Rick Santorum’s Hat Trick

As I type this I am (in my mind, anyway) rubbing my hands together in eager expectation of total chaos in the Republican primaries this year. Rick Santorum swept the field in yesterday’s Colorado and Minnesota Caucuses, and the Missouri Primary.

Swept. The Field.

In the Colorado Caucus, Santorum bested Mitt Romney be nearly 6 points. This is a state that went for Romney in 2008 to the tune of 60% of the primary vote. Clearly, this year’s primary voters have either swung wildly to the right or, equally plausible, they’ve always been right wing, but didn’t know Romney as the right of center Republican as they do now. Or maybe it was the dog…

In the Minnesota Caucus, Santorum blasted by Romney by  28.4%. That is significant. Minnesota’s conservative Republicans, also known as primary voters, are obviously fired up about the right to work movement there and came out in droves to defeat Romneycare.

And in the Missouri Primary Santorum did even better, trouncing the well-financed Romney campaign by 29.9%. Missouri is pseudo-south and results there should bode well for Santorum’s chances in the southern primaries.

Why am I so gleeful? Who was the candidate that Richard Nixon wanted as his opponent in 1972? That would be Senator George McGovern. Who is the candidate that President Obama’s campaign like to face in the fall? Rick Santorum.

In a Rasmussen poll taken in mid January, they report that President Obama would win in a hypothetical race with Rick Santorum by 10 points – yeah, better than he did McCain in ’08. Now Rasmussen is a right-leaning polling group so I am guessing that that is a low-ball figure.

Rick Santorum scares the bejesus out of moderate Republicans and Independents. Rick Santorum is so classically under-funded that he is having difficulty getting his message out, which for him is probably a good thing. Rick Santorum is Jesus Christ’s gift to the Democratic Party.

Democrats and Jesus. We be mates.

Congressman Weiner Needs Jesus

Now this should come as no surprise to some of us, particularly we jaded observers of the ongoings of human events, but apparently according to Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr. President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, it seems clear that Congressman Anthony Weiner should come to Jesus as there is no treatment for sin.

No, I swear, he tweeted it.

"Dear Congressman Weiner: There is no effective "treatment" for sin. Only atonement, found only in Jesus Christ.”

The sheer opportunism that this represents is enough to turn my stomach, and believe me I have had ample opportunity to have my stomach turned of late.Now as someone who does not profess or practice a religion, this sort of comment makes me uneasy. When Tiger Woods got into so much hot water because of his (real) affairs, he was admonished by the Fox evangelical Brit Hume that he would be well-encouraged to drop his Buddhist beliefs and come into the light. This made me uneasy. But Buddhists and the Christians haven’t really had a historical knockdown drag out like the Christians and Jews have. So if Hume’s remark to Tiger Woods on his religion could strike me with disquiet, imagine how a Christian leader’s similar remark, on the Internet, to Anthony Weiner, a Jew, would strike me.

But thanks be to Jesus Christ, Savior of the World, that not all Christians are of like mind, that not all Christians prioritize the truth of their religion over the falsehoods of others. Me too, I like the idea of having multiple deities to call on. Here is part of a resolution that the United Church of Christ adopted in 1987:

“Faced with this history from which we as Christians cannot, and must not, disassociate ourselves, we ask for God's forgiveness through our Lord Jesus Christ. We pray for divine grace that will enable us, more firmly than ever before, to turn from this path of rejection and persecution to affirm that Judaism has not been superseded by Christianity; that Christianity is not to be understood as the successor religion to Judaism; God's covenant with the Jewish people has never been abrogated. God has not rejected the Jewish people; God is faithful in keeping covenant.”

If anything, all Dr. Mohler’s tweet does, as far as I am concerned, is to reaffirm to me that this “history” is still not a part of history. It is still with us.

God help us.

How Would Jesus Vote?

It seems God is a Republican. How else can you explain the fact that He has endorsed three, count ‘em, three Republican presidential hopefuls. And how on Earth (or in heaven for that matter) does God get off choosing 3 and not one? Is it the whole Holy Trinity thing?

It’s true. According to the Daily Intel the Lord God has been caught red-handed apparently endorsing the campaigns of Herman Cain, Rick Santorum and Michelle Bachman.

And Michelle Bachmann hasn’t even declared her candidacy – not yet anyway. The Omniscient One must know she is in even though we don’t.

