Springfield, MO made Donohue’s half hour power hour.

We thought you’d like to know how progressives view penance.  Here is what Roger Ray had to say about the issue in today’s edition of the News-Leader, a Springfield, Missouri newspaper:

“As a member of a progressive Christian church, I am more likely than most to encounter folks who angrily reject all penitence and prayers of confession as being associated with the neurotic guilt and neo-puritanical judgment of their past church experiences. One friend recently told me, ‘I just don’t believe in sin.’”

Thanks, Roger, for providing this insight.  It explains a lot.

Apparently Donohue forgot to mention that the News-Leader is city renowned for being the opinions pages of morons, for morons, by morons.  Often you’ll be reading a letter condemning gays to being beaten up and bullied at school only to be staring at what looks an awful lot like the mug shot of a skin head.   He also might mention that the word “progressive” and “Springfield, MO” don’t go together.  Our biggest contribution to this country is the mega-church and John Ashcroft.

However, least you think Donohue wasn’t committing some sort of intellectual dishonesty, here is some of the other 840 words Bill Donohue didn’t see fit to print, mention, or even link to.

<!– @page { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } –>But I will be in an Ash Wednesday service this evening, albeit with probably no more than 10 or 15 percent of my parishioners in attendance when I make the mark of the cross on the ones who come down the aisle, reminding each one of their mortality with the somber saying, “Remember that you are dust and to the dust you shall return.” I will be there chanting penitential prayers, not because I am still trapped in the superstitious fears of fundamentalist faith but because I do believe in sin and I feel the need to both confess and be assured that with forgiveness I and the world may be changed. The world is not right and I am a part of the world.

There is a story from 1935 when Fiorello La Guardia was mayor of New York City. It is said that La Guardia liked to go sit in on city court at night, taking over on the bench. One night a local grocer was bringing charges against an elderly woman who had stolen a loaf of bread from his store. The woman admitted to the theft, explaining that her daughter was sick and could not work and that her children were starving. It was reported that La Guardia found the woman guilty and fined her $10 which he promptly paid out of his own wallet. He then ordered the bailiff to collect a fine of 50 cents from everyone in the court room for being guilty of living in a city where a grandmother has to steal bread to feed her grandchildren. He turned over the collection to the grandmother and sent her on her way over the red-faced protests of the grocer.

Preachers love to tell this story but they tell it while they live in a city where nearly half of the children are on free and reduced lunches at school. They live in a country where the difference in income between the top fifth and the bottom fifth of workers is 11 to 1. This is especially ironic considering that this is a “Christian” nation and the ratio of income between the top and bottom fifths of workers in Japan and Belgium is 4 to 1, and just 7 to 1 in France and Canada, which could lead one to believe that working for a Christian is a pretty abusive thing to have to do!

I believe in sin because I am a part of a society which is willing to demand lower prices on clothing, shoes, fruit, vegetables and coffee even if it means enslaving people in Africa, Asia and Central America to keep those prices low.

I’m not interested in the sins my mother warned me against because the gospel of “smoking, drinking, dancing and cussing” just doesn’t stack up to the sins of hunger, homelessness, violence and illness.

Lent, in our day, has, even for those who observe it, become more of a time of personal improvement … giving up red meat so that I can lose 10 pounds before I go on vacation, or stopping spending money on an expensive latte so that I can pay down my credit cards. A penitential season is not intended to make us better at fulfilling our narcissistic goals ; it should be the opposite of that, helping us to combat our narcissism.

Here are a few suggestions “From the Left”: During this season of Lent, if you are an employer, provide health insurance for your employees. If you drink coffee, drink fair trade coffee. If you have more than four pairs of shoes, try giving the rest of them to people who don’t have shoes. If you are in the habit of buying steak for yourself and a can of spam to send to the poor, try turning that around for 40 days (Spam tastes better when fried). Repentance can be powerful if it leads to the habit of changing the world for the better. Remember, it is an irrevocable truth: You are dust and to the dust you shall return. Do something good with your life while you can.

I think somebody is a little bit guilty of breaking a certain commandment by omission.

On one side (the absolutely fair and balanced side) you’ve got the opinion that since we’ve elected a black guy we’ve ended that pesky racism thing once and for all.  After all, blacks are the only socially constructed race that ever was oppressed in this country.   Clearly this task was much simpler than we’ve been led to believe.   I was sure that perhaps we’d have to work on Hispanics.  I know that the Asians wouldn’t be a problem.  They’re smarter than us and solve it themselves.  Besides, China already owns our country and we’re 1 and 2 in wars against them.

On the other hand you have some now less powerful annoying people who aren’t Oprah screaming that it doesn’t mean a damn thing.   However, since they’re not Oprah, they don’t mean a damn thing either.   Obama made Oprah shed tears, therefore, it means something.   I just don’t understand why Oprah wasn’t consulted in the auto industry bailout.

