Politics Corrupts Parents, Fox Returns to Lying, Texas Wants 10 Commandments in Schools, GOP Plots to Keep College Kids from Voting, Book Bans on Rise, My TV Picks, and Melanie Sings
Politics Corrupts Parents, Fox Returns to Lying, Texas Wants 10 Commandments in Schools, GOP Plots to Keep College Kids from Voting, Book Bans on Rise, My TV Picks, and Melanie Sings
Politics Corrupts Parents, Fox Returns to Lying, Texas Wants 10 Commandments in Schools, GOP Plots to Keep College Kids from Voting, Book Bans on Rise, My TV Picks, and Melanie Sings
Re the Texas legislature's attempt to require posting the Ten Commandments in school classrooms: Which iteration will they require -- Exodus or Deuteronomy? What translation would be posted -- the King James Version, Revised Standard Version, the Masoretic text of the Holy Scriptures (Jewish), the Roman Catholic version, or another? If I lived in Texas (which I don't), I'd be posing these questions to my legislator.
As a Mum, I’m pretty sure my daughter learned by example. And one thing she always saw was me reading. It turned out that her talents lean to math and art but books can inform every interest. Personally, I’d steer young women away from romance novels, but freedom of choice is paramount. At 77, I never thought I’d see the day that this country takes so many backwards steps. And the women are doing it in those incredibly high heels. Sorry for the rant but book banning lights my fire!
Thank you for reminding me of the Edwin Hawkins Singers rendition of Oh Happy Day as I practice a very simple version on my piano.
Kareem, I love the part where you said they should consider posting all of the commandments from the Old Testament in the schools. This would be hilarious, especially, Leviticus 19:28 - the commandment that bans tattoos and piercings. That would mean many of their own children that they are trying to protect might be eternally, damned! Based on their own book! :-). Ouch.
I am a former New Yorker living in Texas. One of the first things I did was to sign up as a Voter Deputy Registrar through the League of Women Voters. We set up tables in public places, go to campuses and concerts, and give new voters info on where to vote. Every one of the stories in Kareem's newsletter has the same underlying theme: fear. You bet they are afraid. So let's gather up our power by voting. It's the answer to a sane future for our children.
Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy is a brilliant metaphor for what pseudo-religious fantasists are doing to their children. These deeply cynical fakers may, on some level, believe that they are "protecting" young minds from evil sites, sounds and thoughts. They are, in fact, doing the devil's work for him. They march to the instructions of C. S. Lewis' Screwtape, “direct the fashionable outcry of each generation against those vices of which it is least in danger and fix its approval on the virtue nearest to that vice which we are trying to make endemic. The game is to have them all running about with fire extinguishers whenever there is a flood..." Here's a question for Kareem: what is "the virtue nearest to that vice which we (they/now) are trying to make endemic"?
The irony of the Texas Senate wanting to post Commandments obtained by a Jew and presented to Jews--long, long before Christianity ever existed--is not lost on me, but clearly it is completely over the heads of Texas Republicans. Or perhaps they really aren't anti-Semitic. (Personally, I would not take that bet.)
Kareem, spot on with the opium den analogy. What is a drug dealer? Someone who knowingly pushes a destructive product to a consumer for purposes of profit without regard for the known bad consequences. And the nastiest dealers are Rupert and the bow-tied Tucker.
Regarding the Texas 10 commandment proposal and the moms for liberty book list: More examples of American Sharia law being forced down people's throats.
The only solution is to elevate the public dialogue to include such dialogue as "American Sharia" and have that threat translate into votes/political cost. Joy Reid recently broached this in comparing Alito's dissent on the recent abortion pill as acting like a Mullah. Ya think?
Provoking article, got me to look up Jefferson’s view on bible fascinating! Here is a quote he made regarding his views and thoughts:As president, he expresses those sentiments in a letter to Robinson over a year later (23 Mar. 1801).[17] “The Christian religion, when divested of the rags in which they have enveloped it, and brought to the original purity and simplicity of its benevolent institutor, is a religion of all others most friendly to liberty, science, and the freest expansion of the human mind.”
Thank you so much for sharing one of my childhood heroes with your readers. I thought I was the only person who knew of the magical Melanie Safka. I’ve loved her music for decades, and I am thrilled that you share that!