Herman Cain knew way back in 1999 that God wanted him to run. But even better, last year God sent him a text message of encouragement.

Rick Santorum? Rick’s wife told a reporter last month that “we believe with all our hearts that this is what God wants.”

Michelle Bachmann pretty much spells it out this way: if she runs at all it’s because God wills it. Going Santorum’s wife one better Bachmann said this: “I will not seek a higher office if God is not calling me to do it. That's really my standard.”

You have to love the gall of God, or Jesus, or the Holy Spirit, Whoever is for whomever, to give the Holy Nod to not one but three Republicans.

And you know, this pretty much puts the kibosh on anything constructive coming out of Rick Perry’s Pray In this coming August 6. With God’s political loyalties split up between 3 other presidential candidates, how is He going to possibly be there to listen to the prayers of Rick Perry’s invitees to his prayerfest that he calls “The Response?”

And what is behind “The Response?” Well apparently our problems are too big for us to solve by ourselves. We need The Lord and Savior of the Universe to get His hands dirty and solve them for us. Guess so. If the Texas Legislature can’t get it done we need to go to the A Team.

Hope they’re up to it and not spending too much time on the campaign trail.

Disinviting Jesus

We had a minor dustup here last week when the director of the Houston National Cemetery asked the Christian pastor, who would be offering up a prayer during this Monday’s Memorial Day Observance, not to mention Jesus.

Now I know lots and lots of Christians, and I know for a fact that when religion comes up in polite conversation they cannot avoid saying the word “Jesus.” It is antithetical to their very existence not to.

So asking a Christian pastor not to say the word Jesus in a prayer over the fallen is just a little over the top you would think.

Here in the Bible Belt? Over the top.

So I was surprised that the cemetery director actually made the request. A request that the pastor take into account that not all of the fallen soldiers that they are going to honor on Monday were Christians. That’s not what we do here in The South. Here in The South religious intolerance is the rule, not the exception.

So I was not surprised to read that the pastor took umbrage at the director’s request, and filed suit. Filed a lawsuit so he could go ahead and say the word “Jesus” just one time in his prayer.

That pastor is going to by God say the word “Jesus” come H-E-Double Hockey Sticks or high water.

The Veterans Administration decided that it was just too much to deal with and really didn’t want to get involved in this guy’s business so it backed off.

So now, the pastor can say “Jesus” in his prayer on Monday.

I suspect, though that this is the last time this guy will be invited to speak at a Memorial Day Observance.

Hamming It Up at Easter

No, it’s not so much the case here in Texas, where brisket seems to be the meat of choice for Easter feasts, but in the rest of the country, at least, on Easter Sunday, people eat ham.

It is more than a blip in sales at those spiral cut ham stores. Easter makes their year.

But yesterday as I was buying my package of ham slices on sale I had to stop and ask myself why the heck we Americans eat ham at Easter.

It’s not like Jesus ate ham. Jesus, after all, was Jewish and eschewed the products of porkdom. Jesus kept kosher, I think, even though the New Testament doesn’t mention it at all, I think anyone who called himself a rabbi kept kosher.

So I looked it up.

And no, it hasn’t got a single thing to do with religion. Like just about all Easter traditions, eating ham at Easter has nothing to do with Jesus. Like just about all Easter traditions, it all has to do with springtime.

In the before times, before we had electricity, before we had refrigeration, we Americans did our slaughtering in the fall and the meats that weren’t eaten then were preserved through a process of curing, a long slow process that took all winter to complete. So really, the first opportunity to put out a spread for an Easter feast came just as the curing process was complete.

A happy coincidence that became tradition after ice boxes and later, refrigerators, became part of the household furniture.

Now on to my next investigation. Why the heck do Germans eat carp on Christmas Eve?

Evangelicals ‘Get Religion’ on Debt

Well it seems that the followers of Jesus have gotten religion in a whole new way: Debt is immoral.

Yes, it’s true. When George W. Bush took a Clinton budget surplus and turned it into a multi-trillion dollar deficit, and when two unnecessary and unfunded wars were waged so that we wouldn’t have to “fight them over here,” these very selfsame people looked the other way at the former, and wildly applauded the latter.

But debt, they now realize, something that happens when you subsidize corporations and wage costly wars, debt is immoral. It’s ungodly. Jesus hates debt.

