If you are (or aspire to be) a critical thinker, you’ll appreciate my blogs, which, typically, promote human dignity and equality, honest even handed, liberty-based governance and solid environmental stewardship. What a pity that the same cannot be said re the duly deposed, fascistic, narcissistic Trump and his sycophantic enablers (unethical legislators and judges / devotee voters / insurrectionists), who’ll be doing their damnedest to re-empower him; inclusive of attempting America ending coup d’états. Factor in how such bad actors are also hardcore science deniers and, voilà, we wind up with a feverish global pandemic and planet. If such ever-present dangers to humanity provide insufficient impetus for you to pay my site a visit, check out my homepage’s Categories menu; your guide to archived fortune cookie blogs, human interest stories, fiction, sci-fi, parables, poetry, limericks, Match Game's Dumb Donald send-ups, musical parodies, BlogCasts and more.
Forward: With Poetry Month winding down, the time is ripe to trade off the serious for a bit of the silly…
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Intelligent Design can create big bustle! Doubter debaters’ Qs pop up / up rustle! Like, why oh why is there hair? In zones in need of fresh air? Are roll-on potions God’s Secret™ side-hustle?
Let’s not bog down this blog with the particulars to this TRUE story; mainly because that’d only divert our attention from the larger issues at hand.
Cutting to the chase scene, science based leader, purely in the interest of public safety / public health, attempts to rein in religious services, a.k.a. the documented, superspreader events of a ferociously contagious, deadly pathogen. Faith based judges rein in said leader with their ruling that his pandemic protocols infringe upon the rights of the people to worship in whatever manner they see fit!
Issues:
WTF kind of “religious leaders” would ever file a lawsuit, for the express purpose of winning the right to knowingly sicken / sicken to death their congregants?
WTF kind of “judges” would rule in favor of clergymen who, in essence, are little more than premeditated, mass murderers?
Whatever happened to the Commandment, Thou Shalt Not Kill?
Why would a technically legal judicial ruling not, bare minimum, include an attached caveat to sternly warn the victorious “vicars” that their masses could easily wind up mass murdering the masses!
Obviously, presidential spiritual adviser Paula White’s impassioned prayer service, for the express purpose of snagging Donald J. Trump a second term, did not work. Perhaps the pacing back and forth dude distracted her?
Methinks she should’ve attempted an exorcism, instead; you know, to chase off Donny’s demons; namely, his pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy and sloth.
Demonstrably, she has missed her true calling, too. Think about it, folks. Minus her speaking in tongues shtick, she could’ve easily had a promising career as a baseball home plate umpire. I mean, have you ever heard anyone saying “strike” with better conviction and diction?
Ring of Fire’s YouTube channel blurb succinctly sets up our featured clip…
“Kyle Rittenhouse, the suspect who allegedly killed two Black Lives Matters protestors in Kenosha, Wisconsin last week has become a hero for the unhinged Right, and a Christian fundraising website has allowed these pro-murder Republicans to raise nearly half a million dollars for his defense. The Republicans are the pro-murder Party, there is no other way to say it. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this disgusting turn of events.“
About all I can add is that America’s Founding Fathers had been wise to insist on the Constitutional Separation of Church and State and, most assuredly, they’d have frowned upon Donald J. Trump’s bastardization, politicization and radicalization of religion, too.
Although I remain a spiritual man, my own interest in organized religion ebbed at the tender age of 12. That’s mainly because I saw the hypocrisy of the adult congregants, who, in actuality, only showed up each Sunday to sport their finery / flaunt their material possessions. Hell, had it been any WORSE, after the benediction, the menfolk would’ve rushed out to the parking lot to rev the engines of their brand spanking new, swank rides. And once the missus and kiddies were all packed aboard, they’d have peeled out to head back to their mansions.
But the hypocrisy did get WORSE…
Half a century later, churches have become bastardized, politicized and radicalized. How else could one explain so-called Christians conveniently suspending the Commandment, Thou Shalt Not Kill, just to justify the cold blooded double homicide, of which Rittenhouse has been accused.
If God is on board with such conduct, on the day I die, I’ll take my chances on that downward escalator ride to the Gates of Hell!
Stay Safe at Home! Stay Publicly Masked! Stay Healthy!
