MIRACLE IS SUNK

MIRACLE IS SUNK

A PRIEST has died after trying to demonstrate how Jesus walked on water.

Evangelist preacher Franck Kabele, 35, told his congregation he could repeat the biblical miracle.

But he drowned after walking out to sea from a beach in the capital Libreville in Gabon, west Africa.

One eyewitness said: "He told churchgoers he'd had a revelation that if he had enough faith, he could walk on water like Jesus.

"He took his congregation to the beach saying he would walk across the Komo estuary, which takes 20 minutes by boat.

"He walked into the water, which soon passed over his head and he never came back."

No need for comment, eh?

The Death of Reason

I was sad to hear the news of Naguib Mahfouz's passing today. Sad is the word here, not disconsolate, not distraught, not depressed. The man was 94 years old - he'd lived life and lived it again. A brilliant storyteller, Mahfouz once had a fatwa put on him because he had written something said to be blasphemous. He was also stabbed by an Izzy Fundy.

Mahfouz was leftover from a Cairo that is dead, a Cairo that once was cosmopolitan and liberally cool. He was a voice of reason in an increasingly religious nutcase world, telling stories in a very poignant manner, not hiding anything. He wrote what he saw. He wrote truth.

But he criticized American foreign policy, and he's an Arab, so he must be a terrorist.

Grow up, campus nazis

So, Gunter Grass has admitted he was a member of the SS. To this, I say "so what?"

Those who say they never did anything stupid in their youth are either lying, stupid, don't remember it, or politicians. I know rightwingers like to pretend that just because you are legally an adult you are capable of making rational adult decisions, but unless you have no soul, which I suspect is the problem for many of them, you can't escape the fervor of youth. So Grass was a flagwaver. He was a patriot who wanted to fight for his country. Yeah, I'm not a fan of uber-patriotism, that form of sheeplike flagwaving that renders the word "patriot" meaningless. But Grass saw the light. The man wrote the greatest anti-fascism novel in the brief history of post-war literature. And one thing I can do is forgive people for their past transgressions. I would do it for 20 year old American kids, too, if they opened their minds a bit.

You can't have an ideology at age 20. You haven't even lived life. Yet so many of today's college students believe they have it all figured out by the time they are in college, and they are attempting to block anything that may open their minds to new ideas. What is especially frightening is these students who have developed an ideology around this age are trying to stifle debate in universities. Here's another of the many examples:

It used to be said that academic rows were vicious because the stakes were so small. That's no longer true in America, where a battle is underway on campuses over what can be said about the Middle East and US foreign policy.

Douglas Giles is a recent casualty. He used to teach a class on world religions at Roosevelt University, Chicago, founded in memory of FDR and his liberal-inclined wife, Eleanor. Last year, Giles was ordered by his head of department, art historian Susan Weininger, not to allow students to ask questions about Palestine and Israel; in fact, nothing was to be mentioned in class, textbooks and examinations that could possibly open Judaism to criticism.

Students, being what they are, did not go along with the ban. A young woman, originally from Pakistan, asked a question about Palestinian rights. Someone complained and Professor Giles was promptly fired.

You can imagine the type of student who complained, a kid from a middle class family who thinks it is richer than it is, a kid who has been sheltered from everything, who was not allowed to run on a playground, who went to a school where they taught you how to take a test to graduate. There is no thinking involved here.

The wackjobs that have created organizations like Campus Watch who think conservative students are oppressed in universities have some sort of mental disease that creates these delusions of paranoia about how liberal professors are out to get them. Since these people have no sense of reason or rationality, they can't make the connection that the more you learn, the more you experience, the more exposed you are to a wide variety of ideas, the more a narrow ideology doesn't make sense.

A university is a place to learn. If you are not willing to learn, to debate, to engage yourself in the world around you, don't go. A university is not some place your mommy and daddy sends you so you can get a piece of paper to get a job. It is not a place you go to destroy your liver. Sadly, though, education, actual knowledge, is so little respected in this country that you have these people who think that, who complain every time they hear something that doesn't fit into their little sheltered world. You know what? There's a word for that kind of mentality. It's called fascist.

If you haven't read the Tin Drum, do it. The parallels between the government in the book and the neocon agenda can be quite harrowing. And if you are a rightwinger who happens to be reading this, don't go and watch the movie. Read the book. Use your brain for once.

