[Dialogue] Curious Connection??

[jim rippey]

      I suppose it's my twisted mind.  At a subterranean level, I find a curious connection between the following two items-- between the falsity of what Bush and his core are promoting as Christian faith, and the humorous dishonesty and religious masquerade of the second item, a joke yet.  Anyway, I welcomed a laugh.  These are dire times.   Whatever happened to humility? ....  But then there still is Matthew 7:21:  "Not every one who saith unto me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter into the kingdom of heaven...."  

      ---------------------  

      Two Nations Under God, By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, Washington Post, 11/4/04

      (Rippey Note:  This is only an excerpt.  Full article is at  http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/04/opinion/04friedman.html?hp)

      Why did I wake up feeling deeply troubled yesterday? Answer: whatever differences I felt with the elder Bush were over what was the right policy. There was much he ultimately did that I ended up admiring. And when George W. Bush was elected four years ago on a platform of compassionate conservatism, after running from the middle, I assumed the same would be true with him. (Wrong.) But what troubled me yesterday was my feeling that this election was tipped because of an outpouring of support for George Bush by people who don't just favor different policies than I do - they favor a whole different kind of America. We don't just disagree on what America should be doing; we disagree on what America is.

      Is it a country that does not intrude into people's sexual preferences and the marriage unions they want to make? Is it a country that allows a woman to have control over her body? Is it a country where the line between church and state bequeathed to us by our Founding Fathers should be inviolate? Is it a country where religion doesn't trump science? And, most important, is it a country whose president mobilizes its deep moral energies to unite us - instead of dividing us from one another and from the world?

      At one level this election was about nothing. None of the real problems facing the nation were really discussed. But at another level, without warning, it actually became about everything. Partly that happened because so many Supreme Court seats are at stake, and partly because Mr. Bush's base is pushing so hard to legislate social issues and extend the boundaries of religion that it felt as if we were rewriting the Constitution, not electing a president. I felt as if I registered to vote, but when I showed up the Constitutional Convention broke out. The election results reaffirmed that.... My problem with the Christian fundamentalists supporting Mr. Bush is not their spiritual energy or the fact that I am of a different faith. It is the way in which he and they have used that religious energy to promote divisions and intolerance at home and abroad. I respect that moral energy, but wish that Democrats could find a way to tap it for different ends.

      --------------A  joke forwarded to me---------

      Subject: HAPPY HALLOWEEN

      A cabbie picks up a nun. She gets into the cab, and the cab driver won't stop staring at her. She asks him why is he staring and he replies, "I have a question to ask you but I don't want to offend you." She answers, "My dear son, you cannot offend me. When you're as old as I am and have been a nun as long as I have, you get a chance to see and hear just about everything! . I'm sure that there's nothing you could say or ask that I would find offensive." "Well, I've always had a fantasy to have a nun kiss me." She responds, "Well, let's see what we can do about that. #1, you
      have to be single, and #2, you must be Catholic." The cab driver is very excited and says, "Yes, I am single and I'm Catholic, too." "Okay," the nun says, "pull into the next alley." He does, and the nun fulfills his fantasy with a kiss that would make a hooker blush, but when they get back on the road, the cab driver starts crying. "My dear child, said the nun, "why are you crying?" "Forgive me, sister, but I have sinned. I lied, I must confess, I'm married and I'm Jewish." The nun says, "That's okay. My name is Kevin, and I'm on my way to a Halloween party."