We seem to be getting more stupid, as a nation

I couldn't believe it when I read it:

Texas Teen Jailed For Sarcastic Facebook Comment

So bankers can take literally millions upon millions of dollars from people--stealing it, factually--and aren't even charged with a crime but let one teenager type something sarcastic on a social page and HE'S jailed?

Where on Earth are our priorities?

And that one, above, is on top of this one from the recent past:

Police arrest sidewalk chalk-drawers in LA Occupy protest 

We don't arrest the thieves and liars at Bank of America but we arrest the people outside their banks, writing on the sidewalks in chalk.

Does any of this make any sense at all?  To anyone?  

Well, except to the banksters.

What Republican policies begat

National exceptionalism is when citizens perceive that their home country is extraordinary, special, and the best place on the planet to live, and in many Americans’ minds is based on absolutist ideology and gross lack of knowledge of comparative circumstances. There may have been a time that America was exceptional over thirty years ago when white people had the opportunity to attain the American dream of a middle class income through hard work and perseverance, and could live out their golden years with the knowledge their children would at least accomplish as much as their parents. However, about thirty years ago a b-movie actor ushered in the era of America’s decline when his directors gave him a script to convince ignorant Americans that handing over the nation’s wealth and assets to the rich and their corporations was the key to success and the results have been that America is no longer exceptional, or even mediocre, and is rapidly deteriorating into inferior and second-rate status compared to the rest of the developed world.

It is true that America is the richest nation on Earth, has the most powerful military in the world, and is home to the most millionaires and billionaires of any country on the planet, but that is where the exceptionalism ends. In just about every other category, America is inferior and that is being extremely generous. However, there are millions of ignorant Americans arming themselves to maintain the status quo and prove their belief that the United States is number one and it is down to their ignorance and acceptance that if it is American, it is the best. Many Americans are led to believe the country’s storied “great middle class” is proof positive the nation is exceptional, but according to the “Global Wealth Databook 2012″ the great middle class ranks 27^th in the developed world behind poorer nations such as Spain, Ireland, France, and Cyprus. Even in countries struggling with double and triple-dip recessions, the middle class holds four times the wealth as the average middle class American who is watching what little they have left transferred to the richest one-percent due to thirty years of Republican policies.

Just a few of Republicans’ favorite policies that are creating a second-rate nation and a population of peasants are weak labor laws that give corporations and big business the ability to pay poverty wages without any benefits. In fact, the woefully inadequate poverty level minimum wage is 13^th among developed nations, and in nearly every industrialized country, every job provides at least a month of guaranteed paid vacation and as many paid sick days as one needs to recover from illness or injury. Republicans are busy passing laws making it illegal to provide paid sick leave, suggest eliminating worker compensation rules for on-the-job injuries, and panting to abolish the pitiful minimum wage to put American labor on par with peasants in Communist China. The Republican House of Representative just passed legislation eliminating overtime pay, and ALEC’s Republican right-to-work states have more poverty-level residents while the states’ corporations haul in record profits.

America has the worst healthcare system in the world because few can afford it, and even if they can this country’s people have the worst health outcomes of “all other industrialized countries” on Earth. In the event of a serious health issue or injury, Americans are guaranteed to join the poverty ranks and it makes Republican and health insurance industry’s drive to destroy the Affordable Care Act all the more Draconian and informs keeping Americans sick and impoverished is their ultimate goal. In many Republican states, at the behest of the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity, Medicaid expansion is out of the question and the GOP is desperate to make senior citizens’ Medicare a thing of the past regardless they paid into it their entire working lives.

In nearly every country on Earth a college education is virtually tuition-free and yet in America, Republicans decry spending on any education and are driving college students into life-long unsustainable debt to enrich the banking industry. In most Republican states, ALEC templates are diverting public school funds to the private religious schools to enrich corporations and create the next generation of ignorant Americans claiming the nation is exceptional as they reject established science to assist their precious oil industry decimate the environment.

America is at the end of its thirty year slide into second-rate status and it is all down to the Republican drive to give every last bit of wealth to the richest one-percent that controls the fate of this nation. It began with Reagan-Republican deregulation of the financial industry that gave Wall Street power to transfer wealth from the middle class into the wealthy’s coffers they hide offshore to avoid paying taxes. America’s social programs and safety nets are among the worst in the world, and instead of bolstering them to help Americans claw out of poverty, Republicans slash them to provide tax breaks for the rich and corporations. Last week House Republicans passed legislation to deregulate derivative trading again that resulted in the 2008 Great Recession killing tens-of-millions of Americans’ jobs, bankrupting retirement accounts, and causing millions of middle class Americans to lose their greatest assets; their homes.