So now we have Ralph Reed, you know, the guy who bilked Native Americans out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, singing sweet syrupy syllables at the Tea Party for exposing the federal government for their unholy indebtedness. 

“You can't give the Tea Party enough credit in terms of raising the consciousness about this issue.”

I swear it’s true. Ralph Reed actually said that.

And just you wait and see how these characters plan to attack this heresy, this unholy indebted blight on our society. They’ll start by defunding “Obamacare.” Then there’s that whole Medicare/Medicaid social experiment that we can ill afford. And all of that big pile of money set aside for Social Security is just going to waste in the federal coffers. They would much rather put it to work by privatizing it and letting the proceeds pay down the debt. And no more taxpayer dollars to support Planned Parenthood and pay for some silly woman’s abortion.

That’s how you end debt. Not by taking away the Bush tax cuts for the very wealthy. The very wealthy need that money so they can build more McDonald’s franchises and pay minimum wage to an ever increasing supply of high school dropouts.

I have always thought it was remarkable how conservatives have made the Christian religion their own, and use it against whatever and whoever they politically oppose. But in this they have truly outdone themselves.

And hopefully, undone themselves.

Christmas 2010

So it's Christmas again.

Ralphie is still shooting his eye out. Mr. Potter is still bilking the hard-working citizens of Bedford Falls, and Starbuck's is still serving peppermint mocha flavored coffee.

And millions of Americans are attending church services, some of them for the first time this year, in order to celebrate a hijacked festival. A festival of the Invincible Sun that was celebrated by Christians and pagans alike in a Christian Roman Empire of the 5th century. A festival that morphed into Jesus' birthday one year, and changed how we view the Christian religion ever since.

I was very much taken by the recent comments of a Roman Catholic Cardinal who defended the celebration of Jesus' birthday on Decenber 25th, a defense in light of rising objections based on emergent historical records. His defense? Why, the festival of the Annunciation, where the Virgin Mary was visited by angels and impregnated with the essence Savior of the World, is celebrated on March 25: 9 months to the day before December 25th. Since all human gestations take exactly 9 months, Christ must have been born on December 25th.

Trouble is, the festival of the Annunciation was first celebrated in the 6th century. Around 100 years after Christmas was hijacked by the Catholic Church.

Funny how that works.

Anti-Immigrant Fever: WWJD

WWJD: What would Jesus do?

Yesterday we saw at Juanita Jean’s a bible quote that pretty much spells out what Jesus must be thinking about all of the anti-immigrant fever currently raking our country into shreds. I remarked at the time that the only reason this is an issue now is that Republicans need to turn public commentary away from their gross misdeeds in congress recently: voting against 911 first responders, voting against the unemployed, voting against Wall Street reform (and for the very people who delivered the 2008-09 recession to us).

But I kept going back to her citation of Leviticus 19:33-34:

“And if a stranger dwells temporarily with you in your land, you shall not suppress and mistreat him. But the stranger who dwells with you shall be to you as one born among you; and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.”

Appropriate, no? That, by the way was God Himself talking to Moses.

Christians have told me that Old Testament quotations don’t count because they all came before Jesus. That’s what they say, anyway and as a noncombatant, I’ll just take their word for it.

So, OK here is the updated version, from the New Testament:

“Do not forget or neglect or refuse to extend hospitality to strangers – being friendly, cordial and gracious, sharing the comforts of your home and doing your part generously – for through it some have entertained angels without knowing it.”

- Hebrews 13:2

But the one quotation I really like is one that is not often used in finding biblical guidance on what to do when you have immigrants in your country. Remarkably, the passage comes right after the most quoted passage in Matthew 25:31-36 which speaks to what Jesus will do on Judgment Day with the righteous people who treat immigrants and strangers with compassion. This part deals with what Jesus will do with those who lack any compassion towards immigrants and strangers, Matthew 25:41-46:

“Then He will say to those at His left hand, Be gone from Me, you cursed, into the fire prepared for the devil and his angels! For I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me nothing to drink; I was a stranger and you did not welcome Me and entertain Me; I was naked and you did not clothe Me; I was sick and in prison and you did not visit Me with help and ministering care. Then they also will answer, Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not minister to You? And He will reply to them, Solemnly I declare to you, in so far as you failed to do it for the least of these you failed to do it for Me. Then they will go away into eternal punishment, but those who are just and upright in standing with God into eternal life.”