Straight from the horse’s mouth, I feel like an interminably socially isolating, lone wolf who’s going stag to nowhere; the pandemic’s fish out of water, mad as a hornet, sitting duck; trapped like a lab rat in that weasel leader’s bereft of science, field experiment; condemned to waiting out the uncertain results while sweating like a pig; whipped up into ants in the pants magnitude agitation; succumbing to bats in the belfry mindlessness; driven to go on a homebound, till the cows come home bender where I’ll suffer a bad case of the spins, while pirouetting with pink elephants; the morning after finding me looking like something the cat has dragged in…
Where am I?
Aboard the pandemic era Noah’s Ark
Stay Safe at Home! Stay Publicly Masked! Stay Healthy!
Prior to our sermon, let us all pause to mourn the loss of our global compatriots… the, so far, 342,000 souls, who have perished during this pandemic. Let us express our heartfelt condolences to their grieving families and friends.
Let us all pray, too, for all who have become… or soon will be… sickened by this godforsaken, pitiless virus.
May our Creator see fit to guide our best medical minds on the path to discovery… to help them expeditiously formulate the vital to survival pharmaceuticals, vaccines and therapies that’ll alleviate each and every one of their patients’ suffering. May they shepherd them all onto the road to swift and full recovery.
On this Sunday stateside midday, please forgive me for being a tad overdressed in my red, white and blue, stars and stripes regalia. That would seem unavoidable, seeing how I must now address a uniquely domestic issue.
Alas, too many of you, my homeland’s compatriots, are, at present, dying to attend religious services, yet, cannot… must not… due to our prudent governors’ justifiably tough, stay at home rules and regs.
Ordinarily, our 1st Amendment protections would be in play… would fully support our free speech right to express our grievances whenever, wherever, freedom of religion seems endangered. Yet, certainly, you would have to agree that a word such as “ordinarily” does not apply during a raging pandemic… i.e., the dire situation where, so far, in America, alone, there have been 1.66 Million reported cases of COVID-19 and 97,426 reported deaths.
I’m sure that, in spite of your feverish protestations, you cannot deny the fact that, had not such pandemic mitigating strategies been in place, this highly communicable disease would’ve spread vastly faster… that these already grim, alarming (still skyrocketing daily) stats would’ve been astoundingly, astonishingly and astronomically higher.
My friends, those are the indisputable facts which, regrettably, we now live with.
In closing…
My not wanting to go screeching down the preachy path, I’ll leave you with the following soul searching questions.
† Do we really need structured religious services to verify that God is omnipresent… to feel His love?
† Are not our houses of worship, in actuality, situated within our heads and hearts… our very souls?
† Are you really dying to flock to your church, synagogue or mosque when you could be an asymptomatic COVID-19 carrier?
† Could you live with yourself if you knew your very presence had led to even one more person’s needless agony and death?
When you come up with the correct answers, I’m confident that once you deem your previous protestations petty, you will find yourself traveling upon the glorious, high road of patience.
Let’s take a leap of faith that Genesis 1:27 presents to us a flawless narrative, namely, that we were all created in the Image of God. Let’s now expand on that fundamental, yet, relatively ambiguous premise; consider how this resemblance might not be limited to facial features and body types. What if it had been meant to be inclusive of all aspects of human nature; in particular, the vast array of personality types?
To cut to the chase…
If Donald J. Trump is the spitting image of God, what the Hell does that make God?
IF you’re [1] an overworked, overtaxed, underpaid, underappreciated working stiff, who [2] hauls around a wallet cram-packed with credit cards, which are [3] issued by banks that charge usurious, 21+ percent interest rates and exorbitant fees while [4] these same banksters pay out only a fraction of 1% interest on your saved, minuscule nest-egg and, concurrently, [5] you can only count on amassing a lifetime of staggering debt from [6] oft purchasing steeply priced, shoddily constructed, broken down (beyond repair) after 90 days “durable goods”, THEN…
Gasp – Gasp – Gasp… Congratulations!