America became an exceptional nation with the rise of the great middle class, and it is sliding into a nation of peasants as Republicans thirty year effort to destroy the middle class is reaching fruition. Nearly a quarter of America’s children are living in poverty, millions of Americans earn a pathetic minimum wage insufficient to put a roof over their heads, and the idea of ever achieving anything more is being thwarted by Republicans in all areas of government, but particularly the states. Right to work laws, banning minimum wage, eliminating healthcare, prohibiting paid sick leave, robbing food and housing assistance for seniors and the poor to provide more of the nation’s wealth for the rich and their corporations are all part of the Republicans’ three decade effort to destroy the middle class and still, Republicans have convinced a large segment of the population that America is number one. Well it is number one; number one in guns, number one in prison population, number one in billionaires and millionaires, number one in military might, and after thirty years of Republican economic policy and deregulation, it is the number one poverty creator and nothing whatsoever to be proud of or consider exceptional.

From the PoliticusUSA website and their article How Republicans Made America A Top Poverty Creator

Happy Independence Day, Kansas!

 

"Tomorrow is July 1st (the start of the new fiscal year), which means Governor #Brownback's sales tax hike officially takes effect. Starting tomorrow, you will pay more on everything you buy so the wealthy and big corporations can enjoy an average tax cut of $26,000."

 

--Kansas Representative Paul Davis on Facebook earlier today.

Gas across Western Missouri

From Springfield to Kansas City, Friday to Saturday this weekend:

Springfield:  $3.28/gal

Higginsville (least expensive anywhere I saw):  $3.10/gal

Independence:  $3.12/gal

Raytown (not far from Indep):  $3.22/gal

Roeland Park, KS:  $3.35/gal


Interesting.  (To  me, anyway).  Quite a spread in price.

Screwed up priorities

On Capitalism, life and living today

Corporations are crushing America and Americans

I spoke to a woman, the manager of a "dollar store", this morning.

Turns out she was alone in the entire store.

Whenever I find that the case--that a person is working a retail store, anywhere, all by themselves--I am invariably stunned. All it would take is one person, walking in the door, seeing the situation and realizing what a vulnerable situation it is for that worker, male or female, and how it could be exploited, however illegally or worse.

She and I started up a conversation. Turns out she's the manager, apparently. I told her I emphasized.

It got worse.

She said it really was bad.

Not only was she working alone, vulnerable and really, potentially dangerous as that was and is, she also had to get and keep the stocking up, of course, all by herself, the entire time.

Then she'd have to also wait on the customers, of course, and keep them happy.

And then there was the watching for shoplifters.

She added that she had a monthly inventory coming up in just a day or two so that pressure was also on.

Then there was the pay. 

$7.25 an hour.

Then there was the fact, as though that isn't enough, that she was there, alone, for 6 hours.

Added to all that is that she couldn't step away during all that to go to the bathroom.


This is what we've come to in America.

Business is in control. It's all about profit.  And profits.  Forget the people.   Forget that $7.25 isn't even a true working wage. Nowhere close to it.  How do you make only $7.25 an hour and still keep up a car and a good, safe place to live and keep food on the table?  It can't be done.  Not in America.

This was a dollar store but it's widespread across companies in this country.

I've written before how 24 Hour Fitness hires far more people than they need but all at far less than a full 40 hour work week so they don't have to pay health care and/or other benefits.  And the starting pay there?  In the neighborhood of $9 per hour.  It's not much.  Not enough, again, to make a good, true living.

We've known about Walmart and how they do this and how horrible that all is. My point is, it's far more widespread than just that one very large company.

The companies, businessmen and corporations are in control.  And it's crushing America.  It's crushing Americans. It's shrinking the middle class, quickly, thoroughly and effectively.

The Supreme Court, just this week, made a few more rulings, too, supporting the companies and corporations over the people, over the workers and individuals. Justice John Roberts and his Right Wing cohorts have been and are still being very effective in ruling, time and again, for the wealthy, for the rich, for the corporations and companies, repeatedly.  It's very disheartening.

If you've got money and a company behind you, you have it made.

You and me?

We're screwed.

We simply HAVE to start the push to end campaign contributions.

We have to end the big, ugly, corrupting influence of the money from the wealthy and corporations that, at present, own our government representatives and their legislation and so, our laws and finally, our government.

