Keep Us in Your Thoughts

UPDATE: 3pm :

Good news! Mom’s home. The doctors found no blockages, and are now thinking this is some kind of upper-GI thing - which would not explain the results of the enzyme tests, etc. (She had a heart attack, but…?)

This doesn’t make much sense, so I definitely need more information on what’s going on, but that’ll wait until Mom’s feeling up to explaining it to me.

Still the procedure went well, and Mom is back home. Yippee!

- - -

Now accepting: good wishes, positive thoughts, prayers, lit candles, blessings for health and speedy recovery, crossed fingers, and/or bunny feet.

My mom had a “silent” heart attack about two weeks ago - give or take. Her only symptoms were some shortness of breath and swelling of her lower legs. (Women don’t always have the classic “crushing chest pain radiating to the arm” signs of heart attack that men do.)

Since the EKG and stress test and enzyme test and cardiac catheterization show “myocardial infarction” - medicalese for heart attack with muscle damage - Mom’s going in tomorrow morning [Monday] for an angioplasty and stent insertion. I’m worried, but not as much as I could be. Mom has always lived a healthy lifestyle - no smoking, no heavy drinking, not overweight, excellent cholesterol, etc. The doc says she’s the healthiest cardiac patient he’s ever seen.

Of course, this is our mom, so she says she’s “just fine” but considering “Oh my!” is her standard phrase for anything worse than a severe laceration needing stitches but not quite reaching the level of amputation, “just fine” could be a tad misleading.

Also rating high on the “reasons I’m not a panicky mess” list: our local hospital might be in the middle of nowhere, but it’s one of the Solucient 100 Top Cardiovascular Hospitals. [pdf alert]

Currently we’re joking about her going in for a “Roto-Rootering” and urging other women to pay attention to those “nagging” signs of heart attack.

Here’s my PSA, from the National Heart, Lung, & Blood Institute:

Women account for nearly half of all heart attack deaths. Heart disease is the number one killer of both women and men.

There are differences in how women and men respond to a heart attack. Women are less likely than men to believe they’re having a heart attack and more likely to delay in seeking emergency treatment.

If you have: overwhelming fatigue, sudden shortness of breath, and swelling of your lower legs/ankles, nausea/vomiting with or without chest pain - please call 911 or contact your doctor immediately! [ For more information.]

I’ll be out for most of the day tomorrow, but thanks in advance!

Saturday Potluck

Last weekend, Mirth mentioned that anyone who felt inclined could steal her Community Speak idea, and post a round-up of blogs they found interesting, which sounded like a cool idea. I decided not to steal her title, but I don’t know that I like the one used here.*

Since I’m just starting out with this idea - and because my computer time during the week is pretty limited, I have only a couple new-to-you (I hope) blogs to suggest.

The first is Toddler Planet. I came across this during an intense search of the internets by clicking that little arrow button way up there in the upper right corner until it landed on something interesting.

WhyMommy is encouraging everyone and anyone to steal this post, to spread the word about inflammatory breast cancer - which she is currently battling:

We hear a lot about breast cancer these days. One in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetimes, and there are millions living with it in the U.S. today alone. But did you know that there is more than one type of breast cancer?

I didn’t. I thought that breast cancer was all the same. I figured that if I did my monthly breast self-exams, and found no lump, I’d be fine.

Oops. It turns out that you don’t have to have a lump to have breast cancer. Six weeks ago, I went to my OB/GYN because my breast felt funny. It was red, hot, inflamed, and the skin looked…funny. But there was no lump, so I wasn’t worried. I should have been. After a round of antibiotics didn’t clear up the inflammation, my doctor sent me to a breast specialist and did a skin punch biopsy. That test showed that I have inflammatory breast cancer, a very aggressive cancer that can be deadly.