What would Jesus do? I’ll leave that to you to decide. As I said before, I am a noncombatant. But from what I read, if and when Jesus makes good on His promise to come back someday, my guess is that He is going to be One Pissed Off Deity.

Touchdown Jesus Gets a Touchdown

In 2004 the Solid Rock Church in Monroe, Ohio built a 62 foot tall statue of Jesus pictured at right. A rendering of Jesus from the waist up with his arms upraised over his head, reaching toward heaven, it would seem.

Either that or signaling the scoring of a touchdown in a football game.

Earning the statue its nickname of “Touchdown Jesus.”

Well, it seems the Solid Rock Church should have taken its name more seriously and constructed this statue out of solid rock. Heck, even gunnite sprayed over chicken wire would have worked better than what they settled on.

They settled on constructing a steel frame that resembles a football goal posts that supported an outer shell of plastic foam and fiberglass.

Not a good idea.

 
Had they opened up their science books they would have seen that the posts that they used to support Jesus’ upraised hands were identical to a Benjamin Franklin invention that he called a lightning rod. Lightning rods are used to control where lightning is going to hit. They are erected in places that people want lightning to hit.

Preferably if lightning is going to touch down on Earth anyway, it hits the rods, and not buildings or people.

So the lightning that would have hit Earth somewhere in Monroe, Ohio last night, was drawn to Jesus’ upraised arms.

Upraised arms that supported highly flammable fiberglass and plastics.

I show the before and after photographs here for illustrative purposes. To see the video, go to this USA Today web page and scroll down for a 2 minute 33 second video of the flaming inferno that was the statue last night. Accompanying the video is a rather strange audio track. How it ties in with the subject I’ll leave to you to figure out.

My theory: What goes around comes around.

"Open Carry" Your Handgun to Church

It was over a year ago, early April 2008, when then candidate Barack Obama was secretly recorded at a northern California fundraiser and he made some candid off the cuff remarks on small town America to his well heeled audience. To wit:

“Our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are going to regenerate and they have not.”

“And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

And everyone piled on top. Obama was not only skewered by his principal opponent, Hillary Clinton, but also by the McCain campaign (which, as we found out later, was simply defending their base).

And guess what? Just downriver from small town in Pennsylvania we find a small town in Kentucky, with a small church and a small congregation whose pastor is celebrating the 4^th of July (on June 21st) and the 2^nd Amendment to the US Constitution by inviting his flock to bring their handguns to church with them. To “open carry” them, meaning to strap on their gun belts and carry their beloved guns openly in holsters.

From US News:

“A Louisville church is encouraging people to wear unloaded guns in their holsters to an "Open Carry Church Service" later this month, our sister paper, The Courier-Journal, reports. Participants will be able to enter a raffle to win a free handgun, hear patriotic music and listen to talks by operators of gun stores and firing ranges.”

Did I just hear a huge verification of Barack Obama’s often vilified statement on small town America clinging to their guns and their religion?

To their credit, some local religious leaders are openly criticizing this plan, causing the pastor, Pastor Ken Pagano of New Bethel Church, to backpedal slightly and ask that the guns that the congregation brings not be loaded.

Because as we all know, guns don’t kill people, bullets kill people.

I have always wondered which kind of handgun the Lord and Savior of the World, Jesus Christ would have preferred. Would He have been a fan of the old style Roscoe? Or would He have packed a Nine? I just can’t fathom it. Mainly because when I think of handguns, and the sole purpose of handguns, to kill people, I just don’t see Jesus “open carrying” anything but a Remington deer rifle.

Cheesus II: The Second Coming

I was a little mystified why my hit count went through the roof yesterday. It was way up in comparison to where it is this time of year, almost as high as it gets when people’s attention turn to elections and they start to pay attention to we political creatures once more.

That was until I saw the evening news and also checked to see where the traffic was coming from.

Because while I think it would be nice if everyone logged on and read yesterday’s blog posting on absolutely the nicest sounding new song I’ve heard in over 50 years, I know that isn’t likely to occur.

And I found out where all of these new readers were coming from.

From Google.

Now what is true is that the traffic that I get from everyone else who comes over to read my blog, other than my 6 regular readers, usually comes from a search engine. So many that this blog’s Google page rank is currently at 5, which is pretty good for a nobody from nowhere’s blog.