It's the only way we'll get our country back for the people.

McDonald's could be a much better corporate citizen--quickly and easily

 

A friend of mine goes to McDonald's each and every morning for breakfast and I've joined him at times (for the oatmeal, hold the brown sugar, thanks very much) so I've been reminded lately who they are and what they do. It had been some time--years, really--since I'd been in.

And a few things occurred to me.

The first is that how much each of them, separately, and then all of them, together end up putting into the waste dumps in the country and world daily and yearly.

Then, a great, easy, intelligent solution to it all also occurred to me.

All the McDonald's across the country need to institute plastic and paper recycling programs and as soon as possible.

If you think about it, everything they generate, from their meals, is either plastic or paper, right off those trays.

If they were to recycle all that, can you imagine the millions of pounds of both they could recycle each year?

It would be fantastic.

And the great thing about it is that it would be simple and easy for them to do.  Think about this. They have all those waste receptacles, already in their restaurants (using the word very loosely, no disrespect meant).  If they were simply and inexpensively labeled "Plastic" on one and "Paper" on the one next to it, the patrons could--again, quickly and easily--dispose of each in the respective container. Then, the employee whose job it is to keep up with the dining room could pull out those bags from the containers, collect them and have them placed in the restaurant for pickup.

So simple.  No additional cost, either, with the exception of the small signs needed.

Then, for McDonald's, what a public relations boon for them. Total win.  They could advertise that the people could come get the same food they always did and now, with this, it could also be a far greener experience.

Will it happen?

I doubt it.  I hope it but doubt it seriously.

It's got to start somewhere. 

This would be a great time and place.

The insanity of what we allow for the obscenely wealthy NFL owners

The NFL, as I pointed out here earlier, is, first of all, a monopoly, each and every team. Second, each team and each owner has TOTAL TAX-FREE STATUS (did you know that?) and third, finally,  insanely, we also allow them, these teams, to have "blackout Sundays" so people can't watch their games if they haven't already, additionally paid to see the games.

Why do we do this?  Why do we allow this insanity to go on?

They make huge, obscene profits.  When they want their stadiums updated, they go to the local people and their governments, with their hat and hand out, as though they're poor, as we here in Kansas City found out not that many years ago.

This is crazy.

It's stupid.

It's grossly unfair.

What's more, it's immoral.  Truly immoral.

How NOT to do a convenience store

Service with a snarl.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Link:  Kum & Go :: 24-Hour Convenience Store

Questions of the day

1)  Where is midtown miscreant?

2)  When will he be back?

3)  WILL he be back?

4)  Is he okay?  (We assume he is. Naturally, we hope he is).

Inquiring minds want to know.



Midtown?

You out there, buddy?

Things that I'm sure are grossly over-priced in America

Just what it says, a list of things in America I'm certain are grossly, grossly, obscenely and even immorally overpriced:

1)  Cable television

2)  Most eyeglasses

3)  Prescription drugs

4)  Gasoline (we can all agree on that, right? Even though it's so much lower here than, say, Europe)

5) Construction equipment

6) Diamonds, specifically

7) A lot of jewelry

8)  Candy

9) Health care in general since it's the most expensive in the world


What else?

Government by filibuster

Good news and then bad this week, out of Texas, on women's rights and abortion law.

First there was the good news:

Texas Legislators Called Back For Special Session On Abortion Bill

One Ms. Wendy Davis stood up to the Texas Republicans and legislature and filibustered yet one more proposed piece of legislation restricting women's rights and their legal abortion rights in that state.

Good for her.

It was, of course, the right--very right, very just thing to do.

Now, the bad, from last evening:

Texas Legislators Called Back For Special Session On Abortion Bill

It seems Governor Rick "I Can't Remember" Perry isn't about to let this go so he's spending yet more of Texas' tax money, calling the legislature back for a special session so they can get their precious abortion bill.

It's insane.  It's irresponsible.  It's not surprising but so it goes.

This, on the heels of the terrific ruling from the US Supreme Court, just hours earlier. The highs and lows of government in the US, I suppose.

What concerns me most about the incident in Texas with Ms. Davis and her filibuster is that it seems as though a sort of "filibuster fever" is beginning in America.

First, months ago, there was Kentucky Senator Rand Paul's very famous and public and, as it turned out, too, successful filibuster on drones earlier this year, in March:

Rand Paul filibusters the domestic drone

It was very big at the time and it got him widespread coverage. His supporters were naturally very pleased.

