Happy Place Diversion ~ What if God was One of Us?

The new Pope Francis from Venezuela is considered a "man of the people" who said the other day he wants a "Poor Church to Feed the Poor." And he is trying harder than any Pope within living memory to prove that early in his Papacy.

Pope Francis ditches bullet-proof "pope mobile" for open Jeep and frequent stops to embrace Easter week crowds. @thenation @hardball

— John Nichols (@NicholsUprising) March 24, 2013

Pope Francis will celebrate Holy Thursday mass in a juvenile detention center rather than the Vatican. @thenation @hardball

— John Nichols (@NicholsUprising) March 24, 2013

From USA Today - the Pope on Palm Sunday

The square overflowed with some 250,000 pilgrims, tourists and Romans eager to join the new pope at the start of solemn Holy Week ceremonies, which lead up to Easter, Christianity's most important day.

. . . Francis even climbed down from the vehicle, kissed a woman in the crowd and chatted briefly with her, and another man in the crowd leaned over a barrier to squeeze the pontiff on a shoulder — an unheard of familiarity in the previous pontificate of the reserved Benedict XVI.

. . . Francis said Jesus "awakened so many hopes in the heart, above all among humble, simple, poor, forgotten people, those who don't matter in the eyes of the world."
Francis then told an off-the-cuff story from his childhood in Argentina. "My grandmother used to say, 'children, burial shrouds don't have' pockets'" the pope said, in a variation of "you can't take it with you."

So lately I've been thinking about Joan Osborne's hit "What if God was One of Us?" When the song came out many people thought it was somehow sacrilegious, but I never understood that criticism. She is asking age-old questions about faith and belief that all real Christians consider. She sings about Jesus being a human, which according to scripture he was, which is the whole point of the New Testament and all his sermons. Jesus experienced human life and let his disciples ask him questions. He was a man of the people and went out amongst the sinners. He didn't shun the poor, the unwell, or the prostitutes (which the GOP would call "sluts"). He led by example. He never said a single thing about hating gay people, or black people, or anyone with a different religion. Yes, the Church has unfortunately had leaders who felt that way over the centuries, but that is not the message of Jesus or a reason to hate all Christians.



Gandhi said, "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

Exactly. Many so-called Christians have forgotten the actual teachings of Christ, just as many denominations that consider themselves Protestant have drifted away from the simplicity of Martin Luther. Some churches have became more and more ostentatious and outrageous as they try to out-do the churches down the street instead of using their tithes to help the indigent and feed poor children. Jesus threw the moneychangers out of the Temple, and I think he would have the same reaction to all the politics in the church today. For instance, the Tea Partiers are so focused on what they think is "right" about abortion and the unborn that they want to sacrifice those who have been born, who are already existing and need our help: the elderly, the poor, the sick, and the downtrodden.

Many so-called Christians have spent the last ten years preparing for Armageddon, or the Rapture, or the Mayan Apocalypse. And because they consider themselves to be "The Chosen" because of which church they followed, they became so self-absorbed with either death or survival that they just didn't care about anyone else. That is not what the church teaches at all.


They even made fun of it on the Simpsons several times: once in "Bart's Comet", when Ned Flanders builds a Bunker just large enough to save his family and his neighbors, but then the whole town shows up; and in Thank God It's Doomsday in which Homer is scared by the Left Behind movies and believes the Rapture is coming soon, but discovers he isn't much of a Prophet after all. Unfortunately for modern Christianity, Homer-as-Everyman isn't far from reality. And throughout history the church has dealt with "false prophets." An aunt of mine who recently died said people would frighten children with the same stories back in the 1920s, and my Grandmother told me years ago that Haley's Comet caused the same fear at the turn of the century. Human nature just doesn't change very much.

But I still think it's much more sacrilegious to pretend to be a Catholic, Protestant, Jew - whatever - and ask "What would Ayn Rand do?" Or even worse, "What would Grover Norquist do?" Ugh. The GOP cynicism they spout while expecting us to believe they are devoutly religious has nothing to do with God or Jesus. They are NOT "one of us," nor do they care anything about the slobs on the bus. Christianity did not "create" the Congress we have right now, but I'm happy to say the elections last year when the "people" spoke are a good first step in getting the hypocrite Pharisees out of our government.

Sublime Truth from Rick Santorum: GOP is Party of Stupid

Pic from Whovian on Democratic Underground
In a sublime moment of probably unintentional clarity and funniness, Rick Santorum looked out over the Tea Party crowd at the Values Voter Summit and earnestly called them "stupid" and "uneducated." But that's okay - they don't need those elite brainiacs in their party telling them what to do. According to Santorum that's the job of the church.

Somehow this is both an epic fail and an epic win. Truth is good - hearing a conservative speak the truth, priceless.