See ya, Joe (good riddance)

Dear Joe,

You are a symbol of all that is wrong with American politics today. You are the definition of establishment Washington. You can't take no for an answer, though, and you have to continue to make a mockery of the American political system. You say you want to "make the general election a campaign about a tone and style of politics that has stalemated Washington." Joe, YOU are one of the causes of that stalemate.

Joe, the people don't want you anymore. Sit down. You are going to force the Democrats to spend money they shouldn't have to spend, money that should be used for tight races. It doesn't matter if you will caucus with the Democrats should you defeat Lamont in the general election. We need six seats to take back the Senate, and if you win, we will be losing a seat that was already a D. We need all of our seats to get the party of crooks and liars out of control of our country. Joe, do you hate America so much that you would risk a continuance of Republican messmaking to satisfy your lust for power?

Good bye, Joe. Thanks for your service to this country, but it's time to go home.

As for you, Cynthia, HA HA! You get what you give, a big old slap!

WAR IS NOT ENTERTAINMENT

What is wrong with this country? We allow unjust presidents to start unjust wars, watch as the wars blow up into civil wars, and pretend it isn't happening, or that it's in our interest, or that we are fighting Evil. Faux News gives away Israeli positions on live television like war is just a movie rather than reality. We choose one side over the other when conflicts erupt in the Middle East, like we're watching the Red Sox play the Yankees. We put ribbons and flags up like we are ready for a sporting event, like we're root, root, rooting for the home team. And now this:

Army officials say they are considering allowing a private developer to build a 125-acre entertainment, hotel and conference center complex next to a national Army museum at Fort Belvoir...The possibility of adding what county officials call a military theme park arises as about 22,000 employees prepare to be transferred to Fort Belvoir in the next five years because of the federal base realignment and closure recommendations, designed to save $49 billion nationwide..."You can command the latest M-1 tank, feel the rush of a paratrooper freefall, fly a Cobra Gunship or defend your B-17 as a waist gunner"...

My god, war is not something to be taken lightly, to be developed into amusement park rides! People DIE! It's government-sanctioned murder. Is America so far removed from the horrors of war that it has become a form of entertainment? Every time a citizen participates in some sort of war-as-entertainment activity, it trivializes the seriousness of war and the lives of those who died fighting it.

What does this country need to wake it up? Another 9/11? A few of them? Will rivers of blood flooding the streets of Kansas City or Oklahoma or Topeka wake people up? Do we have to force people to watch hot metal slicing up live bodies, ripping off legs, arms, heads? Intermittent electricity, no precious air conditioning, no DVD players, no lights on in every room, sporadic water service, gas and food rations, forget that SUV, sacrifice for the country, sacrifice for the country, sacrifice...The glowing night sky radiant with the flashes of bombs taking out buildings, sounds like fireworks, nothing to celebrate here, no sporting event, no entertainment, just destruction, just death. Oh so much blood, so much reality.

What we need is a good old fashioned draft, get apathetic suburbia involved in a violently bloody war, teach them that war is not entertainment, teach them the value of life. Get a few middle class kids blown up, bring back a few vegetables to disbelieving parents. Wipe out another generation like Rummy's pals did back in the late sixties, early seventies. Sound brutal? Sound utterly heartless, utterly cruel? Of course it does! It's WAR we're talking about, not a goddamn sporting event, not a theme for a freaking amusement park!

This is just another place for rightwing chickenhawks to go and pretend like they're doing something for the country, I suppose. It's disgusting. Why don't you just go and spit on the graves of dead soldiers?

Bullet the blue sky

I am sick. The vile champions of hate produce another generation who know not peace, forgiveness, compromise. These are Israeli children in this photo, writing messages on bombs like murder and destruction are a happy part of childhood innocence, mere chalk on a sidewalk. They don't know it yet, but hatred already pollutes their blood and rage runs through their veins. They will never know Justice, only the eternal cycle of barbaric vengeance.

As bombs like these pour from the sky like blood from a never healing wound, as children like these are murdered, maimed, psychologically tortured for life, blame spreads like wildfire, and it doesn't care who it takes down in its path of destruction.

You plant a demon seed, you raise a flower of fire.