Ep 609 The Professional Left Podcast

Link for this episode: Morning Prayer from Wednesday.

Ep 377 The Professional Left Podcast

Links for this episode:

Louie Gohmert verus Gabby Giffords

@flat Rodney Davis (our cardboard congressman)

Driftglass on Nicholas Kristof

Wonkette on Melania reading The Lord’s Prayer

The Lord’s Prayer and how to say it (via Matthew 6)

The button below allows listeners to throw a contribution specifically towards the Professional Left Podcast. Thanks for your listenership and support!

Ep 313 The Professional Left Podcast

Links for this episode…

Think Progress:  What the gun lobby learned from the tobacco settlement.

Blue Gal on the Virgin Mary and Planned Parenthood.

“Prayer Shaming” BS in Wapo and The Atlantic

Charlie Pierce on Michael Dukakis

The Article in Vox that you must read.

The button below allows listeners to throw a contribution specifically towards the Professional Left Podcast. Thanks for your listenership and support!

Ep 270 The Professional Left Podcast

Links for this episode:

Obama promotes separation of church and state at prayer breakfast; RW goes crazee.

David Brooks insults Blue Gal and all working religionists

Stephen Fry on what he would say to God (LastWord)

Lawrence O'Donnell covers Paul Ryan lying...to Chuck Todd?

Driftglass has had it with Glenn Greenwald.

The button below allows listeners to throw a contribution specifically towards the Professional Left Podcast. Thanks for your listenership and support!

Ep 150 The Professional Left Podcast

from http://bindersfullofwomen.tumblr.com/ 

The button below allows listeners to throw a contribution specifically towards the podcast.  Thanks for your listenership and support!  We really appreciate it:

PS People are asking about the prayer that I read on the air. Here it is.

[click the image for larger]

National Review Online's BlogMother just keeps giving and giving.

I want to state for the record that I just love Katherine Jean Lopez, and not just with the "for the grace of God there go I" prayer I say every single time I hear about her. h/t WhiskeyFire, here she is defending Darryl Issa's panel.  PS. Honestly, Katie, Darryl Issa is not defending Darryl Issa's panel. You can give up now. But no:

Liberal Democratic women ask, “Where are the women?” — ignoring women who have publicly opposed the coercive mandate in hearings and letters and protests of various sorts. And, just for the record, there is yet another answer to their question: Women are in the pope’s prayers.


Yeah, I know exactly how the Pope's prayers for women are going, too.  Emphasis mine, from the best article on the Catholic abuse scandal ever written:

The idea that the Church authorities simply don’t understand what is going on was further emphasized when the Vatican last month [July 2010] outlined its opposition to the sexual abuse of minors by members of the clergy and to the ordination of women in the same document, and threatened greater punishment for those who got involved in the latter than in the former.

Too bad the Pope's*** prayers aren't doing much for National Review Online, who obviously would do well to repeat their threat of last spring:

***most of the commenters at Catholic.com say if you're talking about the specific fabulously shoe-d pontiff currently residing in Vatican City, it should be capitalized.  K-Lo,  I hope the POPE, CAPITAL P-O-P-E, is praying for you to get a new copy editor.

Apparently, the "you can't pray at a football game" omgomgomg email is going around again.

My reply is below, as in, Reply All. And honestly, I don't mind not being on these email lists if people want to take me off. But don't wave this stuff in my email box if you don't want me to reply all, because I have a FIRM POLICY of doing so.  This is being forwarded to people from church groups of which I am a part.



It's not illegal to pray at a football game. If the teams playing are at public, taxpayer funded schools, the ruling is that the Principal cannot MAKE students and players say a prayer, or use the public address system to announce prayers to the public school function. Public announcements of religion at these events is Satan's trick to get people to be lazy about their own piety and lack of repentance. Hey, if we're all praying in public, then my own sins are covered. Satan tricks people into thinking if public figures blab about Jesus, we as a nation are all set and don't have to look within at the evil in our own individual thinking. Satan's mission accomplished. 


 Taking it the other direction, football is such a religion in Alabama that students at the private Baptist institution Samford University can get convocation credit (religious service attendance) for ATTENDING a FOOTBALL GAME. Even if there is a prayer at the beginning, what a joke. 