Inflammatory breast cancer is often misdiagnosed as mastitis because many doctors have never seen it before and consider it rare. “Rare” or not, there are over 100,000 women in the U.S. with this cancer right now; only half will survive five years. Please call your OB/GYN if you experience several of the following symptoms in your breast, or any unusual changes: redness, rapid increase in size of one breast, persistent itching of breast or nipple, thickening of breast tissue, stabbing pain, soreness, swelling under the arm, dimpling or ridging (for example, when you take your bra off, the bra marks stay – for a while), flattening or retracting of the nipple, or a texture that looks or feels like an orange (called peau d’orange). Ask if your GYN is familiar with inflammatory breast cancer, and tell her that you’re concerned and want to come in to rule it out.

There is more than one kind of breast cancer. Inflammatory breast cancer is the most aggressive form of breast cancer out there, and early detection is critical. It’s not usually detected by mammogram. It does not usually present with a lump. It may be overlooked with all of the changes that our breasts undergo during the years when we’re pregnant and/or nursing our little ones. It’s important not to miss this one.

Inflammatory breast cancer is detected by women and their doctors who notice a change in one of their breasts. If you notice a change, call your doctor today. Tell her about it. Tell her that you have a friend with this disease, and it’s trying to kill her. Now you know what I wish I had known before six weeks ago.

You don’t have to have a lump to have breast cancer.

My second recommendation is The Hangover Journals. Reading Felicity’s blog always reminds me that 1) laughter really is the best medicine, and 2) working at a museum is not the cool experience you’d think. Especially not when they send you to places like this:

[...] Did you know that people actually do karaoke to Californication? Yeah. Me either and I could have lived for the rest of my life without hearing it.

Bele Chere is staggering right along. The last guy I talked to had a big old black eye and scrapes all over his face. His eyeball was so messed up I dared not look, so I missed where he had Only God Will Judge tattooed around his neck. I was also trying not to look at his hairy, sweaty chest, oh lord. His girlfriend was maybe a little heavier than one should be to wear a skin tight wife beater and jeans with a large belt buckle under the muffin top and you know, there’s a limit on the amount of bright blue eyeshadow anyone really needs. But what the hell. That is the special beauty of Bele Chere. Yargh.

Felicity is also…erm, blessed… with Django, the dog from hell who prefers his living space to have that landfill/nuclear explosion feel.

When I was a kid, we had a dog like Django… Rusty the laundry-chasing mutt. Rusty felt it was his duty to destroy the yard (and Mom’s expensive work shoes) as well as protect us from dangerous and highly-toxic clean laundry pinned to the clothesline. Especially sheets. I guess his theory was that you never knew when a half-dried sheet would suddenly flap free and smother the nearest small child.

- - -

* If anyone’s got a better suggestion, leave a note in the comments.

 

Religion and Peace

While recently speaking to an new online acquaintance, I began to realize she is a fanatical, hardcore, devoted-to-George, member of the 29%. Among her talking points - culled, no doubt, from Fox News and Michelle Malkin - was “Islam is not a religion of peace! Look at what Muslims do and have done over centuries!”

Which got me thinking….

If a small minority of Christians worldwide, over the centuries, have used and encouraged violence against others in fights for land or natural resources or power or simply to prove theirs was the better god… wouldn’t that mean Christianity is not a religion of peace?

We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord
We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord
And we pray that all unity may one day be restored
And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love

New York Times:

An Indonesian court jailed 17 Christians for up to 14 years on Thursday under anti-terrorism laws for the murder of two Muslims.

[snip]

The three were convicted of leading a group that killed hundreds of Muslims at a boarding school during inter-religious violence in Poso in 2000.

Judges at the South Jakarta court found the 17 defendants guilty of “acts of terrorism by the use violence.”

They will know we are Christians by our love

Anti-Defamation League:

Since the summer of 2005 the Topeka, Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church (WBC), led by Fred Phelps, has been picketing funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, with placards reading “Thank God for Dead Soldiers” and “Thank God for IEDs [improvised explosive devices],” while shouting epithets at grieving parents. Phelps believes that the soldiers represent a nation tolerant of homosexuality, and their deaths are God’s direct punishment for their sins.

We will work with each other, we will work side by side
We will work with each other, we will work side by side
And we’ll guard each one’s dignity and save each one’s pride
And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love

Catholic World News: {May 5, 2004}

About 300 Muslims were killed last Sunday by a Christian militia in Nigeria’s central Plateau state, according to Muslim leaders and local authorities. The killings are part of escalating interreligious violence that has taken the lives of at 700 people over the last three months.