We will never have the media on our side, ever, in this country. We will never have the elite smart people on our side, because they believe they should have the power to tell you what to do. So our colleges and universities, they’re not going to be on our side.

The conservative movement will always be – and that’s why we founded Patriot Voices – the basic premise of America and American values will always be sustained through two institutions, the church and the family. (Applause.)

And so economic conservatism - libertarian types can say, oh, well, we don’t want to talk about the social issues. Without the church and the family, there is no conservative movement. There is no basic values in America in force, and there is no future for our country. (Applause.)

So it is our job in this election, it is our job, to go out and make a difference. It is our job to go out and talk to fellow believers. And I don’t mean Christians. I mean fellow believers in the American creed, fellow believers in those basic principles that built our country.

Full Transcript of Santorum's Speech on Politico

Strange First Night at the RNC

I watched as many of the speeches as I could stomach from the Republican National Convention and to me there were several problems. The worst was Mitt Romney's unhappy expression the whole night. He stumbled onto the stage after being introduced by his wife, and he looked like a sad clown that has been sprayed with seltzer water too many times. He was NOT having a good time!

There was no cohesion between speeches. Mrs. Romney gave a rather shrill and squeaky speech about how much she loved Mitt and how much he loves everyone - love, love, love. Then Chris Christie from new New Jersey gave a more rabble-rousing speech about how love was just okay, but respect was so much better! Then he forced everyone to get to their feet and clap for him, and since most of the evening had been so boring, people complied. It just seems strange that the two speeches that were meant to introduce Mitt Romney to the country instead cancelled each other out and left people scratching their heads. I found them equally repulsive.

The camera panned onto Condileeza Rice a few times and she seemed to be crying, but I don't think it was for happiness. Her Party is going down the crapper.





John Boehner gave a really stupid speech about drunks in a bar, which suited his big red nose. I'm not sure how all the bar jokes went over with the Evangelical dry-county teetotal Tea Partiers from the heartland. Doh! Maybe he should have thought of that in between cocktails.


And then there were the really nasty hate-filled speeches ~ Reince Priebus and Janine Turner from Northern Exposure, especially. Ugh. Next time, just wear your sheets and hoods, folks. I found them both creepy to the max. This is totally Godwin, but either one could have started clicking their boots and shrieking "Sieg Heil!" and it would have seemed perfectly in keeping with their tone.




Rick Santorum's speech was another embarrassing homage to his grandfather's "big meaty hands" - people on twitter were counting and said he mentioned hands 24 times, and even said "hand America jobs," which sounds faintly obscene. I honestly don't know what he is thinking anymore, but then I never did.


The strangest thing of all was that each speaker from Nikki Haley to Chris Christie talked about their immigrant ancestors and family success stories. But wait . . . this is the party which wants to cut out all immigration, build a wall, put barbed wire on it, shoot people at the border, and force Grandma to deport herself. WTF? Why would any of them glowingly gush about their own successful families who came here with nothing and captured the American Dream if all they want to do is deny that dream to everyone else in the world? I'm stumped on that one. I think every time they said "my great-grandfather immigrated here" the audience squirmed, both in the hall and at home.

Just a few hours earlier they had given ugly Jan Brewer of Arizona, the queen of anti-immigration and Hispanic/Latino hate, a thunderous ovation just for announcing that Arizona was nominating Mitt. Total mixed message.

Finally, the piece de resistance was an incident that happened off-camera, but happened to a camera woman for CNN. You can't make this stuff up. I wonder what will happen tonight?

GOP attendee ejected for throwing nuts at African American CNN camera woman + saying "This is how we feed animals." @takeactionnews #TAN
— David Shuster (@DavidShuster) August 29, 2012

, @cnn statement on GOP attendee removed for incident with African American camera woman. 2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/cnn-re… via @tpm_dk
— David Shuster (@DavidShuster) August 29, 2012

Talking Points Memo

The CNN official declined to confirm specific details of the incident to TPM but generally confirmed an account posted on Twitter by former MSNBC and Current anchor David Shuster: “GOP attendee ejected for throwing nuts at African American CNN camera woman + saying ‘This is how we feed animals.’”
It is not clear whether the alleged culprit was a delegate or attending the convention in some other capacity.
In a written statement, CNN addressed the matter but divulged few details: “CNN can confirm there was an incident directed at an employee inside the Tampa Bay Times Forum earlier this afternoon. CNN worked with convention officials to address this matter and will have no further comment.”

From Politico

The RNC referred POLITICO to GOP Convention spokesperson Kyle Downey for comment. . . .
UPDATE: GOP convention spokesman Kyle Downey tells POLITICO, "Two attendees tonight exhibited deplorable behavior. Their conduct was inexcusable and unacceptable. This kind of behavior will not be tolerated."