As proof, check this out.  I just found this article, again from last evening, about Rand Paul and yet another filibuster he's threatening:

Rand Paul threatens to support filibustering immigration bill

It seems to make my point. That is, it seems we are at the beginning, possibly, of more--and more frequent--very public filibusters as a way to effect change in legislatures in the nation both on the state and national levels, instead of getting good government by 2 sides compromising.

And each time a filibuster is "successful", coming, as it does from an already very polarized society, it only polarizes us all the more.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is not good.  It is patently not good.

This is no way to run a government.

Ot nation.

Or state, for that matter.

Such great news today

Equality, coming to America:

2 MAJOR RULINGS BOLSTER GAY MARRIAGE

Court Voids U.S. Law and Clears Way for Vows in California

5-4 Vote Extends Federal Benefits to Same-Sex Spouses

I'm naturally reminded of the line straight from the Bible, Amos 5:24 that the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. made so famous in his "I Have a Dream" speech at the Washington Monument August 28, 1963:

"But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream."

So look out, Missouri and Kansas. Equality is headed your way, too, like it or not.

More links:

Analysis of Gay Marriage Rulings

Public Opinion Led, the Court Followed

The Same-Sex Marriage Rulings

As the Court Turns

The Long Road to Marriage Equality

What's Next For Gay Married Couples

On the Supreme Court's Affirmative Action vote yesterday

And the Republicans should know that and respond accordingly.

On the Supreme Court, fairness and Affirmative Action today

Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent, Vermont.

He's so right.

Quote of the day--on imaginantion

"Evil is not imaginative. It seeks to destroy, and destruction takes no imagination. 

Creation takes true imagination, the making of something new and wondrous, whether it's a song or an iPad, a novel or a new cooking surface more durable than Teflon, a new flavor of ice cream or spacecraft that can travel to the moon. The vibrant imagination of a fry cook with free will should easily trump the weak imagination of a demon, anytime."

--Dean Koontz, from his book "Deeply Odd"

Links:  Dean Koontz

Dean Koontz - Wikipedia

Dean Koontz bibliography - Wikipedia

The Oh-So Hypocritical Political Party

The political party that says it wants to "shrink government" wants to DOUBLE the number of border patrol agents to our South from 21,000 to 42,000--after it was already doubled once, earlier.

Right.

Got it.

It was that same political party that created the bloated, totally unnecessary and extremely wasteful Department of "Homeland Security."

Yeah.

Small government.

Uh-huh.

Rep. John Boehner, hypocrite extraordinaire

Channel surfing a few days ago, I saw where Representative John Boehner gave a speech to the National Association of Manufacturers on the economy.  Here's a link to the original:

“We Are A Nation of Builders”: Congressman Boehner Delivers

Her's video for it (if you can stomach it):

Speaker Boehner Remarks on Manufacturing

In it, he complains, at length, repeatedly, in different ways, on how slow and weak our economy is.

Seriously.  He actually does.

When I heard it, when I heard him whining about how poor our economy is, part of me wanted to laugh, sure, but far more of me wanted to scream.

For Rep. Boehner or ANY Republican to complain about a weak US economy and not enough growth or jobs would, in fact, be laughable, if it weren't so tragic and, in the case of the Republicans, hypocritical.

Not once, since 2008, since Democratic Party President Obama took office have any Republicans introduced even ONE bill in our Congress to create jobs. Not one.

Not one jobs bill, not one construction bill, not one bill proposed to update our infrastructure nationwide which, I think it's safe to say we're finding is taking us down a decidedly bad path both for that lack of jobs but also for the highway maintenance and updating and expanding we need.

I say again, we all know all too well how badly Missouri needs our Interstate 70 improved and updated, and that's from Illinois and St. Louis on the East, all the way to Kansas and Kansas City on the West.

And then, of course, there are the two bridges that collapsed in the last year--the first in Minneapolis and the other in Washington State.

Yet he--Mr. Boehner--has the nerve, the unmitigated gall to lament on and complain of a lack of jobs in the country and the weak economy.

What chutzpah.

The putz.

Missouri, Kansas rankings on annual "KIds Count" survey

Here's where you stand to date, Missouri and Kansas on the things that are important, overall, for the children of our respective states (click on picture for easier reading):

Missouri, number 27, overall and Kansas 16.

We have work to do, folks.  It's for our children.