The Christian Tarok tribe and Muslim Fulani tribe have historically clashed over rich farmland in the region, and ethnic and religious divisions in the African country have fuelled the fighting.

They will know we are Christians by our love

PublicEye.org:

A day after the Oklahoma City bombing, Christian Patriots gathered at the International Coalition of Covenant Congregations Conference held at the Lodge of the Ozarks in Branson, Missouri. The conference featured leading figures in the Identity movement, including Pete Peters and Larry Pratt. Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, spoke on the “Biblical Mandate to Arm.”

One of the 550 attendees told Freedom Writer, “I mingled with a lot of people there, and there was not a shred of sympathy for what happened in Oklahoma.” “This is just the beginning,” another person added.

Asked about the innocent children killed in the blast, many of the participants echoed the same response: “What about all the unborn babies killed at abortion clinics?”

[snip]

With 50,000 or more members, operating in more than 30 states, approximately 85% of the militias are comprised of Christian Patriots — though not necessarily Identity Christians. Most Christians, of course, abhor violence, and very few would attempt to justify what happened in Oklahoma City. Still, it is a fact that the militia movement is largely a movement of those calling themselves Christians.

We will walk with each other, we will walk hand in hand
We will walk with each other, we will walk hand in hand
And together we’ll spread the news that God is in our land
And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love

Wikipedia:

The Crusades were a series of military conflicts of a religious character waged by Christians during 1095–1291, most of which were sanctioned by the Pope in the name of Christendom.^[1] The Crusades had the goal of recapturing Jerusalem and the sacred “Holy Land” from Muslim rule and were originally launched in response to a call from the Eastern Orthodox Byzantine Empire for help against the expansion of the Muslim Seljuq dynasty into Anatolia.^[2][3]

They will know we are Christians by our love

www.law.umkc.edu:

From June through September of 1692, nineteen men and women, all having been convicted of witchcraft, were carted to Gallows Hill, a barren slope near Salem Village, for hanging. Another man of over eighty years was pressed to death under heavy stones for refusing to submit to a trial on witchcraft charges. Hundreds of others faced accusations of witchcraft. Dozens languished in jail for months without trials. Then, almost as soon as it had begun, the hysteria that swept through Puritan Massachusetts ended.

By our love, by our love

Bringing Democracy and Freedom To Iraq

Here’s your “democracy,” your “freedom.” Here’s the voice of a “liberated” Iraqi - a female pediatric oncologist - who’s just so darned thankful for all the democracy and freedom and luxury bombs and death and lies spewed by our President and his merry band of minions, and all their culpable cohorts in DC and across America, speaking at Firedoglake this past Sunday evening:

Stop telling lies to yourself American. We know that your racist brutal murdering war criminal troops came from your society and reflect its values. we know that because we see how they behave and have to bury their victims. If you are stupid enough to think we feel anything but hatred and contrempt for your soldiers and the country that sent them to make war on my people then you are a fool.

As to Saddam bad though he was your country is far worse.

But, hey. Don’t worry about it. Keep your eyes firmly glued on Dancing with the Stars or Rock of Love with Bret Michaels or American Idol or whatever overly-primped and highly-plucked shiny objects - in microscopic clothing, with large plastic breasts - strut across the screen. Believe everything you read in the newspapers and everything you hear on television about how we’re “winning” and how Democrats who want this war to end are “emboldening” the enemy.

Ignore the voice of Dr. Maryam:

There has been no electricity none in more than half of Baghdad for 10 days. In the rest of Baghdad 1 to 1½ hours per day. [link]

The problem in Irak is the presence of the invaders. It is not possible to even begin to reconstruct until that problem is solved. The violence is because the American invader is there. Not despite it. If as you claim, you want to help, then you tackle the root problem. Which is that your troops are in our country. Until then the violence will escalate. The attacks are to make the country ungovernable and they are working. [link]

Continue stuffing your faces with far too much food while complaining about how much weight you’ve gained. Be sure to enjoy the good night’s sleep you get as the cold breeze of your ever-humming air conditioning wafts over your comfy bed with its pillow-top mattress.

