Georgia On My Mind

Welcome friends!

You know how I’m always saying I think it’s a mistake to link any particular religion, such as Islam, with the ignorance, intolerance, and violence that I think can really be associated with pretty much any religion but especially any of those rather emotional and hot headed creeds that have arisen over the centuries in the Middle East?  I know it’s a tough sell because one hears so much more these days about people living in Muslim lands that I think one can easily get the wrong impression.  When one hears about ostensibly Christian fanatics running amok in Western countries it always seems to be so much more localized and idiosyncratic than the wholesale hatred, chaos, and carnage that popular religion seems to fuel in the Middle East.  But as I always say, I don’t think it was always that way, nor do I think it will necessarily stay that way.  I know I did a little story on what some fundamentalist Christians in Uganda were up to a little a while ago but I’m sure the point was probably muddied by factors such as race, culture, and ethnicity, so I suppose many American and European Christians had difficulty relating the story to their own situation despite the fact that many people suspect the behavior in question had a great deal to do with the influence of certain American evangelical Christians.  (October 28, 2011.)  Fortunately (for pedagogical purposes anyway) I recently read a story about some suitably pale complexioned and at least quasi-European people calling themselves Christians in Georgia that I think might serve to make my point.  No, I’m not talking about the US state of Georgia, although I wouldn’t rule out doing a comparable post on that particular locality some day.  I’m talking about the country of Georgia: that ever so ancient and eminently eastern backwater of Europe tucked between Russia, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia and probably best known in the US as the birthplace of everyone’s favorite bloody tyrant: former dictator of the Soviet Union Joseph Stalin (aka Iosif Dzhugashvili).

So what was the good news out of Georgia that caught my eye this week? ... Sorry but only selected archived (previous year) posts are currently available full text on this website.  All posts including this one are available in my annual anthology ebook series available at the Amazon Kindle Bookstore for a nominal fee.  Hey, we all need to make a buck somehow, right?  If you find my timeless jewels of wisdom amusing or perhaps even amusingly irritating throw me a bone now and then.  Thank you my friends!

IRS Proposes Tax on Faux Scandals

Welcome friends!

I actually had something else I wanted to talk about this time but reading the daily papers has just become so annoying recently that I feel I should set aside any serious issues that may have crossed my mind in the last couple of weeks and instead delve for a few minutes into what passes for the news of the day.  I suppose it goes without saying that this parade of nonsense is clearly mostly the work of conservatives desperately casting about for fuel for their sputtering political machine, which seems incapable of operating on anything other than a rather cancerous blend of high octane outrage and ignorance.  Apparently they’ve gotten all the juice they can from the “there’s a (foreign) black man in the White House” and the “commie plot of universal health care coverage” themes, so they’ve been working overtime to come up with some new “scandal” to keep their base in their customary state of apoplexy and hopefully take the eyes of everyone else off any of the more serious policy issues that are clearly not the GOP’s strong suit.  So let’s just a take a few moments to chat about all these important scandals, shall we?  We can go back to more serious issues next time.

The first big scandal that’s been making the news recently has something to do with how certain officials thought about or described some incident involving some Middle Eastern gentlemen killing off some American diplomats in some foreign hell hole... Sorry but only selected archived (previous year) posts are currently available full text on this website.  All posts including this one are available in my annual anthology ebook series available at the Amazon Kindle Bookstore for a nominal fee.  Hey, we all need to make a buck somehow, right?  If you find my timeless jewels of wisdom amusing or perhaps even amusingly irritating throw me a bone now and then.  Thank you my friends!

A Fatal Case Of Religion

Welcome friends!

I was just thinking about that recent incident involving those two Russian immigrants to the US, Tamerlan and Dzokhar Tsarnaev, who killed and maimed some random people at a recent Boston Marathon.  Sad and pointless stuff.  Anyway, it got me thinking again about what I see as the problem of religion, so I suppose I might as well say a few more words about that... Sorry but only selected archived (previous year) posts are currently available full text on this website.  All posts including this one are available in my annual anthology ebook series available at the Amazon Kindle Bookstore for a nominal fee.  Hey, we all need to make a buck somehow, right?  If you find my timeless jewels of wisdom amusing or perhaps even amusingly irritating throw me a bone now and then.  Thank you my friends!