There is a TON of great, hard data here, too. Here's a Yahoo! News article on it, with links:

Best—and worst—states to be a kid

Here's a link to the actual organization that compiles the data:

Kids Count

and this:

KIDS COUNT - Annie E. Casey Foundation

And their Facebook page, since I'm kind of supporting them here:

KIDS COUNT | Facebook

Finally, information on the group as to who they are and what they do:

Annie E. Casey Foundation - Wikipedia

Kansas City and our Supermoon, featured prominently

If you hadn't heard or seen, last Saturday evening we experienced what they call a "Supermoon" effect. The moon was 13 or 14% bigger in appearance, depending on the source you read, and brighter, all because it was 16,000 miles closer to Earth, in its orbit than usual.

With that, naturally, photographers from all around the world took to their cameras. As luck would have it, a local photographer, one Charlie Riedel, shot that beautiful orb over our own Kansas City downtown and NPR, National Public Radio, picked it up on their website as one of a dozen great shots of it:

Around The Earth, That Moon Was Pretty Super

And so, here's the pic (click on it for larger, easier, better viewing):

So kudos to the photographer, Mr. Riedel, and to you, Kansas City.

You look pretty darned good.

Twinkies will be back, all right

Announced today:

Hostess: Twinkies to return to shelves July 15

The executives fleeced the company, blamed it on the workers in general but the Union, in specific.

They won, the executives won. They took home big paychecks, screwed the workers and Union and Union members so we all lose. Now they'll have new, different employee, likely.  And they'll pay a lower wage, to them, to boot.

Those damn Union members wanted--get this--a true, living wage.  What chutzpah.

But at least we get Twinkies back, eh?

Yeehaw.

Sprint prominent in NYT today

Confidence From Chief of SoftBank in Sprint Bid

Seems crazy they'd let a national communications company be purchased by a company outside the States, security and all.

A huge, overlooked possibility of time travel

Imagine if, one day, there really were such a thing as a time machine, time travel, stepping through a "wormhole" to another time.

Imagine putting it to REALLY good use.

Imagine if the person went back and--forgive me--killed Adolf Hitler in, oh, what?  1925?

Now that's a beautiful thought.

Have a great weekend, y'all.

Quote of the day--on the minimum wage

"Nick Hanauer, one of the nation's most successful businessmen, proposed yesterday that the minimum wage be raised to $15 an hour. But wouldn't that cause employers not to hire workers who were "worth" less, and thereby lead to higher unemployment? No, says Hanauer. 

By putting more money into the hands of more people, it would stimulate more buying -- which would generate more jobs than any jobs that might be lost. 

Hanauer understands that the basic reason the economy is still limping along is workers are consumers, and workers continue to get shafted, which means consumers lack the purchasing power to get the economy off the ground. A minimum wage of $15 an hour, combined with basic worker standards such as paid sick leave and a minimum of 3 weeks paid vacation per year, should all be in a national campaign for better jobs and a better economy in the 2014 election."

--Robert Reich,  American political economist, professor, author, and political commentator.

Links:  Robert Reich

Robert Reich - Wikipedia

Robert Reich | Facebook

Robert Reich - Salon.com

Edward R Murrow on America

Famed reporter, journalist and author Edward R Murrow on America and our history:

"They were ahead of the law, ahead of education and established institutions. They made their own...There grew up a tradition of violence and lawlessness... They fought a four-year civil war. And the status of the Negro...is still one of the greatest problems facing the nation. I believe we lynched only three or four of our black fellow-citizens last year, which is some improvement...

We...engineered a frontier incident with Mexico. We took that huge territory of Texas, and what is now California... Later on, we were to land marines in Nicaragua and Haiti, narrowly avoid war with Germany over Venezuela, and create a heritage of mistrust amongst the South American peoples as a result of high-handed methods and dollar diplomacy. Cuba and the Philippines came into our Lebensraum...

And all the time we were despoiling a continent. We cut the top off it, and sent the timber floating down the rivers. We ploughed the prairies, wasted our soil... Later on in this series you will hear about the New Deal, our racial problems, and how we came to be a nation of which one-third is ill-clothed, ill-housed and ill-fed. You will also hear something of our achievements."

--Edward R. Murrow from his "Meet Uncle Sam" series.  Quote taken from the book

MURROW: HIS LIFE AND TIMES by A. M. Sperber

Links:   Edward R. Murrow - Wikipedia

Our future?

One of the best things about the next, upcoming generations is that they're so open-minded and inclusive and can't even imagine, for the most part, discriminating against a person for their race or sexual preference or whatever.