People were googling on a news item that we all saw on TV yesterday. That a local Dallas woman who was very recently eating a bag of Cheetos when she recognized the form of Jesus Christ in a Cheeto. And they were arriving at my blog posting of over a year ago when someone else saw an image of the Savior of the World in one of his Cheetos.

And they even gave their Cheeto the same name: Cheesus.

So really, this isn’t the first time this has happened, and I guess you could say that this is the Second Coming of Cheesus.

The second Cheesus, I think, is more of a reach than the first. Let’s compare.

Here is the Cheeto that the youth minister at Memorial Drive United Methodist Church, Steve Cragg discovered in March of last year.

And here is the Cheeto that Sara Bell of Dallas found.

I like the first one better. True the legs are rather abbreviated making Him look a little like Lieutenant Dan, the character that Gary Sinese played in the movie Forrest Gump, but the latest one lacks an arm.

The only thing that is common between the two Cheesuses is the absolute fact that neither of these food morsels have been able to carry out their prime function, to be eaten and nourish the body.

But for different reasons.

Steven Cragg lovingly put his Cheesus in a clear plastic box that he keeps on the bookshelf in his office. He gets it down every once in awhile to admire it and show his young flock.

Sara Bell, and her husband want to sell their Cheesus on Ebay.

And I can’t figure out which is worse, recognizing a religious figure worshipped by 1.1 billion people around the world in a morsel of junk food or trying to make a profit over same.

Or the alternative.

Mr. Bell claims that if they can’t get enough for it on Ebay they will eat their Cheesus.

Jesus Christ!

And Jesus Said . . .

“Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Matthew 5:10

“Judge not that ye be judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: And with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.”

Matthew 7:1,2

How can those who call themselves Christians make such a fuss over people whose only “crime” is to profess love to a person of the same sex? Jesus was clear about what happens to people such as these. Yet they persist.

From The Washington Post:

“Faith organizations and individuals who view homosexuality as sinful and refuse to provide services to gay people are losing a growing number of legal battles that they say are costing them their religious freedom.”

Examples, of course follow.

The doctor who refused to artificially inseminate a lesbian

The psychologist who refused to counsel a gay couple who were experiencing difficulty in their relationship.

The Christian group that was not recognized by a law school at a University of California campus because it denied membership to anyone “practicing sex outside of traditional marriage.”

And they are taking their cases to court.

And they are losing.

“… gay groups and liberal legal scholars say they are prevailing because an individual's religious views about homosexuality cannot be used to violate gays' right to equal treatment under the law.”

On this eve of the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus, I think it’s appropriate to remind Christians of their solemn duty to obey His teachings. Not only because it is the right thing to do, and not only because Jesus said so. But also because it looks like these troublesome Christians will more than inherit the wind as they go about their ways professing their devout religion while denying others of their rights under the law.

They’re losing in court.

Bipartisanship is DOA in Congress

Well it’s official. The only politician acting in a bipartisan way in Washington, D.C. is Barack Obama.

And sometimes 3 Republican senators.

Obama continues to reach his open hand across the aisle, only to have it slapped time and time again. Today, the House voted 244 to 188 to pass the $787 billion stimulus package that was agreed to in House/Senate meetings held to reconcile the differences between the House and Senate versions of the stimulus bill.

244 to 188.

Guess who made up that 188 minority?

11 Democrats who chose to vote against their party and their President, and every single Republican in the House except for Ginny Brown-Waite, who didn’t vote.

The bipartisanship that the Obama Administration was trying to foster, and going to tremendous lengths to do that at the angst of his own party’s base is DOA in the House. There is no life to breath into the corpse.

And yesterday, Obama’s bipartisan act in choosing a conservative Republican to be his Secretary of Commerce was rewarded by Senator Gregg flip-flopping without warning with an announcement that he was going to pass on Obama’s offer, return to the Senate, and vote against his bill.

And it is becoming very clear why there is very little bipartisanship in Congress. We’ve had two elections now where Democrats have swept Republicans out of office in huge numbers. Congressman in swing districts and Senators in swing states, or in states and districts that have outright flipped from Red to Blue are now largely Democrats. Moderate Republicans are practically nonexistent in Congress.

