" on christmas....does Fox have so little real infotainment to present that this is all they can spit out day after day? Is it for the ratings? or to deflect us from what the shrub is doing????

If you read my previous blogs you know I was raised as a Christian and switched out of that religion... part of me began to hate this season because it is a time when all the idiotic nasty behaviors humans are capable of are out in full force.... drivers are more dangerous, shoppers are just damned rude and the closer we get to December 25- the worse humans behave...

Many years ago I decided that except for necessities I do not go near large stores from Thanksgiving until after January 2...There was a time when the stores did not put out Christmas stuff until after thanksgiving - now it's out there right around Labor Day and the weight of the Sunday papers grows each week..

So who started this war? the greedy corporations who want all your money and who do not give one thought to what Christmas is supposed to be celebrating.... Does Fox go after them? no the right wingnuts go after anyone who is not Christian and blames them...so anti semitism, anti Islam and anti all non-Christian religions is more rampant...

If you are a Christian ask yourself what gift giving has to do with your religion, what does a tree mean? what about the costly house decorations? the bills that come in January?

Do you ever stop and think that all religions have holidays that coincide with the Summer and Winter soltices and the Spring and Autumnal equinoxes.. our more modern religions started using the pagan celebrations of the time and incorporated them into their religions.

There was a period in my past when my friends and I spent a few years "doing" all the pagan celebrations as best we could - it was a lot of fun and very educational...no one felt left out and no one felt thier religion was being made fun of or that there was a war on anyone's religion....maybe we should all learn where our celebrations came from and gain tolerance

but to Fox and all other media outlets who are stuck on this "war" theme - I suggest they get a sense of proportion and a sense of humor

George, G-d and Jesus

First a sort of disclaimer... I was raised as a protestant but gravitated to Judaism as a teen and during my adulthood made the label official...I say this only to show I am familiar with both religions.

George claims to be a Christian and to have found g-d but in so doing he has skipped away from the bible [if not run away] - at least the parts of the bible that speak of Jesus. Like so many right wing people of all persuasions, he has picked and chosen his way around the "old" testament [to use the common lingo] and ignored the "new."

Jesus was a Jew and I do think he would be astounded to see what some people do in his name. And those pickers thru of the old testament ignore all the years of rabbinical debate over many of the issues they raise...pretending instead to stick to the "original" concepts..

Hmmm....for starters there are many "versions" of bibles - sort of depends on who translated them and when the translating was done...so what is original? I have seen the portions of the Dead Seas Scrolls that are in the museum in Jerusalem and they ain't in English! And certainly not the version by King James or any of the other modern translations either.

We know George does not read so we can expect that he has been only given the briefest of summaries of bits and pieces of the bible - much like the DVD he got of the hurricane Katrina. He seems to have missed the parts that speak to treatment of the poor and loan sharking..and behaviors akin the credit cards and bankruptcy.

I don't have a problem with religious persons - I just do not want them telling me what to believe and especially when they have chose to ignore more appropriate parts of the bible than they spout off about.

To be continued....