Rick Santorum Comes Galumphing Back

He's BACK! And just in time to cause big trouble for Romney (and Ron Paul) at the Republican Convention in Tampa. But we knew this would happen. The Convention is going to be like Cirque du Soleil meets Barnum and Bailey meets 1776 rolled into one Big Tent of Crazy.

Santorum had a press conference in Illinois today in which he threw down the gauntlet about fighting it out with Ron Paul and his supporters over the Party Platform at the Convention.

From ABC News

"I want to make sure that the folks who represent the values that I did during this campaign are also are able to come to that convention and have their voices heard. I certainly have encouraged everyone to support Governor Romney as I have, but there are a lot of other issues at the convention other than just voting for the nominee."

Santorum added that he would spend the months before the August convention ensuring that his delegates are "armed and ready to engage the fight."

Paul, a candidate who advocates for a non-interventionist foreign policy and drug decriminalization, recently told supporters his delegate count puts him "in a tremendous position to grow our movement and shape the future of the GOP."

It seems like only yesterday he was giving his farewell speech about Washington crossing the Delaware. But the "Early Patriot" theme lingers on because Rick has started a new group called "Patriot Voices" to raise money - *cough* SuperPac *cough* - and to keep his name out in the public. It's all about the Bible, Babies, and Big Money.






Martin Bashir called this new venture the "Save Santorum Fund."

"When Republicans like Santorum or Sarah Palin are touring the country in her bus, and preaching about the private sector and jobs, they're talking about themselves aren't they? Leave our privately funded Superpacs alone and let them create our new jobs."

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Santorum and George W. Endorse Romney with Faint Praise

Via The Oklahoma Observer

Romney received two important endorsements from members of the Republican Party this week but they were nothing to write home about, and they were just barely public.

Ex-President George W. Bush endorsed the candidate over his shoulder as he jumped into an elevator. (No joke!)

From ABC News

“I’m for Mitt Romney,” Bush told ABC News this morning as the doors of an elevator closed on him, after he gave a speech on human rights a block from his old home — the White House.
Bush’s endorsement isn’t a surprise, given that Romney is virtually the Republican Party’s nominee. But the 43rd president has been absent from the 2012 campaign and hasn’t made any public comments showing his support for Romney.

And Rick Santorum finally endorsed Romney last week, but from afar. He sent out an email to his supporters and threw in the lukewarm endorsement in the 13th paragraph. This is hilarious anyway because Santorum did the Obama Administration's work in advance by slamming Romney's record again and again.

From the Daily Caller

In the 16-paragraph letter, the phrase “he has my endorsement” appeared in paragraph 13.
“The primary campaign certainly made it clear that Governor Romney and I have some differences,” Santorum wrote, “But there are many significant areas in which we agree.”
“I am also comfortable with Governor Romney on foreign policy matters,” the hawkish Republican added.
“And while I had concerns about Governor Romney making a case as a candidate about fighting against Obamacare, I have no doubt if elected he will work with a Republican Congress to repeal it and replace it with a bottom up, patient, not government, driven system.”
Like former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich before him, Santorum’s endorsement of Romney appeared to hinge not on the former Massachusetts governor’s strengths, but on the belief that the he will be a better president than Obama has already been.

Jimmy Kimmel had some fun with Santorum's endorsement in particular:

Republicans Hate Education - Because the Ignorant Elite Should Run the Country

picture by ilvillaggio on tumblr
 President Obama wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob ... Oh, I understand why he wants you to go to college. He wants to remake you in his image.
–Rick Santorum, speaking to a Tea Party group in Michigan (February 2012) Via

Yes, Rick Santorum really said that, and it's probably a good reason (among others) why he is out of the presidential race now. Of course, higher education was good enough for Rick Santorum, who has multiple degrees, only he wouldn't admit that. And if he really came from such lowly working class roots, he probably took out student loans to pay for it. And I bet he wants his own children to go to college, and with so many kids in his family at least one will surely need a boost from a bank. But that is too much reality to share with the Tea Party because their heads explode.

It's unbelievable that Republicans in general could be so out of touch with the way universities run their student loan programs. At an undergraduate level, students compete for scholarships, and if their families make more than is considered "need" then they are out of luck. Pell Grants sometimes cover tuition with just a little to spare for expenses, but the Republicans hate those so much the "mahvalous" Paul Ryan budget would cut them, of course.
A child of five would understand this. Please fetch me a child of five.

Many professions such as law and medicine require a huge investment of money beyond the needs of most universities to provide financial aid, so these schools are set up around student loans. Most post-baccalaureate students - the people who run the world after we're gone - graduate with debt in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. That is not their fault. Most of these students work several jobs over the course of the 8-12 years they spend in college. Most of them get help with ordinary things like car payments, rent, and insurance from their parents.Yet the Republicans seem to think students and parents alike are a bunch of freeloaders - or they pretend to believe that so idiots will vote for them.