Your opening is SO on the money! I worked as a therapist in the world of abuse and neglect, and though MBP is, as you say, extremely rare, I remember clearly, two particular cases. Suffice it to say, by the time even a good therapist figures it out, a LOT of damage has been done. But at least, in individual family cases when the stars line up right, a child can be protected. In the world of politics even when the crime is revealed, the victims have become comfortable with the poison. I hate to say it, but even though Trump and his MAGA disciples astonish me with their behavior, I have yet to be surprised...because of exactly what you're saying here. I know Judy Blume, not well, but well enough to have had conversations. She and Robert Cormier and to some extent, Robert Lipsyte, paved my way into the banned books world. Judy was astonished and hurt when the blows on "Are You There..." landed directly on her. It was a service to girls going into puberty that she had never been afforded as a child. Frankly, the book banners didn't give a damn about those girls' confusion and fear. And those people are on steroids, now. Keep exposing them, sir! People listen to you. And by the way, how come all those so-called Christians want the Ten Commandments posted in every public building in America, but never mention the Beatitudes? Like George Carlin, I can give them situations in which each of those commandments could, and should, be broken. Most of them can't even tell me what the Beatitudes are.
I saw the Edwin Hawkins singers at Winterland in San Francisco in 1971. My roommate & I sat on the floor in a circle with several strangers and passed around the communal "sacrament." And that was my first time. You totally revived that memory.
I just read the essay about JD Vance, Hillbilly Elegy, his politics, etc. His statement about how professors are the enemy is not just disturbing but terribly frightening. Fits in with your writings about book bannings, more parental control of what is being taught in schools etc. Has some mad cow disease infected the brains of the wrong wingers? I suppose it shouldn't be surprising, especially after living in San Francisco for years & seeing so many people get caught up in cults & addicted to self-improvement gurus & the like.
And Faux News. Nothing seems to matter, especially the truth. And TC, the worst one of all. Why are people willing to even watch or listen to his drivel & garbage? Don't clutter up your mind with irrelevant & nonsensical noise. It has nothing to do with real life. And besides, the playoffs are on and are far better entertainment than anything faux could possibly produce. One day they will have an implosion & all their brains will melt and become part of the agent orange morass down in the netherworld of the orange state. How totally appropriate.
And for the playoffs -Go Warriors! Last nights game was exhausting. Running back & forth at hyper speed. Whew! And of course, Klay's paper airplane at the presser after the game. Craziness. In a good way of course.
“These politicians, and the parents who encourage them, would rather their children be taught illogical thinking rather than critical thinking”
Illogical thinking is more than a contradiction in terms. They are complete opposites. Thinking REQUIRES logic. Emotional or illogical “thinking” simply isn’t.
Politics Corrupts Parents, Fox Returns to Lying, Texas Wants 10 Commandments in Schools, GOP Plots to Keep College Kids from Voting, Book Bans on Rise, My TV Picks, and Melanie Sings
Re the Texas legislature's attempt to require posting the Ten Commandments in school classrooms: Which iteration will they require -- Exodus or Deuteronomy? What translation would be posted -- the King James Version, Revised Standard Version, the Masoretic text of the Holy Scriptures (Jewish), the Roman Catholic version, or another? If I lived in Texas (which I don't), I'd be posing these questions to my legislator.
As a Mum, I’m pretty sure my daughter learned by example. And one thing she always saw was me reading. It turned out that her talents lean to math and art but books can inform every interest. Personally, I’d steer young women away from romance novels, but freedom of choice is paramount. At 77, I never thought I’d see the day that this country takes so many backwards steps. And the women are doing it in those incredibly high heels. Sorry for the rant but book banning lights my fire!
Thank you for reminding me of the Edwin Hawkins Singers rendition of Oh Happy Day as I practice a very simple version on my piano.
Kareem, I love the part where you said they should consider posting all of the commandments from the Old Testament in the schools. This would be hilarious, especially, Leviticus 19:28 - the commandment that bans tattoos and piercings. That would mean many of their own children that they are trying to protect might be eternally, damned! Based on their own book! :-). Ouch.
I am a former New Yorker living in Texas. One of the first things I did was to sign up as a Voter Deputy Registrar through the League of Women Voters. We set up tables in public places, go to campuses and concerts, and give new voters info on where to vote. Every one of the stories in Kareem's newsletter has the same underlying theme: fear. You bet they are afraid. So let's gather up our power by voting. It's the answer to a sane future for our children.
Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy is a brilliant metaphor for what pseudo-religious fantasists are doing to their children. These deeply cynical fakers may, on some level, believe that they are "protecting" young minds from evil sites, sounds and thoughts. They are, in fact, doing the devil's work for him. They march to the instructions of C. S. Lewis' Screwtape, “direct the fashionable outcry of each generation against those vices of which it is least in danger and fix its approval on the virtue nearest to that vice which we are trying to make endemic. The game is to have them all running about with fire extinguishers whenever there is a flood..." Here's a question for Kareem: what is "the virtue nearest to that vice which we (they/now) are trying to make endemic"?