 My own sins keep me busy 24/7/365. I'm either doing them or repenting them, and I pray the good outweighs the bad. But I won't be comforted one bit by anyone in a public office, from a school principal to a presidential candidate, giving lip service to Jesus Christ. They can't bring me closer to God than I already am, but they sure can distract me into thinking that by proxy, I don't have to worry about my relationship with my Lord and Creator. Get thee behind me, Satan!

 Fran

A prayer (and a request) for today

[click the image for larger]

I am reading this prayer in tomorrow's podcast, and it's completely on topic, with the totally-serious caveat that here at Blue Gal, we believe that God loves atheists best.

I'm holding a fundraiser, asking my readers to give five bucks, either to the podcast or to me. I'm so grateful for your (please keep it modest in these tough times) support of my writing and broadcasting. Your small contribution makes it possible for me to keep toner in my printer and occasionally say yes to a treat for the kids. Thank you.

A prayer for Dick Cheney

Wishing you a speedy recovery, with trust in God that whatever happens, St. Peter's got you covered.

My kid prays about the oil spill

Mom, how is it going with the oil spill?

Still pretty bad, maybe you could say a prayer about it.

[bows his head] Dear God, I hope the government can clean up all the oil and send BP to jail!

A prayer for today

I realize some of my readers are not religious; if this is not your thing, skip it.

All of us are stressed and frankly, grieving at this point re the Gulf Oil Spill. It's a loss: to the environment, our sense of technology's power, and our own moral certainty.

At the same time, we've been forced to come to the conclusion that the long hard war is not with terrorists in another country or another race; the long hard war is with the savagely greedy and willfully ignorant among our own people. We the people must become the government, and yeah, take back our country from...the greedy few who have so much.

If you want to call that socialism go right ahead. (Click here for larger image.)


(PS David Brooks that's what you should have said yesterday, without excusing corporations.)

There is nothing like the hopelessness of grief to turn us to some power higher and stronger than ourselves. We have lost something, and have a tremendous fight ahead of us. Pray? Hell, yeah. Check this one out:


Many people have urged that I call the nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.

Give us strength, too -- strength in our daily tasks...And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come...

And, O Lord, give us faith. Give us faith in Thee; faith in our sons; faith in each other; faith in our united crusade. Let not the keeness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment -- let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.

Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogances.

Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace -- a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.

Thy will be done, Almighty God.


Franklin D. Roosevelt
Evening of D-Day
June, 1944

God loves atheists, and how do we out-bless that?

Adult Sunday School today focused on Jesus asking the fisherman sons of Zebedee to "follow him," and they immediately dropped their nets and did so.

One woman there admitted "I'd want to go home and change clothes first." We all laughed.

I had a really nice exchange with a fellow blogger this week. A group of us were informed that one of us (not me) had an 8 week old niece diagnosed with H1N1. I and some others mentioned that we would pray or get in touch with a church group, etc. etc. BTW I don't claim any credit for me or for God, but baby is doing much much better this weekend and we're all grateful for that.

Another of the group said,

being atheist - I don't have a prayer group. God doesn't listen to me anyway. Must have just been all that non-denominational love radiating through the atmosphere...

Now those of you who know me know my answer to THAT, and I replied immediately, yes, as immediately as the sons of Zebedee dropped their nets:

if there is a God She loves atheists best of all...that's why She made you clever and loving without benefit of clergy....

So often we so-called Christians focus on how we can control people rather than how we can bless them. This abortion bill mumbo jumbo is just the latest example. If I had the money, I'd mail a box of condoms to everyone who voted for that Stupid Stupak amendment and tell them to get back to me when they completely abandon abstinence-only hypocrisy.

Planned Parenthood notes that the cost of an abortion in the first trimester costs between $300 to $900. That doesn't include travel expenses to Atlanta, which for many Southern Baptist college students is the closest place to have their "mistake"... "taken care of." Church-going Daddies and wayward boyfriends do come up with that money all the time, without filing an insurance claim, trust me.

For the women who were unable to get an abortion on Medicaid due to the Hyde Amendment before last night? Life continues to suck, or in the words of our Lord and Master, "the poor you always have with you." Dear Congress: Jesus meant that as an accusation, rather than a statement of fact. Jesus knows what is in your hearts, Congressmen, and that you would send any number of pregnant interns to that Atlanta abortion clinic for the full nine hundred, just to save your fucking job, and many of you likely have.

