Tag Archives: irritation

Best explanation I’ve ever heard

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“At the meeting I was attempting to explain that unlike Sen. Schumer, I believe in traditional values, like we used to see on ‘The Andy Griffith Show.’  I made the mistake of referring to Sen. Schumer as ‘that Jew’ and I should not have put it that way as this took away from what I was trying to say.” 


That’s state Sen. Kim Hendren, R-Ark, telling an Arkansas political blog (the Tolbert Report) why it was that he referred to U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., as “that Jew.” Apparently, when discussing adherence to your fine values, it is highly relevant to note that a person who disagrees with you is Jewish.

I like it that Sen. Hendren speaks frankly of the downside to slurring someone’s religion: it creates inconvenience for the person who does the slurring.

(Via Yglesias this time, not Sullivan!)

Religion

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The liberal blogger Hilzoy has a good line:


I would think that people of faith, in particular, should be wary of politicians holding ceremonial observances of National Prayer Day. For one thing, one’s communications with God are intensely personal. If you think of God as a person, and not as a political weapon, the idea of having a ceremony of this kind would be like observing National Have A Serious Talk With Your Spouse Day by having such a talk in front of TV cameras.


Well … yeah. You wouldn’t even have to think of God as a person, just as a force, the Prime Mover, whatever. You would just have to be thinking about God, not how you could PR the masses into having the right attitude toward God.

As a nonbeliever (I settled the question here), I’m always surprised by how easily God slips from the minds of people who say they believe in Him/Her/It. If I believed in Him/Her/It, I’d believe 24-7. He/She/It would be a really big deal to me.

Good thing I don’t, because who needs the hassle. But to say you believe in God, and then to figure that praying ought naturally to be a photo op, or that you’ll follow this injunction of your faith but not another … it sure looks lame from the outside.

UPDATE:  A commenter at the site where Hilzoy posted (it’s the Washington Monthly, no permalink that I can find; the commenter is named Racer X) says the following:

Obama may just be trying to do what Jesus supposedly told us to do; pray in private and avoid the ceremonial prayers of the Pharisees. The bible is extremely clear on the directive, and yet the churches always have violated it. 


Okay, but is it ceremonial if everyone is just praying at the same time? And is it in public if they’re at their place of worship and not somewhere in front of nonbelievers? And where did Jesus say whatever Racer X claims he said?

But I’d like to believe Racer X is correct. To me the most interesting thing about religion is the way people can think they believe in it while choosing which bits to ignore.

UPDATE 2:  From comments, the Jesus quote and Bible cite. Thanks, Naomi.

Matthew 6:5-6:

“And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.”


Wow, that seems pretty open and shut. So for 2,000 years, or close, Christians have been gathering together to do what Jesus expressly told them not to do. That’s bizarre. There’s got to be an explanation here. UPDATE 3:  Or I would think there had to be an explanation if I hadn’t just said in comments that the “whole thing is weird and inexplicable.”

Oh, These Times

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This is funny:


Already, as a NOM commercial on the Prejean incident was released, a story about her implants was leaked. And, of course, that was only the beginning of the character assassination to come. 


The quote is from a column by Seth Leibsohn and Kathryn Lopez at National Review (via Sullivan, as usual). NOM is the National Organization for Marriage, which doesn’t want gays getting married. Carrie is Carrie Prejean, a girl who is Miss California (and looks like you’d expect Miss California to look). She told an Internet gossip site that she’s against gay marriage. 

The implants … well, apparently she had implants, and nobody needs an explanation as to where. Not even the people at National Review, who spend the rest of their column wading into all the terrible sexual things young people get up to nowadays. I guess this is what strikes me as the funny part. But Leibsohn and Lopez could argue back, if they felt like it, that their point was proved by this little aside. Everyday culture is now so sexualized that “implants” is a standard, commonplace term that everyone recognizes without explanation.

To take on some of the points actually made in the column:

  • Leibsohn and Lopez seem to deplore every decision Ms. Prejean has ever made except her decision to be against gays getting married. If she’s so bad at making decisions, are they happy having her agree with them?
  • L&L acknowledge that Ms. Prejean signed a release saying she had never posed for seminude photos, even though, well, she had indeed posed for such photos. L&L act as if this provided “some of the most radical opponents of her position on gay marriage” (interesting construction) with an easy pretext to play the hypocrisy card. But I think we can all agree that people should not lie in signed statements. Our legal system certainly thinks so.
  • L&L act as if everyone who’s in favor of gay marriage somehow got together to do down Ms. Prejean: “note what the movement of tolerance does when you simply exercise your rights to free speech, taking a position they disagree with. They go personal. They go for the jugular.” But we’re talking about leaked information. By definition, very few people have access to such information. A handful of people decided to reveal Ms. Prejean’s secrets; I bet they didn’t like what she had to say about gay marriage, but a movement they ain’t.
  • Finally, there’s a reason people like that phrase about “lies, damned lies, and statistics.” The reason is sentences such as the following:  “One report last year found that one in four teens has a sexually transmitted disease.” Oh yeah, what report and using what methods? Maybe the American Institute for Keep It in Your Pants held a nationwide contest and church members wrote their best guesses on boxtops. L&L don’t tell us.

Credit where it’s due, L&L are right in saying that Bristol Palin should not be doing publicity work for teen abstinence, especially since 1) she has a child to raise, 2) she still has to get thru high school, and 3) she apparently doesn’t believe in teen abstinence. Her decision to go before the cameras really is absurd. Who could have influenced her? Who around her has shown a persistent combination of reckless judgment and love for publicity? Oh yeah, her fucking mother. Which goes to show two things: parents don’t always know best, and Kathryn Lopez is very bad at picking worthy candidates for high national office. Good thing she knows so much about how teens ought to behave. 

UPDATE:  I forgot, L&L end their column with a plea for “decency.” Yeah, well, torture.

UPDATE 2:  The gossip site TMZ says Ms. Prejean’s parents got divorced and accused each other of gay shit. A reason for Ms. Prejean’s beliefs on gay marriage? Possibly. An occasion for one of the more amusing sentences ever allegedly found in court papers? Oh yes, very much so. Here is the sentence: “The mother also alleges the father told the girls their stepfather was gay, that all men with mustaches are gay.” Tom Selleck assures me that’s just what is called a rule of thumb. 

Yeah, well, I know why

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John Edwards’s poor wife has got a book out about her shitty husband. Time is running an excerpt, and Time‘s political blog, Swampland, teases the excerpt with a smaller excerpt, from which I present the following:

More than a year later, I learned that he had allowed [the woman] into our lives and had not, even when he knew better, made her leave us alone. I tried to get him to explain, but he did not know himself why he had allowed it to happen.

Her husband did not know himself that he wanted to get laid. Is he aware that he has toes?