Apparently, the only other people acting in any kind of bipartisan manner are 3 Republican Senators, Specter, Snowe and Collins. But really, these are holdovers from former Republican states. Specter is from Pennsylvania and Collins and Snowe are from Maine. Both states went for Obama in a big way. If these three senators want to keep their jobs, they will have to be voting with the Democratic majority a great deal of the time. Either that or face the wrath of their voters.

Interestingly, this is exactly the same situation that my ex-congressman, Nick Lampson faced, and it worked out none too well for him, either.

Did it?

So do I think Barack Obama should abandon his attempts to appease the party of the Dark Side? Well, if he wants to stop wasting his time and if he wants to stop receiving the potshots that these uberpartisans want to deliver to him, maybe he should.

But I don’t think that’s his style. Besides, I ask myself, isn’t Barack Obama just acting out what every evangelical Christian Republican demands of their congregations? Isn’t Barack Obama obeying the Lord’s instruction?

“But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

Luke 6: 27-31

Jesus was bipartisan. But apparently what’s good enough for their Savior isn’t good enough for Republicans in Congress.

Who Says Religion is at Odds With Science?

Traditionally we regard science and religion as opposing systems of ideas where one cannot prove or profit from the ideas of the other. St. Augustine made this point, and was a little less than charitable than is usually observed toward the system of knowledge he considered as anti-religious, math and natural science.

“The good Christian should beware of mathematicians and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confine man in the bonds of Hell.”

St. Augustine must be spinning in his grave with today’s news that the religious are making good use of the devil’s tools to preserve and protect their icons of faith.

It’s in the Chron, an AP article by religion writer Eric Gorski.

It seems that every year about this time a rash of thefts takes place at Nativity scenes from coast to coast.

They keep stealing Baby Jesus.

Jesus in the manger keeps getting swiped, sometimes more than once a year. This comes to some consternation of churches and families that put together these displays because in some cases the statue representing Jesus is an objet d’art, and worth some significant coin.

For example:

“For two consecutive years, thieves made off with the baby Jesus figurine in Wellington, a well-off village of 60,000 in Palm Beach County, Fla. The ceramic original, donated by a local merchant, was made in Italy and worth about $1,800, said John Bonde, Wellington's director of operations.”

So these people don’t get mad, they get a GPS location system.

“So last year, officials took a GPS unit normally used to track the application of mosquito spray and implanted it in the latest replacement figurine. After that one disappeared, sheriff's deputies quickly tracked it down.”

Now I call that a fine marriage of science and religion, don’t you?

So Savior snatchers, be on notice. That Baby Jesus you just lifted just may be bugged.

Jesus + Cheetos = Cheesus

It’s Easter and while the Easter Texas chili is smoldering in the crock pot, I looked left and right for an appropriate thing to write about. My first thought was to find a photograph of the Pillsbury Dough Boy, (aka Poppin’ Fresh) to put up with the title “He is Risen” but decided that might be too crass and insensitive.

Yes, even I have thoughts like that from time to time.

Then I happened across this obscure piece on Houston’s KHOU website. Apparently the youth minister at the Memorial Drive United Methodist Church, Steve Cragg, has stumbled across the latest religious apparition to make the news.

Shortly before beginning a recent Cheetos nosh, something stopped Steve from popping yet another Cheetos tasty morsel in his mouth and grinding it to insignificant bits of corn puff and cheesy powder. He stopped to examine its unique shape. From one side it looked like a cute two-legged dog. Turning it around, however, what should he find but an image of Jesus Christ himself stretching out his arms to his adoring masses.

Either that or, as one of Cragg’s students suggested, it kind of looks like Lieutenant Dan in the movie Forrest Gump.

Still and all, a religious apparition is just as good as its recognition, and this Cheeto bears an uncanny resemblance to the Savior of the world.

So be it.

In Cheesus’ name.

UPDATE: Cheesus has returned! Cheesus II: The Second Coming

Evangelicals Stumped On Who to Support For President? I Have a Suggestion

There is a good analysis article in the Washington Post today. I first heard about the conservative evangelicals’ problem first last May, when conservative evangelical and founder of “Focus on the Family”, James Dobson said he would stay home and not vote rather than cast his vote for Rudy Giuliani, and then a couple of weeks ago when Dobson was threatening to support a third party candidate if Giuliani is nominated by the Republicans.