That said... there is no Savior, or morning-after pill, strong enough for this dude:

Something more wrong than even Glenn Beck.

...That would be Politico's "DC's Most Eligible Singles".

I resisted all morning blogging this, thinking I could reduce it to a twitter message, but really. Starting off an article with "DC is not Hollywood for ugly people."

And then the list...

Steny Hoyer? Ezekiel Emanuel? Maureen Dowd?

Look at the write-up for Patrick Kennedy:

If you can overlook his occasional stints in rehab, Kennedy possesses a boyish look that keeps him on the radar screens of many.

Holy Shit! The publicity agents who arranged this travesty? Helloooo? Fired very much? If this is an exercise in journalistic cruelty, kudos to Politico. But I'm thinking not.

I had to blog about this, because this quote-unquote "article" is living proof of what is so very wrong with the people who purport to Govern This Nation. The President has absolutely no prayer when it comes to "changing the way Washington operates" when the whole town is buzzing about when can poor Janet Napolitano find time to date.

Never in our history has the DC social scene interfered more with the nation's ability to fix what's wrong with Washington, and Washington's ability to fix what's broken in our nation.

The number one reason we will never see justice for the torture of prisoners under American jurisdiction is that bitterness will ruin DC's social scene. Healthcare? Better make it bi-partisan, you know Andrea Mitchell expects all smiles at next year's prom.

Apparently the DC media cohorts can't cover Steny Hoyer without gasping that the congressman is single and probably straight. If his secretary RSVP's, call the Georgetown caterer and double the mini-quiche order, won't you, dear?

Washington is a horny town, full of young and not-so-young party-goers all of whom find power to be the ultimate aphrodesiac. And they're too busy scheduling the next party, to have any idea how pathetic and disempowering 'power as aphrodesiac' really is.

Why does what Senator Ensign actually did, pay a staffer and her entire family so he could have cheating-on-his-wife sex with her, not lead to his immediate censure and expulsion from not only the Senate, but Washington society? Because if the divorce comes through, he'll have a nice 200 word profile in the next Politico list of sexy Washington batchelors:

If you can overlook his use of party funds to turn an employee into a prostitute, Ensign possesses a handsome "George Clooney" look that keeps him on the names-whispered-while-humping-my-pillow list of Maureen Dowd.

When the doorbell rings and standing in the doorway is a jobless recession "recovery" bringing the no-healthcare reform pizza that John McLaughlin ordered while pretending to go to the bathroom, that's the signal:

It's time for the Stephanopoulos cocktail party to END.

Let's break it up, and move the party over to that new wine bar in Georgetown: I hear their paper napkins are actually cut-up scraps of the Geneva Convention.

2,300th Post

Took the ten-year-old to his first comic book convention today. OMG. I suspect do not have to worry about drugs when he's a teenager, unless you consider fantasies related to time travel, alien races, and bodacious heroines to be a drug.

I was reminded at church this morning that we must consider our fellow humans to be children of God. I said a prayer not for today's Michelle Malkin, but for the Michelle Malkin of 25 years from now, when the botox and right wing devotion is no longer enough, for her or her audience. Maybe she'll find out then how merciful God is. Maybe we all will. Amen.

Sacrificing my bad boys? Really.

This post started out as a comment in response to this at the previous post below. It got long and full of links very quickly, so here it is instead. Anonymous said:

Let's end this business of Double, and even Triple Standards for republicans [sic] and Democrats. ...Have the decency to sacrifice your bad boys, as the Republicans have done. There will be a lot more civility if you do.

UM. OKAY. Each of these cases have their unique details, but to summarize:

Clinton - impeached. That is glossed over because he did not leave office and was acquitted by the Senate. But the impeachment of Bill Clinton paralyzed his administration for months on end, which was certainly in part the motivation of those pursuing it. And both Ensign and Sanford were self-righteous components in that effort. I wonder why the Right didn't do more to thank Paula Jones, the original accuser, who ultimately felt she had to pose nude for Penthouse magazine in 2000 to "secure" a future for her children.

Edwards - A total disgrace. I expect he will never run for anything again.

Spitzer - resigned on the spot.

Then...