Ignore the voice of Mohammed Ibn Laith, 16-year-old nephew of Dr. Maryam:

[February 2007] When I heard the bomb explode last Saturday the first thing I did was telephone my father. But there was no reply. Again and again and again I tried to phone him. My fingers hurt I stabbed them onto the buttons on my phone so hard. I fell onto the floor and prayed please let him not be dead. Please let it be that he died quick if he is dead.

And my heart was sick inside me.

What will we talk about today you and I? I do not want to talk about last Saturday. Shall we talk about peace? I would like to talk about peace. I love the word. No, perhaps we are not ready to talk of peace yet you and I, we are not at peace, we are not even at truce.

[snip]

Does “peace” mean that your aunt does not weep as she talks of how the young couples she serves ask her after the X-Ray “Well is it a child or is it a monster?”

Feel free to indulge yourself with a new book, or a new phone, or a new DVD, or hell, even a doctor’s appointment. Feel free to buy yourself some Band-Aids or Preparation H or a bottle of water or the newest issue of some gossip rag. Feel free to drive yourself to an over-cooled and overstocked grocery store, from which you will buy too much and - all too soon - eat too much.

Feel free to walk around your neighborhood. Wave to the neighbors sitting on their porches as the sun sets on yet another quiet, uneventful, violence-free day. Smile at the children playing in front yards, or riding their bikes. Don’t bother thinking of other families, other children, torn and shredded by bombs and guns. Don’t think of other human beings - who love as you do, feel pain as you do, cry as you do, who pray for strength and courage to survive another day without learning of a family member or friend who’s been shot or kidnapped or blown up while buying the ingredients for the evening meal.

Feel free to ignore this vow, made after the deaths of his brother, his father, and his mother - all within days of each other:

[March 10, 2007] Do not come to me talking of your feelings. Do not come to me asking for forgiveness. Who do you think you are?

I will not ever forgive or forget what your country has done to us. I will not ever forget or forgive what your country has done my family, my city, my country, my people.

Never.

My grandchildren’s, grandchildren, will teach their grandchildren to hate America for what she has done to us. Never ever ever will I, or they, forget or forgive what your barbaric country has done to us.

Never.

Feel free to continue telling yourself we’re doing this “for” the Iraqi people. Feel free to continue believing the Iraq occupation is part of some noble war. Continue voting in record numbers for the next American Idol, but feel free to sit at home and refuse to take part in the sacred privilege of voting for the leader of your country. And feel free to say - as someone tries to educate you on the realities in Iraq and here in the US, or tries to light a flame under you to reclaim your Constitutionally-given rights: “Oh, I don’t pay attention to politics.”

Don’t ask yourself, “In 60 years, will they be calling us ‘the Good Americans‘?”

It is a commonplace that at the end of WWII scarcely a Nazi or Nazi sympathizer could be found, or even anyone with an inkling that a Holocaust had been taking place. Even as rocks flew through Jewish shop windows and homes were burned, the Good Germans didn’t know. Even when Jews began disappearing in huge numbers from right under their noses, the Good Germans weren’t aware. Later on, even amongst Holocaust deniers I used to wonder if there were a mitigating percentage, however small, who as otherwise decent human beings simply could not accept the horror that human nature can be so vile. To admit the truth would be to recognize that life was essentially meaningless and insane, with suicide as the only logical course, a choice which the all-powerful instinct for self-preservation attempted to prevent. Thus self-deception for self-preservation; an unhappy compromise. It was the Nazi-exploited Nietzsche who pointed out (in the late 1800’s remember) that one must first know the truth in order to bury it. Everybody knew, in one way or another. Violence, after all, is what One-Thousand Year Reichs do, and they must start very early.

From Wikipedia:

The term has come to be used to refer more generically to people in any country who observe reprehensible things taking place — whether done by a government or by another powerful institution — but remain silent, neither raising objections nor taking steps to change the course of events. [my emphasis]

Think not? Already, some of those who banged the war drum have begun retreating, like good Germans, pretending they had nothing to do with any of the death, the destruction, the despair.