The irony of the Texas Senate wanting to post Commandments obtained by a Jew and presented to Jews--long, long before Christianity ever existed--is not lost on me, but clearly it is completely over the heads of Texas Republicans. Or perhaps they really aren't anti-Semitic. (Personally, I would not take that bet.)
Kareem, spot on with the opium den analogy. What is a drug dealer? Someone who knowingly pushes a destructive product to a consumer for purposes of profit without regard for the known bad consequences. And the nastiest dealers are Rupert and the bow-tied Tucker.
Regarding the Texas 10 commandment proposal and the moms for liberty book list: More examples of American Sharia law being forced down people's throats.
The only solution is to elevate the public dialogue to include such dialogue as "American Sharia" and have that threat translate into votes/political cost. Joy Reid recently broached this in comparing Alito's dissent on the recent abortion pill as acting like a Mullah. Ya think?
Provoking article, got me to look up Jefferson’s view on bible fascinating! Here is a quote he made regarding his views and thoughts:As president, he expresses those sentiments in a letter to Robinson over a year later (23 Mar. 1801).[17] “The Christian religion, when divested of the rags in which they have enveloped it, and brought to the original purity and simplicity of its benevolent institutor, is a religion of all others most friendly to liberty, science, and the freest expansion of the human mind.”
Thank you so much for sharing one of my childhood heroes with your readers. I thought I was the only person who knew of the magical Melanie Safka. I’ve loved her music for decades, and I am thrilled that you share that!
Your opening is SO on the money! I worked as a therapist in the world of abuse and neglect, and though MBP is, as you say, extremely rare, I remember clearly, two particular cases. Suffice it to say, by the time even a good therapist figures it out, a LOT of damage has been done. But at least, in individual family cases when the stars line up right, a child can be protected. In the world of politics even when the crime is revealed, the victims have become comfortable with the poison. I hate to say it, but even though Trump and his MAGA disciples astonish me with their behavior, I have yet to be surprised...because of exactly what you're saying here. I know Judy Blume, not well, but well enough to have had conversations. She and Robert Cormier and to some extent, Robert Lipsyte, paved my way into the banned books world. Judy was astonished and hurt when the blows on "Are You There..." landed directly on her. It was a service to girls going into puberty that she had never been afforded as a child. Frankly, the book banners didn't give a damn about those girls' confusion and fear. And those people are on steroids, now. Keep exposing them, sir! People listen to you. And by the way, how come all those so-called Christians want the Ten Commandments posted in every public building in America, but never mention the Beatitudes? Like George Carlin, I can give them situations in which each of those commandments could, and should, be broken. Most of them can't even tell me what the Beatitudes are.
Oh Happy Day.
Oh Happy Day.
When Jesus washed
My sins away.
I saw the Edwin Hawkins singers at Winterland in San Francisco in 1971. My roommate & I sat on the floor in a circle with several strangers and passed around the communal "sacrament." And that was my first time. You totally revived that memory.
I just read the essay about JD Vance, Hillbilly Elegy, his politics, etc. His statement about how professors are the enemy is not just disturbing but terribly frightening. Fits in with your writings about book bannings, more parental control of what is being taught in schools etc. Has some mad cow disease infected the brains of the wrong wingers? I suppose it shouldn't be surprising, especially after living in San Francisco for years & seeing so many people get caught up in cults & addicted to self-improvement gurus & the like.
And Faux News. Nothing seems to matter, especially the truth. And TC, the worst one of all. Why are people willing to even watch or listen to his drivel & garbage? Don't clutter up your mind with irrelevant & nonsensical noise. It has nothing to do with real life. And besides, the playoffs are on and are far better entertainment than anything faux could possibly produce. One day they will have an implosion & all their brains will melt and become part of the agent orange morass down in the netherworld of the orange state. How totally appropriate.
And for the playoffs -Go Warriors! Last nights game was exhausting. Running back & forth at hyper speed. Whew! And of course, Klay's paper airplane at the presser after the game. Craziness. In a good way of course.
Peace & love to you all .
I suspect that the "right wing?" Christians would rather list all of Deuteronomy and Leviticus that post Mark:12:37-40....
Thanks, Kareem. Top notch stuff as always.
Tucker Carlson and Fox are parting ways. A nice start to the week.
Thanks for the 613 in the Torah quip!
“These politicians, and the parents who encourage them, would rather their children be taught illogical thinking rather than critical thinking”
Illogical thinking is more than a contradiction in terms. They are complete opposites. Thinking REQUIRES logic. Emotional or illogical “thinking” simply isn’t.
Thanks, Kareem.