David Vitter - Did not resign and is running for reelection to the Senate. His campaign website posts a Politico article which states, "The Republican establishment is all behind him." He appears to have saved his ass by becoming a 'leader' in anti-Obama circles, particularly in regard to Tea Party National Holiday referendums. See, and I am not making this up, teaparty.davidvitter.com. Also, he loves that number one old time GOP distract-o-matic, the muddafukkin Flag Amendment.

I hope the porn star beats him. I mean that figuratively, Senator.

Ensign - not resigned, applauded by GOP Senators after he showed 'candor.'

Larry Craig - did not resign, even though he initially promised to. Served out his term as Senator. Was "admonished" by Senate Ethics Committee, which also said they didn't like him spending $200,000 dollars of campaign money on his legal defense but did NOTHING about it.

Sanford - not resigning as yet. Several GOPers in SC said yesterday they would "stand by him and help him" with his "repentance". Yeah.

I HEREBY SACRIFICE "MY" BAD BOYS.

Clinton, Edwards, and Spitzer should have resigned/withdrawn/been removed from positions of elected office not due to their cheating ways, but for lying about it. In the case of Vitter, oh sorry, I mean Spitzer, prostitution is illegal and using the services of one should have just as many consequences for the John as for the prostitute.

Is that good enough for you, Anonymous? Because it isn't nearly good enough for me. In the cases above, I don't see where Republicans have sacrificed a single sweat bead. The jury is still out on Sanford? If we correctly remove his marriage/affair from the debate, HIS "crime" was abandoning his post and leaving the state in Constitutional crisis. The Republican State Legislature of South Carolina seems far too busy tripping over themselves to pray for their Governor to impeach him even for that.

Perhaps that is commendable. It certainly works politically.

There is a religious element to this of sin/perfectibility among fundamentalist Republicans that we're all sinners and the right amount of God talk bandages all sins. Notice that link is to a Bible-quoting guest editorial in the same exact paper that broke the stories of Sanford's actual whereabouts (and the love-your-tan-line hold-your-two-body-parts emails) that apparently led to his confession.

We're all sinners, we're all forgiven if we repent. But of course, this is notably only true for Republicans.

Of course, heavy-handed God talk is less present in the more secular Democratic politics. And maybe that's our fault. If we rose to the rhetoric of Republicans and...

...applauded everytime one of our Senators fucked a staffer and gave her and her family jobs and pay raises... 

 ...knelt down in prayer every time one of our Governors disappeared overseas to fuck a married woman he pursued on the internet.... 

 ...support an entire news network specifically so disgraced criminals like Ralph Reed, Tom Delay, and not to mention, Dick Cheney can resurrect their reputations... 

But that would be a monumental FAIL, because while the Christianist GOP wing has all this forgiveness in their hearts for their own, there is also in right-wing GOP/FOX discourse, a demonizing of Democrats as defenders of infanticide and as helping terrorists, and a blatant use of anti-sex moralizing to appear better than one's opponents. As much as I often chide Chris Matthews, he was absolutely right yesterday when he pushed hard on his question to Ken Blackwell**:

 

Blackwell will never say it, but Matthews knows full well that the GOP's core constituency has a very inconsistent, non-forgiving, "good and evil" view of the world when it comes to the other side of the aisle. This allows the right-wing of the GOP to run against any Democrat who strays from their marital vows, or promotes choice, or endorses gay marriage or um, goes on record as favoring spending on healthcare. 

The GOP will throw up against such a Democrat yet another "family values" candidate who has yet to let his sin out of his pants, and particularly in the deeply "religious" deep South, they will win. There seems to be a bottomless trough of ambitious Republican politicians willing to run as holier than thou, knowing that if and likely when the subsequent gained political power becomes too much of an aphrodisiac, they will be forgiven by their political flock. 

Notice how the GOP forgiveness model is completely acknowledged and bowed to by the most notorious motherfucking hypocrite of them all, Newt Gingrich. It's a no-win situation for Democrats, even without people like Anonymous who are blind to the history that's being made before their very eyes. 

  **RE the Matthews/Blackwell clip: notice I'm using Crooks and Liars new swanky, free and way-easy-to-use embed code for the video above. Click on the title of ANY post there and a customizable embed code for the video in the post is on the right hand side. You can set the width (mine is 400) and the color of the frame. Shameless plug and gift from the gods. Thanks John Amato and team (especially Heather for videos and Jamie for webmastering) for your everlivin' kindness of always thinking of the small blogs and sharing the love (and bandwidth).