Democrats collectively drew in their breaths for a second at that announcement. By a best guestimate, the conservative evangelicals in the Republican Party count for about 25% of the total. Some say 27%. No matter. That’s a lot of 3rd party votes that guarantees a Democratic shoe-in, in November. Oh, I love me the Electoral College.

This is huge. These voters, these conservative evangelicals are faithful primary voters. On primary election day, they show up at the polls in great numbers. They are probably the number one reason why George Bush is in the White House today as they presented a huge bloc of votes at the primaries in 2000, and saw to it that Bush’s challengers were defeated.

But as of today, not one of the Republican candidates appeal to these people.

In today’s piece, not one of the leading Christian evangelicals has a clear choice, and today, one who might have had half a chance at their votes, Sam Brownback, announced his departure from the presidential race.

Of all the various candidates, only Mitt Romney has picked up an evangelical endorsement from Bob Jones III. But most evangelicals have a problem with Romney because of his former pro-choice stance, and his belief in what they, in their view, consider an extra-Christian religion.

Perhaps summing it all up for these Christian conservatives is this from Bill Stephens, the executive director of the Christian Coalition of Florida:

“Our voters would rather stay home than vote for half a loaf of bread. They either want the whole loaf, or they'll wait for next time.”

Now that is a very good idea. Very out of the box. Why vote for half a loaf? I have an even better solution for their woes that almost worked here in the CD 22 elections here in Texas.

A write-in!

And a write-in candidate that I think they can all get behind like nobody’s business:

Jesus Christ for President!

Think of it. No one would have to ask the question anymore: ”What would Jesus do?” They’d have the Guy right there. Okay, so he died 1,974 years ago. When Reagan was in office no one made that point back then, did they? And they could put Rudy Giuliani on the ticket for Veep to smooth the ruffled feathers of the party centrists.

Jesus and Giuliani, the ticket made in heaven.

And just to prove that I don’t have an original bone in my body, Google “Jesus for President” and you get this site.

Selling Jesus in Public Schools - Chisum Finds a Way

I stayed up later than usual last night watching live feed from the meeting of the Texas House Committee on Public Education. I was interested in hearing what was going to be said about HB 1287, a bill filed by Warren Chisum mandating the teaching of two elective courses on the Old Testament and the New Testament.

First off, let’s say that this is just a thinly veiled attempt by Chisum to introduce the Christian religion in the classroom again. It’s a mandate, an order to include these courses in the curriculum along with PE, Health and Algebra, but not as a mandatory course, an elective.

So there’s that.

I have to say, that as a fair-minded person, I do see the need for a course like this. Even children raised in Christian households, Sunday go-to-meetin’ households, are woefully ignorant of things biblical. The Bible, as a piece of literature, is really, really boring. So kids don’t read it. They wouldn’t know whether The Book of Isaiah was written before Luke or after it. It’s that bad.

Why know about things biblical? Well, since about 325 CE when it was adopted by the First Council of Nicaea, the Bible has been a huge influence in Western art and literature. Wars were fought over it, and its interpretation. You can’t begin to understand these things unless you are versed in the verses.

As a high school student in California, taking an Honors English course my senior year, I was assigned a year-long project investigating the work of John Steinbeck. I soon discovered that I was horribly unknowledgeable of things biblical. You simply cannot understand the underpinnings of Steinbeck’s classic works, “The Grapes of Wrath” and “East of Eden”, without having specific knowledge of the Old and New Testament. Believe it or not, this project caused me to read the entire Bible from cover to cover just to do a little catch up and teach myself a few things.

So I would be the first to say that a course like this, as an elective, would be a good addition to any high school curriculum.

But the bill is so fatally flawed that the course that it promises, cannot possibly be delivered given the constraints in the bill. Quoting from the bill, this is the course that is promised”

“The purpose of a course under this section is to:
(1) Accommodate the rights and desires of teachers who wish to teach and students who wish to study, as applicable, the Old or New Testament; and
(2) familiarize students with, as applicable:
(A) the contents of the Old or New Testament;
(B) the history recorded by the Old or New Testament;
(C) the literary style and structure of the Old or New Testament;
(D) the customs and cultures of the peoples and societies recorded in the Old or New Testament; and
(E) the influence of the Old or New Testament on law, history, government, literature, art, music, customs, morals, values, and culture."

That all sounds very good to me. These are ancient texts and reading and understanding them should offer a deeper understanding on all of the above.