“What?” they asked then. “Killing Jews?! How terrible! I didn’t know. Really, I was just a [driver, lowly private, small merchant... fill in the blank]. I didn’t really support the regime.”

Anti-war.com, February 23, 2006

Washington Post, November 18, 2006

National Review Online, January 10, 2007

The Guardian, January 19, 2007

May the gods have mercy on us, because history and the Iraqi people sure as hell won’t.

Making Higher Education Affordable

Cross-posted at Some Notes on Living.

- - -

Why is it so important to make college affordable and accessible to all high school students who want to attend, and have the grades necessary? Let me begin by telling you a story:

When I was 16, about to enter my senior year of high school, I’d been dreaming about going to college for probably four or five years. I thought of the courses I would take, how hard it would be living away from my family, worried over whether or not I’d be asked to join a sorority - and decided it didn’t matter.

Over those four or five years, I’d created an elaborate dream for myself: How I’d graduate and land a great job, own my own house with a bright red door, a little picket fence and a huge bed of wildflowers. I’d dress like the folks on Dynasty and Dallas (hey, it was the 80’s…) and I would never, ever, have to work outside in freezing cold and blistering hot.

Reality hit, slowly, in bits and pieces, over the next few months.

Senator Reid Grows A Backbone

Harry Reid, seeming to finally hear the voices of the American people, has declared he will keep the Senate in session all night for debate, since several cloture motions have failed as a result of Republican obstructionism.

Put up or shut up, in other words.

And, oddly enough, I can’t seem to find mention of this anywhere in the MSM…

From Bob Geiger:

Forcing his Republican colleagues to put up or shut up on the notion of an up-or-down vote, Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) just moments ago announced that he will immediately file a cloture motion on the Reed-Levin troop redeployment bill and, if Republicans follow through with a filibuster, will place the Senate in a prolonged all-night session Tuesday to force a true continuation of debate.

“Now, Republicans are using a filibuster to block us from even voting on an amendment that could bring the war to a responsible end,” said Reid. “They are protecting the President rather than protecting our troops. They are denying us an up or down – yes or no – vote on the most important issue our country faces.”
[snip]

In making this move (based on my understanding of Senate rules), Reid is invoking the provisions of Rule 22 (Precedence of Motions) of the Standing Rules of the Senate, which provides, at the Majority Leader’s discretion, up to 30 hours of debate if a filibuster is initiated — as the Republicans will most certainly do, knowing that Reed-Levin may very well have the 51 votes needed for passage.

[snip]

In other words, the Majority Leader is saying “You want to debate? We’ll stay all night and debate.”

‘Bout time, wouldn’t you say?

D-Day Interviews Me

I asked to be interviewed by D-Day of Liberally Mirth at the end of June, but then I forgot I was supposed to be on the lookout for his questions, and so I forgot to check the blog email for… well, a few days…. okay, okay - a lot of days.

So, after much delay, here’s the questions and my answers:

1) Describe your history as a political activist/blogger. What made you decide to do The Lady Speaks? Were you always active/interested in politics?

I originally started out thinking it would be a journal of sorts. I put up one post (about the joy of school starting again) and then came Hurricane Katrina. I was so infuriated, and I couldn’t stop talking about how angry I was, so I put it on the blog. After that, it was kind of hit and miss posting, until Jan 2006, when illness forced me to leave my job. I had lots of time on my hands - and a tendency to make long-winded comments at C&L. I started taking those comments and expanding on them. From there, it just kind of…happened.

As for politics, I wasn’t very interested with politics on a national level until El Chimpy came along. I knew from the beginning of his campaign that he was going to be trouble, but I felt like I was the only voice opposing him.

2) You do a regular feature called Jenn’s Sunday Sermon. While there isn’t usually any religious overtones to it, do you consider yourself religious and do those views affect how you write and view the world?