Happy Father's Day

I'm very grateful that both my parents are alive and well. Happy Father's Day, Dad.

And a special prayer for those who've lost their fathers. Today is a day of remembrance and I hope, gratitude for the good. Especially thinking of dear John Amato of Crooks and Liars. The funeral for his dad was yesterday. xxx

[Photo is me with my dad in 1969.]

Prayers for today? What?

[Image stolen from Bay of Fundie]

The "National Day of Prayer" is a silly convention that Washington DC uses to suck up to the constituency that is comforted by such nonsense. If you pray daily this kind of political fellating makes little difference, and if you don't, the National Day of Prayer "reminder" is jingoism, pure and simple.

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On topic, Americans United has a new homepage design and an article on this National Day of Prayer mumbo jumbo -- well worth a click.

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An update to my Kent State Massacre story: the sister of slain student Allison Krause has a blog and a very meaningful post on the anniversary of her sister's death. Check it out. Thanks to Sad But True at Les Enrages for bringing that to my attention.

The least we can do is distance ourselves...

I really think the least we can do is banish Bush, Cheney, John Yoo, Gonzales, Rice, and Rumsfeld. Send them with some of their winnings, taxed at 85%, to Bolivia or some other former-Nazi haven to live out their days away from American society.

But I'm dreaming that there will be any accountability and I don't need to discuss my emotional reaction to that.

That's the caution here, folks: Do not indulge the self-talk of how upset this makes YOU. Making a fetish of our own upset, whether it's about 9/11 or Abu Ghraib or Gitmo or Bush or Obama, is taking our eyes off the ball. Pushing for justice requires the vigilance of a calm heart.

Somehow we always forget the serenity prayer. Bloggers are not a serene people, and more than once this week I've smiled to think Obama gave us the gift of further outrage. I'm working with all of that today, praying for discernment, wisdom, patience, acceptance, and most of all, courage. Grateful that praying for this president is SO much easier than praying for the last one. Amen.

Quote of the Day...

I can't decide which makes me more flabbergasted: the commenter at this thread who thinks the Palestinians are suffering because of bad karma, or the blogger currently beating Driftglass for best individual blogger (The Anchoress) who said:

"I. Love. Boosh. Deal with it. I think we’ll miss him, in many ways, when he departs and even you folks on the left should be somewhat impressed (if you can be at all generous) at the predictably classy, gentlemanly way he is having his administration assist in the transition to Obama."

I gotta give it to the commenter. If I hit your family with a phosphorus bomb, then tell you to your face that you are suffering because you and your people have bad karma...

Dang, I'm breaking my prayer and fasting resolution again. Sorry.

I don't pretend that voting one way or the other in the silly Weblog Awards will bring karma to anyone, good or bad. But it makes me feel good to think we can defeat Bush lovers again like we did in November. Vote for Driftglass (and to those who support Lindsey Beyerstein good on you...but Drifty is coming in a strong second in this race. FYI.)

I'm no longer campaigning for my Weblog award. If I beat out Taylor Marsh for eleventh place (woo hoo!), I'm satisfied.

PS Another way to help Driftglass if you're on big orange is to recommend this diary. It may make a difference. Thanks.

Silent on Gaza?

My response to the situation in Gaza: I am getting quiet. That does not mean I have no human concern, outrage, worry, or sense of what is right and wrong. Hardly. Specifically, I want the one side that has dominated our foreign policy for over half a century to stop doing so. I sense with real anguish that things much get much worse for that to happen.

The awful violence in the Middle East is being reflected in the tiny insignificant mirror of certain blog comment threads. Lots of typists screaming and name-calling with no consciousness of their own addiction to outrage, self-righteousness, and moral superiority.

Incidentally, the entire Bush Administration has been a real meth lab for those addictions.

I'm waking up to a sense that all the noise has to stop, at least here in my own head. That's the place I can at least try to control.

A couple of resources I'm finding helpful: J. Brent Bill's Holy Silence (Quaker perspective), and David Cooper's Silence, Simplicity, and Solitude (Buddhist perspective).

Along these same lines, I have no interest in arguing with those who feel prayer and meditation are "doing nothing."