To assuage the protests of non-Christians, or Christians of a particular sectarian belief, Chisum includes this:“

A course offered under this section:
(1) must be taught in an objective and nondevotional manner that does not attempt to indoctrinate students as to either the truth or falsity of the Judeo-Christian biblical materials or of texts from other religious or cultural traditions other than the Judeo-Christian tradition;
(2) may not include teaching of a religious doctrine or a sectarian interpretation of the Old or New Testament or of texts from other religious or cultural traditions other than the Judeo-Christian tradition; and
(3) may not disparage or encourage a commitment to a set of religious beliefs.

”Better still.

But then we are given this:

“Notwithstanding Sections 28.002(c) and 31.022, respectively, for a course under this section, the State Board of Education maynot:
(1) identify the essential knowledge and skills; or

(2) adopt textbooks under Chapter 31.”

No TEKS for this course. No textbook (other than the Bible and other things deemed relevant by the teacher of the course).

And this:

“(h) The board of trustees of a school district shall determine the qualifications, assignment, and training of teachers of a course under this section, except that:
(1) the teacher must be certified as provided by Subchapter B, Chapter 21, unless an exception to that requirement exists under this title”.

No state-mandated training. The selection of a teacher to teach the course is up to the school districts. Better yet, there is nothing proposed to rate the readiness of a teacher to teach this course. Texas has ExCET exams for all teachers to be certified to teach in subject areas. No ExCET test is proposed or planned for a teacher who wants to teach this course.

The reason is this: money. No funding is proposed in this bill. It is, as they say, a non-funded mandate.

What will result if this bill passes is what has already resulted in 22 Texas school districts. A survey of the 25 school districts that offer a course like this in high school, found that only 3 are teaching it along the lines outlined by Chisum. The other 22 are courses in “Come to Jesus”.

This is the thin veil. Put the words into law that propose a perfectly acceptable high school course, but provide none of the support that will enable the course to be taught in that manner. Result: state-sponsored classes in Christianity, and in Texas, we’re talking Protestant Christianity.

The other thing that should raise warning signals about the intent of this bill?

The hearing on the bill was held last night.

On Passover.

Names of witnesses kept being called, and they weren’t there to speak. That’s because they were all home at their Seder dinners.

Yep, you guessed it. They scheduled the meeting at the only time this month that the Christ Killers couldn’t attend.

HB 109 Passes - Kids Get CHIP

It took awhile and a second reading, but Sylvester Turner’s HB 109 which would restore health insurance to children of the poor passed by 126 to 16, Craddick not voting.

As written in the El Paso Times:

“The bill, which passed with a vote of 126-16, would reduce restrictions on Children’s Health Insurance Program enrollment and allow more than 100,000 additional Texas children in the program, according to a legislative analysis. It would undo some changes legislators, trying to save money because of a nearly $10 billion shortfall, made to the Childrens Health Insurance Program in 2003.”

I didn’t see it but I heard the amendment war was strident, with 28 amendments put forth. Of the 28 only 6 were adopted. Amendments by Sylvester Turner and Yvonne Davis were procedural and corrected wording. Ones by Dan Flynn, Patrick Rose made sure there was sufficient wording to keep aliens from being covered by CHIP. Gattis and Corte tried to amend by including wording that would require people in the program to reapply for eligibility every 6 months rather than every 12. That didn’t work and from that point it looked like passage was going to happen. Trey Martinez Fischer’s amendment to ensure that the information provided by section 2 of the bill be available in Spanish and English was passed, and finally Larry Taylor to strip the 90-day waiting period for a newborn under 90 days old.

They say that most of the children that lost their coverage in 2003 will regain their eligibility. Not as many as they wanted, but 100,000 children will get their health benefits restored.

The 16 Nay votes were from the following:

Leo Berman, Joe Crabb, Robert Eissler, Dan Flynn, Linda Harper-Brown, Charlie Howard, Carl Isett, Jodie Laubenberg, Nathan Macias, Sid Miller, Tan Parker, Ken Paxton, John Phillips, Debbie Riddle, Robert Talton and Larry Taylor.

Was this a vote based on religious values? You can bet. Who on God’s Earth would be against children’s health? Jesus loves little children.

Sixteen Republicans in safe districts, that’s who. Being from a safe Republican district allows you to do things that Jesus would not approve.

But Satan most certainly would.