I’m not religious at all, but definitely spiritual. I believe there’s a force at work in the universe, but it goes by many names, many ideas. I once called my beliefs a “patchwork.” Little pieces of this or that religious view, that spiritual idea, that resonated within me when I found them. I believe we as humans are called to be good to one another, to help each other through the good and the bad, and that we’ve lived multiple lives in that goal. There is no Hell, just a continuing of life outside the Divine until we’re fit to join it.

I started calling it the “Sunday Sermon” to mock the Talibangelicals who sermonize and proselytize, but fail to live up to the basic tenets of their faith. Christ said nothing about abortion, nothing about homosexuality, nothing about stem-cell research. He did tell us to care for the sick and dying, the poor, the imprisoned.

What I believe definitely impacts what and how I write, and how I see the world. For example, I cannot find it in myself to hate someone because of their orientation or their color or even their politics. We’re all part of humanity, and to deny them is to deny a part of myself.

3) Time out for a little personal info about you. What’s your favorite music? Food? Color? Book and/or author? Movie? Why are they your favorites?

Favorite music: I love listening to late 70’s and 80’s rock. AC/DC, Queen, plus Foreigner, Bon Jovi, Metallica, Judas Priest. Why? I was a teen in the 80’s and grew up on it.

Favorite food: It’s hard to narrow it down, but if I could pick only one thing off the menu, it’d be Chicken and Biscuits. My mom used to make this, with homemade soda-biscuits.

Favorite color: Fire-engine red. I have no idea why, but I love it anyway.

Favorite book/author: Grapes of Wrath. Why? Steinbeck shows how the suffering of the people, yet also shows their strength. Your average middle-class family wouldn’t have endured what the Joads did. Being poor, for all the awfulness of it, teaches you to take nothing for granted, to waste nothing, to make something of nothing.

Favorite movie: It’s a toss-up between The Never-ending Story and The Princess Bride. Why? I think because they share the “movie within a book” theme, and the idea that books can transport you to amazing places populated with amazing people and creatures. Plus, they’re just fun.

“My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”

4) Is there a defining moment or event in your childhood that has affected how you have become today? If so, How?

I thought about this for a long time. There was a lot of bad in my childhood that made me more sensitive to other people’s needs and fears, but it was something my grandmother did when I was 8 or 9 that made me more aware of the need to help others.

We lived in a tiny little “town” - more a collection of houses on one road - and there was an Amish community a few miles away. The older daughter and a couple of the younger sons of one Amish family sold baked goods at a little table near the store. One of my favorite “jobs” back then was walking the short distance to the store and picking up the mail and a few groceries for Gramma. She always said, “And don’t forget, tell me how much is on Dora’s table.”

I never understood this until the time I spent the weekend with her. That Saturday evening, Gramma put her walking shoes on, slipped her gigantic purse over her shoulder and walked down to the store - and bought as much as we could carry. A couple cakes, three dozen donuts, a pie, and three loaves of bread.

As we walked back, I asked her why, and she told me Dora would get in trouble with her father if she hadn’t sold enough. It wasn’t until I was much older that I found out Dora’s father would beat her if there was too much left unsold, but that was when I started to realize each of us is called to help each other, as best we can.

5) Please answer one of the two following: What is the square root of Pi? OR when you look at your life so far, would you describe it as happy, partly happy or not very happy?

Acck! Math question! I’ll take happiness for $1000, Alex.

Looking at it so far, I’d say…. mostly happy. There have been bad times and hard times, but the good stands out. There’s always been love and laughter, even in the worst of times.

Now it’s your turn!

- - -

Do YOU want to be interviewed? Interview rules:
1. Leave me a comment saying “Interview me.”
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with a post containing your the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Gimme A Break Already

Yesterday, crazed Talibangelicals attacked en masse … er, in a group of three, bringing the Senate to a halt … well, slowing it down a tad, before being dragged away by shrieking harpies and flying monkeys … er, by security.

The problem? A Hindu priest offering the morning invocation.

Oh, the horror!

From TPM Election Central:

The three protesters, who all belong to the Christian Right anti-abortion group Operation Save America, and who apparently traveled to Washington all the way from North Carolina, interrupted by loudly asking for God’s forgiveness for allowing the false prayer of a Hindu in the Senate chamber.