If there's a bad thing it's that, if we're ever invaded by a foreign nation, I expect and fear they'll be so distracted by the latest technology and also highly likely, chewing on Cheetohs and/or KFC and too preoccupied in too many ways to notice.

To borrow a quote from another local blogger:  "YOU KIDS GET OF MY LAWN!!"

Longest day of the year and then a "Supermoon"

All this weekend:

New York City imitates Kansas City, for once

They now want to tear down their airport, too.

Final push to save landmark 'flying saucer’ terminal

What on Earth happened to Christianity?

I have no idea what's going on in Europe or any other nation in the world but I have to ask, truly, what on Earth happened to Christianity in this country?

It's gone crazy. It's gone looney.  It's fully, unquestionably out of control.

Jesus said, "Judge not, lest ye be judged."

You wouldn't know it today, judging by the people I see in real life, both on the streets and on television and what they say and do.

One of the absolute worst examples of what I'm saying can be witnessed daily--no, wait, hourly, minute by minute--on one of their television stations called Daystar Television .

The wackos come out to play constantly on this thing.

This one woman comes on her program apparently daily, an elderly woman with VERY blonde hair, and she riffs on current, national news. It would be funny if she weren't a) sad and b) horribly uninformed or misinformed. She knows truly nothing of national or international politics or geopolitics but merely sneers, repeatedly, at anything that isn't against President Obama and/or for the good old US of A.

Be clear on that point, too.  They REALLY don't like (if not hate) President Barack Hussein Obama and they make sure, at different times, we all know it.

The one that really gets me, however, and that I think is truly, singularly dangerous--and actually,  I think the entire station is that, dangerous, for the country--is the man and his program John Hagee Today with Dr. John Hagee.

This guy just rails against anything and everything that isn't the way he thinks it should be. He seems like a very clearly angry, judgmental, judging, hateful, bitter old man. From the pictures of him I saw on a Google images search, when it's a portrait, he smiles but when he's preaching, he's got his angry face on.

And he has that angry face on A LOT.

The one thing he said one time, as I was channel surfing past (really, I swear I was), was how bad Socialism is.

Seriously.  He was dissing Socialism.

And he yells.  A lot.

However patriotic I'm sure he'd insist he is, he apparently knows nothing, to this day, even in his advanced old age of keeping church and state separate, let alone why it's good for nations and their people.

One thing I saw on this station, however, that just purely tickles me silly is the show they call Discovering the Jewish Jesus with Rabbi Kirt Schneider.

It's a real hoot.

You're got this seemingly 100% Jewish man, standing there in his yarmulke and shawl, looking very much the committed, Jewish rabbi, menorah in the background, of course, yet he's talking about Jesus this and Jesus that.  I'm telling you, you can't want for amusement if you catch that show. It is alone in humor on this station.

Fortunately, there is one other redeeming quality to them all, too, and their TV station and that is that occasionally, but only occasionally, as nearly as I have seen so far, they put on a token black person, just to show how magnanimous and "inclusive" they are. Most of the time, you won't find anything on their station that isn't 100% bleached white and a great deal of them Southern, too, naturally. It's pretty blatant and stunning though I'm sure they'd deny any racism or white domination.

Haven't heard enough?  Check out their advertisement for this program:



If that doesn't make you want to tune in, nothing will.

Right?

She is Dr. Freda Crews, just to let you know.

That's another thing, too.  Being all Biblical, virtually all the programs are given by men, again, naturally.  (Or rather, unnaturally, but that's another matter).  They let a few women have theirown shows but we're not going to have any female domination here, so sirree, Bob. Let those women have some control and next thing you know, they'll expect equality or something.

So very few black Americans and very few women.  Some, sure, okay, BUT JUST NOT TOO MANY, lest things get all out of control and all...

If you can and/or do go to the station, be prepared to see a LOT of men who look like charlatans.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

The thing is, I thought Jesus was supposed to be about love.

Wasn't he?

And leaving what is Caesar's, to Caesar?

And running the money-changers out of the Temple?

From the looks of virtually every minute of this TV station, they ARE the money changers.

And a lot of them are still darned angry.

If you can't or don't get the station--and I couldn't and didn't until this past week--consider yourself extremely fortunate.

Side note:  Lest you think this post today is just too dark or negative or ugly, even though I did try to throw in SOME humor, you can go here and possibly have a chuckle:

Daystar tv founder Marcus Lamb – my affair was with a woman ...

Links:  Daystar (TV network) - Wikipedia

8 Most Un-Christian Things the Christian Right Has Done Recently