Unfortunately both sides seem to miss this thing about us being adults, which, thanks to evolution, have developed this pesky ability to think in a manner that sometimes seems to be critical.  I know, sometimes it is just easier to let the news do your thinking for you, especially when you’ve got to get to the Starbucks early to avoid the lines.  The thought occurred to me, while working on some post-colonialism issues, that the relationship of the colonized to the colonizer provides a good framework for what Obama’s election means in terms of race.

Colonized Africans would always been a second class citizen to the western-European colonizers.  No matter how much they bought into the colonizer’s culture, worked hard, or accomplished they would never, for example, be a full British person.  Now imagine you’re in this position and you realize that you can’t accomplish what you have ideologically been made to desire.  It’s a very heavy burden to realize that no matter how hard you try you will always be marginalized.

Just a few years ago if you were asked if you thought a black person would be elected in the next few years your answer would most likely be somewhere around “maybe.”  Ask that question now and your answer can only be “yes.”   Granted there is still oppression and marginalization as well as disenfranchisement to deal with; however, it can no longer be said that it is hopeless to try.  Obama provides the example that minorities can rise to positions of power in this country and that all the effort and hard work may not be for naught.

But hey, it’s still a far cry better than the “are you fucking asking me that? Seriously, you’re asking me that. Why would you waste my time asking me that?” in regards to whether an atheist can get elected.

I don’t find myself watching cable news all that often because I value my brain and I also don’t have money in which to purchase a gun to blow it out.  It occurs to me thought that, despite even claiming a liberal bias, there is a definite bias against being honest in discussion.  They aren’t reporting facts, but rather opinions.  I came across a bunch of clips about nationalizing banks and socialism as of late.   It seemed like I was watching the prequel to Red Dawn.

We can’t have an honest discussion about nationalization of an industry (even when it is collapsing) or about socalist methods because we’re trained to simply react to keywords.   Or look at a clip from the recent Daily Show where Obama was made out to be both Hitler and the anti-christ.  Why the hell are we even giving this shit air-time?  Bat-shit insanity is bat-shit insanity and doesn’t need to be treated as an equal to reality.

Honestly, now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure I’ve done this post before.  On an unrealated note, Vicodin is a wonderful drug that makes my arm not hurt.  I’m also not dead and am back from my trip to Minnesota.  I’ll be back to making fun of Religion once I get caught up.

Man, those Republicans just can’t get a handle on their kids. Cheney’s lesbian daughter and now Bristol Palin thinks abstience only education is bullshit.   You would think that if an 18 year old could figure this out that our illustrious dumbasses in Washington could too.  We’ve known abstinence hasn’t worked for well over a hundred years, even Mark Twain made remarks as to how pointless asking children to abstain from things was.  It’s right there in Tom Sawyer.  It’s just a group think peer pressure pledge that is absolutely meaningless in reality.   It’s all about the sash, marching in the parade and belonging to the group.

The religiously motivated temperance crusade sure turned out well.   It’s probably a great example of why we should never allow religious motivation to be codified into law.  Simply put, not everybody follows this pious morality code.  They’re not going to follow it because there is no reason to.  It reminds me of all these people who are so tragically upset because Phelps took a bong hit.  I guess they’re all so sad that their artificially created myth didn’t live up to their delusional version of reality.   People aren’t prudes and it’s time we stop basing our structure of morality based on the false assumption.

Every so often some dumbshit Democrat thinks we need to bring back the Fairness Doctrine.  Quite frankly, there’s no need for it.   If somebody wants to have a partisan hackery show, let them.  It sells.   And if the Democrats can’t compete with Rush Limbaugh then that’s there problem.   I’m not sure you’d really want to either.  It’s a show that caters to the lowest common denominator.  Let’s look at cable news though.  Olberman and Maddow are beating O’Reilly.   If you produce the product people will listen to it.  The thing is, I don’t think the market really exists for a Democratic leaning radio station in the way that there exists one for Limbaugh. Also, the audience for talk radio tends to be made of older males.  Is the large part of the liberal audience old males?  In a way, not really.

Look at the success of the Daily Show.  Yes, there is a liberal bias to it.  Also look how popular it is.  I can also tell you from personal experience that the only time I’ve listened to Air America it was online.  The point is, the Democrats don’t need to try to compete in markets where their audiences aren’t at.

The only time I think there needs to be any sort of “fairness” is when it is in regards to political campaigns.  If you’re going to have one candidate on you should at least (and really it should be done anyways) invite her opponent.

I also discovered this little gem when trying to find some actual data on Rush’s demographics.

As I understand it, Limbaugh’s audience demographics consist mostly of males. I don’t know why this is so but if true, then I can certainly think of some ways Rush could get some more female listeners. The hand that rocks the cradle rocks the world, as the saying goes. By breezing over conservative female listeners, and they are out there, Rush’s influence will always be lacking something major and beautiful.

Gee, I wonder if that might have something to do with him being a sexist, chaeuvanistic pig that believes feminism is a sham.  Yeah, I can only wonder why they don’t listen.  Then again, the GOP message tends to target the mantra of a high school boy.