“Lord Jesus, forgive us father for allowing a prayer of the wicked, which is an abomination in your sight,” the first protester began.

“This is an abomination,” he continued. “We shall have no other gods before You.”

The group these Talibangelicals belong to issued a press release:

Theology Moved to the Senate and was Arrested

Theology has moved from the church house onto the floor of the United States Senate, and has been arrested.

Ante Pavkovic, Kathy Pavkovic, and Kristen Sugar were all arrested in the chambers of the United States Senate as that chamber was violated by a false Hindu god. The Senate was opened with a Hindu prayer placing the false god of Hinduism on a level playing field with the One True God, Jesus Christ. This would never have been allowed by our Founding Fathers.

“Not one Senator had the backbone to stand as our Founding Fathers stood. They stood on the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

Ummmm…… No. (Or “Sadly, No!” - to coin a phrase)

Our Founding Fathers, especially John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and many others, believed religion held no place in the workings of government.

In 1831, the Reverend Doctor Bird Wilson had this to say, in a sermon given in Albany NY:

“The founders of our nation were nearly all Infidels, and that of the presidents who had thus far been elected [Washington; Adams; Jefferson; Madison; Monroe; Adams; Jackson] not a one had professed a belief in Christianity….

“Among all our presidents from Washington downward, not one was a professor of religion, at least not of more than Unitarianism.”

To wit, Thomas Jefferson:

Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting “Jesus Christ,” so that it would read “A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;” the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination. [my emphasis]

- Autobiography, in reference to the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom

Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear.

- Letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787

Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.

- Notes on Virginia, 1782

I concur with you strictly in your opinion of the comparative merits of atheism and demonism, and really see nothing but the latter in the being worshipped by many who think themselves Christians.

- Letter to Richard Price, Jan. 8, 1789 (Richard Price had written to TJ on Oct. 26. about the harm done by religion and wrote “Would not Society be better without Such religions? Is Atheism less pernicious than Demonism?”)

Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.

- Letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814

John Adams:

As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?

- Letter to FA Van der Kamp, December 27, 1816

I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved — the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!

- Letter to Thomas Jefferson

“Checks and Ballances, Jefferson, however you and your Party may have derided them, are our only Security, for the progress of Mind, as well as the Security of Body. Every Species of these Christians would persecute Deists, as soon as either Sect would persecute another, if it had unchecked and unballanced Power. Nay, the Deists would persecute Christians, and Atheists would persecute Deists, with as unrelenting Cruelty, as any Christians would persecute them or one another. Know thyself, human Nature!”

- Letter to Thomas Jefferson, 25 June 1813

George Washington:

Among many other weighty objections to the Measure, it has been suggested, that it has a tendency to introduce religious disputes into the Army, which above all things should be avoided, and in many instances would compel men to a mode of Worship which they do not profess.

- Letter to John Hancock [then-president of Congress] in 1777, opposing a Congressional plan to appoint brigade chaplains in the Continental Army

James Madison:

…Freedom arises from the multiplicity of sects, which prevades America and which is the best and only security for religious liberty in any society. For where there is such a variety of sects, there cannot be a majority of any one sect to oppress and persecute the rest.

- Spoken at the Virginia convention on ratifying the Constitution, June 1778

What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not. [emphasis mine]

- Address to the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia, 1785

The experience of the United States is a happy disproof of the error so long rooted in the unenlightened minds of well-meaning Christians, as well as in the corrupt hearts of persecuting usurpers, that without a legal incorporation of religious and civil polity, neither could be supported. A mutual independence is found most friendly to practical Religion, to social harmony, and to political prosperity.