You’ve been doing your (unfair) share to prop up Donny the Kid, his like-minded gang of infantile, sleazeball cronies and their smoke and mirrors economy… a rigged system, which is akin to a figurative choo-choo train, which they’ve permitted to [1] leave the depot sans an engineer [2] chug along full throttle and [3] chase you DOWN, Down, down the rickety clickety railroad tracks until… Until… UNTIL…
UNTIL the Coronavirus had easily caught Trump napping in the “Roundhouse”. At this juncture, that man-child’s crazy train left the tracks and crashed into the face of one of them thar Rocky Mountains… oh… you know… out there… that-a-way… in one of them thar Wild West Red States.
And… ever since… Dow Jones Donny has been [1] chomping at the bit to jump start / breathe new life into his shimmering mirage “economy” while [2] denying ventilators to the Coronavirus victims, who cannot breathe.
Key Question: Is Donny the Kid’s economy… one, which he’s willfully manipulated to favor ONLY THE WEALTHY, really worthy of resurrection?
Hmm… I’m sure you’ll readily agree that this serves up plenty of food for thought for all of us socially isolating souls… especially of the Christian persuasion. We can only hope that… be you devout, secular or anything in between… WE all realize that… no matter what Donny may say to the contrary… in actuality, he has left us nowhere to go during Holy Week and, likely, for plenty more weeks after that.
Wellness to you all! If you’re ailing, you have my hopes and prayers for a full, speedy recovery. Wherever / whenever we discover a leadership vacuum, it’ll be incumbent on us to do everything we can to save humanity. Staying safe and healthy depends on our flipping off egotistical, partisan hacks while heeding the advice of reputable doctors and scientists. That also depends on our paying attention to these vital to our survival tips…
[1] Practice good hygiene (scrub hands often at least 20 seconds), [2] Cover coughs and sneezes, [3] Avoid touching eyes, nose and mouth, [4] observe social distancing protocols (remain at least 2 meters / 6 feet apart [5] wear a protective face mask [6] avoid large crowds, [7] socially isolate / hunker down at home and [8] self-quarantine if you feel ill.
If a Priest prefers to preach to pews packed with people while
a powerful pathogen precipitates and perpetuates a pandemic,
to prevent a premature powwow with Pearly Gatekeeper Peter,
the parishioners should promptly Put the Pastor out to Pasture!
In our above clip, The Young Turks’ Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian expose greed driven holy rollers, who care more about their bank savings accounts than saving souls / saving humanity, itself. Yes indeed, the survival of our entire global community has been imperiled by the Coronavirus Pandemic. And THAT doth make church attendance dicey… a crapshoot.
And on this Palm Sunday, I, too, would like to weigh in, thusly…
Every ethical, enlightened religious leader, worldwide (purely in the interest of public health), has opted to cancel all church services until it’ll be safe, once more, to go outside (in this case inside). To do otherwise would be tantamount to clergymen meting out death sentences… not only to their parishioners, themselves, but, potentially, to everyone they’d come into contact with subsequently.
Under such dire circumstance, the spreading of this contagion might go unchecked until the very last human being has dropped dead.
If that grim scenario doesn’t scare the bejesus out of the devout… what, pray tell, will?’
OK, perhaps giving it another try might be helpful?
If even a handful of worshipers insist on public masses, then… to quote songwriter P. F. Sloan… “there’ll be no one to save with the world in a grave.”
Or, how about making this bumper sticker length wisdom the phrase that pays?
Freedom of Religion “issues” no one a License to Kill!
If your pastor is flat-out defying the federal, state and local authorities’ recommendations to avoid congregating in large groups, your one and only recourse is to DEFY HIM!
Need anyone even remind that God is omnipresent?
To stay safe, healthy and alive, the advice to follow… uh… religiously… is [1] stay at home, [2] serve up some bread and wine, [3] “park it” in a comfy chair and [4] crack open / curl up with a good book… uh… The Good Book?
My best wishes that you stay well! If you are ailing, you have my hopes and prayers for a full, speedy recovery. Wherever / whenever we discover a leadership vacuum, it’ll be incumbent on us to do everything we can to save humanity. Please stay safe by continuing to heed the following common sense, disease fighting advice…
[1] Practice good hygiene (scrub hands often at least 20 seconds), [2] Cover coughs and sneezes, [3] Avoid touching eyes, nose and mouth, [4] observe social distancing protocols (remain at least 2 meters / 6 feet apart [5] avoid large crowds or (ideally) just stay at home and [6] if ill, self-quarantine.
