Wednesday, September 8, 2010

The News Is Making Me Sick

So many things are going on simultaneously that I can't focus my outrage enough to write anything but a screaming tweet now and then.

It isn't just the batshit crazy cracker "pastor" in Gainsville, Florida with a "congregation of fifty and the scheme to burn Qurans to make some kind of statement (though no one has yet been able to quite decipher it).  I think I heard on one of the news programs that this snake oil salesman turned "pastor" has written a book of his own, so simple publicity is most likely his motivation.   But the insanity of one church burning the sacred book of another church is as irreligious as anything I've ever heard of and I'm an old atheist. No matter that General David Patreus, the favorite General of the GOP has made a plea that this act of sacrilege should not go forward, still no GOPers have stepped forward to speak out against this moron and tell him to knock it off.

It isn't just Newt Gengrich and others on the RWNJ side of the aisle who are demagoguing the Park 51 Community Center and Mosque by calling it the "Ground Zero Mosque," which is bull shit, since there are many businesses closer to "Ground Zero" (that gaping hole in the ground) some nine years after the attacks, that are far less sacred than a church and far more insulting to the whole concept of sacredness, like a strip joint and a smattering of fast food places.  The whining from the Glenn Becks and Sarah Palins of the world about how hurt we all are makes us seem like "The Land of the Emotionally Delicate, and the Home of the Xenophobic." What a bunch of ninnies!

The Brits carried on during the Blitz, which lasted a very long time and with a stiff upper lip as they fought World War II, a war far closer to home than Saudi Arabia (where our attackers came from) and the rest of the Middle East is to us.  But that Saudi Arabian reality wasn't convenient for the Bush family who have business dealings with the Saudi royal family that goes back a long time, so, we went to war with Iraq instead while pretending we were serious about chasing Osama bin Ladan in Afghanistan and bankrupted our country in the process.  There is much to say about this but it's only one of the many things pissing me off and putting me off writing.  It's also making me physically ill.

10 comments:

PENolan said...

I started out trying to commiserate, and wound up on a rant.
Take a break from the news.

Unknown said...

Everything old is new again. I had a therapist tell me today that I was reviving my childhood of the 60's... I tried to rebut the argument to say that I went to school in the 70's... last half! She wasn't buying it. But it does look like the Age of Aquarius is finally here....take heart!

Utah Savage said...

I can't seem to open my mouth these days without going on a rant. I went to Radio Shack today to pick up my new phone and hands free headset and got into a political discussion there, fortunately with a customer who was both young and liberal and politically savvy. It was so unexpected we couldn't stop talking. Good thing we were the only two customers in the store at the time.

But this afternoon I've been feeling diverticulitis type pain. Now I'm worried. I sure do not want to go to the hospital again. I guess I better schedule that colonoscopy that's now five month's overdue.

Jaliya said...

You know, the last few days / weeks, I've really cut back on my news / punditry / political / world-disaster intake. It may have been the hemming and hawing, wheeling and dealing, and the *vile* contempt of certain powers that be over whether a certain woman is to be stoned to death in Iran. First stoning; then 99 lashes and we'll stone her later; no, we won't stone her; maybe we'll stone her but far enough down the road of the human race's six-second attention span that they'll have forgotten all about it and moved on to the next big issue to hem and haw about. Trouble is, there are so bloody many insanities and atrocities going on ... I really can't bear much of it either. My own life these days is running on trial and error and trial ... I really have to moderate my intake of STUFF ... know what I mean?

I'm giving myself a small antidote by spending the evening on YouTube and losing myself to some classic Elton John ... "Someone Saved My Life Tonight", for starters ... :-)

I'm conducting my life as best I can to counter the lunacy ...

Be well, Utah xo

Commander Zaius said...

...like a strip joint and a smattering of fast food places.

Ah come on, this is 21st century America and those places are scared to our glorious country. The right to a lap dance and a Big Mac afterward are enshrined someplace in the Bill of Rights. Simple decency and commonsense is so 20th century.

Come to think of it I'm sure if you looked closely enough you would find some right-wing nutcase preacher sneaking out of a New York strip club on his way to protest the community center. Its been far too long since one got caught, I figure we are due.

The Blog Fodder said...

For Islamists, read all Muslims. For illegal immigrants read all Mexicans and Latin Americans. For Communists read anyone who can read, write, reason and believes in social justice. Blacks have been on the list for ever anyhow. What the Mormons don't realize is they are on the list too.

Take Back America means from anyone who isn't White and Christian just like us.

Time to get out while you can.

PENolan said...

Girl, I went to sleep thinking about you and this post.
I decided that you've been polluted by the news (or Reality, take your pick). The diverticulitis proves it.

Although news breaks are important, you need an antidote. Something like Carolyn Myss' podcasts about your inner archetypes. Marianne Williamson says:

Yet how things have been has no inherent bearing on how things have to be, and I think we're living at a time when Western womanhood is just a moment away from emerging into the light of our collective possibility. Especially given the relative lack of power - even basic rights - given to millions of women in other parts of the world, we have a particular responsibility to speak up not only for ourselves but for them as well. And we are ready. Maybe not all of us; but enough of us. Western women should be a moral force on this planet. We should not be infantilized; we should not be pretending we don't know what's going on; we should not be giving in to the various and ubiquitous temptations to anesthetize ourselves. Quite the opposite, we should be taking the wheel of human civilization and saying to anyone who will listen: We're turning the ship around, and we're turning it around NOW. LINK

You do this kind of work all the time, girlfriend. It's wearing you out. That's why we're here to support you ;)
Let somebody else rant for a while. You get comfortable in your own self again.

Jack Jodell said...

There is indeed a good deal to rant about these days, from the idiot Florida pastor to the obstruction and constant lies of the conservative Republicans and John Boehner. Blog on, sister! Keep nailin' 'em!

darkblack said...

I've retired from the field for now. There's far too much going on in my RL to allow my mental involvement in recontextualizing or commenting meaningfully upon the mounting religious hysterias and tinkertoy economic theories to be found among the American Right's gunnysack of rabid weasels, save to say that the various famewhoring crusaders and corporate malfeasants dancing on the edge of the volcano be naught but capering morons, deserving of a moron's fate.
May it fall swiftly and brutally upon them like an asteroid from the blackness of space.

Take care of yourself, Utah.

;>)

Anonymous said...

I Likewise have such trouble not ranting non-stop and fighting nausea from the news that I will be ending my blog in January.

Time to hermit-up more and avoid the need to verbally bitch-slap myself into exhaustion.