- Letter to F.L. Schaeffer, Dec 3, 1821

Benjamin Franklin:

If Christian preachers had continued to teach as Christ and his Apostles did, without salaries, and as the Quakers now do, I imagine tests would never have existed; for I think they were invented, not so much to secure religion itself, as the emoluments of it. When a religion is good, I conceive that it will support itself; and, when it cannot support itself, and God does not take care to support, so that its professors are obliged to call for the help of the civil power, it is a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one. [emphasis mine]

- To Richard Price (a Friend, or Quaker), 9 October 1780

The faith you mention has doubtless its use in the world; I do not desire to see it diminished, nor would I endeavour to lessen it in any man. But I wish it were more productive of good works than I have generally seen it: I mean real good works, works of kindness, charity, mercy, and publick spirit; not holiday-keeping, sermon-reading or hearing, performing church ceremonies, or making long prayers, filled with flatteries or compliments, despised even by wise men, and much less capable of pleasing the deity. [...]

Your great Master thought much less of these outward appearances and professions than many of his modern disciples. He preferred the doers of the word to the mere hearers; the son that seemingly refused to obey his Father and yet performed his commands, to him that professed his readiness but neglected the works; the heretical but charitable Samaritan, to the uncharitable though orthodox priest and sanctified Levite; and those who gave food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, raiment to the naked, entertainment to the stranger, and relief to the sick, etc. though they never heard of his name, he declares shall in the last day be accepted, when those who cry Lord, Lord; who value themselves on their faith though great enough to perform miracles but have neglected good works shall be rejected. [emphasis mine]

- To Joseph Huey, 6 June 1753

 

 

 

 

July 4, 2007

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Independence Day

Two hundred and  eleven  thirty-one years ago*, our forefathers (and foremothers!) declared their independence from Britain, citing multiple abuses by King George III.

With Tuesday’s commutation of Scooter Libby’s sentence, we can effectively say the experiment is at an end. Another George rules over these United States, and he makes his own rules, Constitution be damned.

Cronies and incompetents are given the keys to the kingdom, and CEOs are making hundreds of times what the average worker does. Meanwhile the people struggle to make ends meet.

The middle class is vanishing, more and more families are falling below the poverty line, and 47 million Americans have no healthcare coverage.

The courage and fearlessness of our founders has been replaced by the bedwetting fearfulness of the misAdministration and its few remaining supporters. The bravery of pamphleteers like Thomas Paine has been replaced by conglomerated news media which lavishes attention on Paris Hilton and the missing-white-woman-of-the-week while ignoring the abuses and usurpations of the government.

Six and a half years into the reign of El Pollo Loco, and there isn’t much good news. There are some who are willing to speak up and to stand up against this government and its injustices, and 72% of Americans think the country is on the wrong track, but you’d never know it if you get your news from the television. 71% of Americans think Scooter Libby shouldn’t have had his sentence commuted, but you’d never know that either if you watch the news.

The news media is fast making themselves irrelevant, first by ignoring anything that makes BushCo uncomfortable and second by failing to even attempt to cover actual news. As a result of the failures by the media, people all over the political spectrum were driven to the Internet. Rather than being told what to think by the so-called ‘liberal’ media, the Internet is the ‘go-to’ spot for informative, nuanced, political discussion - regardless of your political persuasions.

Our CongressCritters seem more interested in making nice than in making things better and more just for all Americans. Our new Democratic-majority is acting a whole lot like the old Republican one, with a few exceptions, like Rep. Henry Waxman, who is holding real hearings and demanding real answers.

But, We the People are fed up. We’re tired of war without end. We’re tired of struggling to make ends meet. We’re tired of being told to fear everyone and everything that isn’t white, Protestant, and English-speaking. We’re tired of those who use religion to divide us, and we’re tired of those who advocate a Bible-based system of laws, creating a theocratic nation no different from that in Iraq or Iran.

We’re tired of watching the President and Vice-President ignore Constitutional and international law. We’re tired of watching the President and Vice-President and their cronies benefit from malfeasance and incompetence and ritual ignorance of the rule of law.

The problem is, we’re tired of the actions and inactions of BushCo. But are we ready to fight back?

In 1776, the framers of the Declaration of Independence ended their historic document with the words: “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.“

Are we ready to put ourselves on the line in the name of restoring our country? Would you pledge your life, your fortune [such as it may be] and your honor, if it meant restoring the Constitution and all its protections as the supreme law of the land?

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* - edited 7/5/07 by Jenn who says, “I know this stuff… really!”