What does the Kingdom of God look like?
It looks like 11 year olds from a Manhattan school with a 97% poverty rate learning how beautiful and valuable they are by learning to dance with all the unapologetic attitude and swagger they can muster, and to celebrate each other, and themselves, with joyful exuberance.
This movie deeply moved me.
The helpful folks at politifact have offered to clear up some misrepresentations from both sides of the health care reform issue:
http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2010/mar/19/top-5-lies-about-health-care/
People, what the fuck?!? If I hear one more person talk shit about how flimsy the Executive Order about abortion is, I will eat someone’s face. That’s right, I will go Hannibal Lector on some unsuspecting victim if people continue to let FOX News do their thinking for them without thinking about the facts for a single moment.
1. The bill never gave federal money to abortions, pro-life democrats simply wanted the language to be more clear, and they accepted the Executive Order as the personal assurance from the president that the “status quo would be rigorously upheld.” The EO just strengthens a pre-existing reality, and no, Obama isn’t the most pro-abortion leader in history. There is no such thing as pro-abortion!! No one, not the most hard-line feminist, humanist, socialist, etc., etc., etc., person wants more abortions. People act like Obama is one step away from going around stabbing pregnant women… it’s fantastical nonsense to create fear in people so that their actions can be manipulated.
2. The argument for the pro-lifers, myself among them, is that life is sacred. The sanctity of life is thrown around in the abortion debate more than baseballs in Spring Training. Where does the sanctity of life come into the equation when people are dying because they are uninsured and underinsured?!? If God cares so intensely about life, why is God against a bill that makes sure everyone in this country receives health care as a right, as opposed to a privilege for those who can afford it. This isn’t hyperbole, people are dying in this country because they cannot afford medical care… how does the argument for the sanctity of life not come into play?!?
3. Stop talking about how my children will be in debt because health care is passed. For one, lets none of us pretend that isn’t political strategy. Second, when did the conversation of debt come into play when we waged two simultaneous wars whose combined price tags will rest in the trillions when all is said and done? More people die from lack of health care than from terrorism in our country… so, that being the case, why is it important that we be safe from terrorist attacks that may or may not exist, spawned in the country of Iraq which may or may not have harbored terrorists, but who NEVER had WMDs; however, it is not important to be safe from unchecked disease because we can either be denied health coverage because of a pre-existing condition, or, can have our health coverage revoked when we get sick. That really happens!! People pay for coverage for thirty years, get cancer, and lose their coverage. Americans! In what Hannity calls the freest, best, greatest nation God has ever blessed the world with. I don’t have a problem with myself or my kids needing to pay taxes so that the sick can be healed. How does a Christian of any kind argue against the poor being cared for?!? READ THE BIBLE!
Normally, this is where I would apologize for ranting, but not anymore. I can’t take it anymore. This is ludicrous, insane! There is no precedent for a nation going bankrupt because of socialized medicine, actually, every other wealthy industrialized democracy in the world has health care for everyone. Also, this plan doesn’t create socialized medicine, it doesn’t even have a public option anymore. FOX News keeps saying that we have the world’s best health care system and that this plan will ruin it. False, we do not have the world’s best health care system. One of the primary indications of where a nation’s health care system ranks is infant mortality rate. Thus, we must be number one right? Nope. Top five though, for sure. Not even close. 29, we rank 29th in the world in infant mortality. In large part, this happens because many young mothers cannot afford health coverage and babies simply aren’t born healthy enough to live.
Sanctity of life, eh? Not when it hits my wallet. That’s what Jesus taught right? Whatever you do for the least of these, unless it actually costs you something. The gospel says, “Earn it, work for it, fight for what you deserve,” right?
If you want to make a political argument concerning this bill, then go ahead. You can do that. It is possible. I would disagree with you based on my understanding of the role of government, and the fact that countries all over the world have health care systems that the government runs which function better than ours. However, what I keep seeing on signs is not that bad politics are being practiced. What I keep seeing are signs talking about how harshly God will judge our country if this bill is passed. Glenn Beck, who is a Mormon mind you, keeps saying that our country should be Christian, that Jesus should be our Lord, that we should follow his way and avoid these progressive policies because Jesus would have. I challenge my conservative Christian friends who read this blog to tell me why. What would God have against this bill? Honestly, I want to know.
In the Old Testament, people were required to allot portions of their field that couldn’t be harvested so that the poor could pick off of it and eat. There was a year of Jubilee in which ALL debt was forgiven, no questions asked. In the New Testament, all shared with whoever had need. Early Christians took this practice seriously, they invented the first orphanages to save unwanted babies who were left to die of exposure, they built hospitals to care for the sick and poor. If there was a theocracy, which I am against, that is what it would look like. If Jesus ran a country, the poor would come first, the sick would be cared for, and ‘my rights’ would never be a citizen’s first priority.
Where is the vitriol and anger coming from in Evangelical circles?!? I hope someone responds to this, in email, somewhere. Show me these facts that display why God would be so angry about health care for everyone.
The GOP has co-opted so much of Christianity in America. It is time to take it back. Show me I’m wrong. I dare you.
I’ve missed photogenic, and since I haven’t been able to write recently it’s as good a way as any to keep the fires burning until the new blog project finally comes to fruition. I figure, since I’ve been enjoying Hip Hop that doesn’t suck quite often lately, as well as gearing up for an Emcee related series of posts for the new blog, this week will be all about emcees who are either my favorite, or who I have been listening to lately because they don’t suck like most popular emcees.
Today, Mos Def.
So, Brian mentioned the new Childish Gambino freestyle to me last week (if it is true that it is a freestyle I am retiring from life, because no one should be that good at anything off the top of their head), but he failed to mention that this amazing picture came along with it. I’m not going to make the same mistake, that photo is today’s recommended dose of awesome. If you want the song too, click on the picture to follow the link.
I found this tumblr account via Andrew Sullivan, I simply needed to share it with you. It’s pretty simple really, people take images from Mystery Science Theater 3000 and write a haiku to accompany it.
To get to the site, click on the image below, which is one of my favorites thus far. Enjoy.
When I put Emily’s owl on the chair next to my ice bat, I immediately realized that they are actually us. The primary exceptions to these metaphorical likenesses of us is that Emily’s sleep patterns in no way resemble that of an owl, while I work really hard not to have that perpetual look of shock and dismay Señor Bat is exhibiting.