Take Virginia Foxx . . . please. She's the bitch Congresswoman from North Carolina (R of course) who recently made this ridiculous statement:

I have very little tolerance for people who tell me that they graduate with $200,000 of debt or even $80,000 of debt because there's no reason for that," Foxx continued. "We live in an opportunity society and people are forgetting that. I remind folks all the time that the Declaration of Independence says 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' You don't sit on your butt and have it dumped in your lap."

Law, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, education . . . sitting on their butts? Really?
Republican intelligence - a contradiction in terms.

Then we have the intrepid Mitt Romney, with his easily paid-for Harvard Education that he dismisses when it suits him politically. Someone asked him at a rally back in February what he intends to do for people with crushing student loan debt, and he said this, with a condescending tone in his voice:
Via Politico:

I wish I could tell you that there’s a place to find really cheap money, or free money, and we could pay for everyone’s education. But that’s just not going to happen....I hope you shopped around to find a school with the lowest possible tuition.

Yeah, boy - no pat on the back for that woman getting into Law School. Just a lecture about how poor people should go to cheaper schools. But that's not how it works, Mitt. These schools - even "best deal" state universities - are highly competitive, and there are only so many positions open every year. Students fight tooth and nail to get in, and can't pick and choose the plum school of their dreams. Oh, but you didn't have to do that, did you, Mitt? No. So of course you don't understand.


I guess he will say later that the quote was misquoted.

Because now Romney is shifting to the center for the general election, and it's suddenly occurred to him that he needs the youth vote. Maybe he realizes they are the only group left gullible enough to accept him as presidential. Suddenly Romney agrees with President Obama that we need to cut interest on student loans. Call it what you will - flip-flop, etch-a-sketch moment, song & dance, or even a major break with his party - most people will think Romney's educational IQ has suddenly risen several points.
From Huffington Post:

"Particularly with the number of college graduates that can't find work and can only find work well beneath their skill level, I fully support the effort to extend the low interest rate on student loans," Romney said. "There was some concern that that would expire halfway through the year and I support extending the temporary relief on interest rates on students as a result of student loans obviously, in part because of the extraordinarily poor conditions in the job market."

It's like watching an elephant change pajamas.

President Obama had some choice words for Virginia Foxx as he spoke to students this week.
Via Talking Points Memo

Speaking at the University of North Carolina about a bill to prevent some interest rates on some student loans from doubling, President Obama let loose with a lengthy dig at the state’s Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) for comments she made dismissing student’s complaints about their debt load.

“She said she had ‘very little tolerance for people who tell me they graduate with debt because there’s no reason for that.’ I’m just quoting here,” Obama said. “The students who rack up student loan debt are just ‘sitting on their butts having opportunity dumped in your lap.’ I’m reading it here. I didn’t make this up.”

He continued: “Now, can you imagine saying something like that? Those of you who’ve had to take out student loans, you didn’t do it because you’re lazy. You didn’t do it lightly. You don’t like debt. A lot of you, your parents are helping out, but it’s tough on them. They’re straining. And so you do it because the cost of college keeps going up and you know there’s an investment in your future.”

And he threw a few barbs at Mitt Romney:
From MSNBC First Read

“I just want everybody to understand: I didn’t just read about this,” Obama said as the audience at the University of North Carolina crescendo from gradual applause to a full cheer. “I didn’t just get some talking points about this."
He continued, referring to himself and wife Michelle, “We didn’t come from wealthy families. We paid more in student loans than we paid on the mortgage when we finally did buy a condo.”
He noted the length it took for him to pay off his student loans, even though he now holds the nation’s highest office.
“We finished paying our student loans. And check this out -- I’m the President of the United States -- we only finished paying off our student loans about eight years ago.”

I think any young people out there can see who is more sincere and isn't just pandering for votes. Obama has always been pro-financial aid. While Romney can afford to flip-flop and say whatever gets him elected, he is always dragging around the ignorant Tea Party naysayers like Virginia Foxx and ex-Rick Santorum fans who don't care if young people succeed or not.

Don't believe me . . . trust your own eyes . . . 

Mad Mash-Up from Hardball

The Obama - Mad Men Mashup from the Chris Matthews show on MSNBC. Wow - so creative! And also indicative of the role played by propaganda, spin and branding in modern elections. We have the imagery of the campaign signs and the commodities, with gasoline and medicine used as talking points, not to mention the fact that Romney (if not Santorum) could walk right into an episode of Mad Men.  But thank God this is 2012 and not 1964 ~ Obama wouldn't have been President back then.

And I think he will still be Chairman of the Board come next January!