Cap’n Ken’s Homespun Wisdom

CNN / USA Today / Gallop commissioned a poll this week to determine American interest in and actions taken following the Asian tsunami disaster. The key findings:

• 46% of Americans are following tsunami news “very closely”, and another 43% are following it “somewhat closely”.

• 45% of Americans have donated money to relief efforts, but 26% have not thought about donating money.

• 74% of Americans “have prayed for victims and families”, and only 19% have not thought about praying.

Digging deeper into the poll results, we find that among the 74% who are praying for victims:

• 44% are aware that most of the victims of the tsunami do not believe in their God. (88% of those who are aware that most of the victims do not believe in their God have restricted their prayers to those who do believe in their God and 24% of those who have restricted their prayers to those who believe in their God have also prayed for God to send non-believers to the eternal fires of Hell as He has promised to do).

• 29% believe the victims need prayers more than money.

• 8% actually have not offered prayers, but believed the government would relocate them to “Prayer Camps” if they answered the question honestly.

• 6% asked the poll taker if he/she has found Jesus and tried to convert those who hadn”t.

The Atlanta news has been dominated over the past couple of days by this home-invasion / double-murder story from Lilburn. A beloved Tucker High School coach and his son (a student at the school) were shot by some fucknut who broke in to their house.

The only good news is that said fucknut was then shot and killed by police. (late-breaking development: the killer was the son of a woman who killed a preacher and her own mom in a Kirkwood church a few months back - odd).

I”m not so damn cold-hearted that I”m going to make light of the killings themselves, although I do want to tell the kids at Tucker High to try not to get quite this distraught - lots of open grief has been shown on the news - over a “tragedy” outside of your own family. Live a bit more of your life and you”ll realize you should save some of your grief potential for the really bad things that are likely to impact you directly later on.

But there was one bit of the story that I can”t let go unmocked. The night of the murders, the coach and his son had been at a wrestling meet in Athens. They got back from that about 10 and were killed at home an hour or so later.

Fox 5 interviewed a kid on the wrestling team who said everybody had been bitching about having to drive all the way out to Athens during the week for the meet. But now, in the wake of the killings, they were happy to have had that time with their coach and his son.

Fair enough.

But, as the kid put it, God must have arranged for the meet to happen so they could spend that final time together.

OK. So if God arranged this time together in advance of the murder, then God must have also known the murders were going to happen. And if God was able to make the meet happen, he could have also stopped the murders from happening. But, of course, he didn”t.

Maybe the coach and his son weren”t such good people, after all. Why else would God let them die? Or maybe God wanted the fucknut to die, and he”d been unable to get the guy in front of a train. Or maybe God wants to let the big things play out on their own, and feels just sorry enough for we humans to give us extra time with the doomed before the deal goes down.

A spokesman for God, pastor Mike Cash of the First UMC in Tucker, denied that his boss was involved in any way.

“It”s a great tragedy … I just want the kids to know this is not the will of God for things like this to happen,” Cash told the AJC.

That”s an odd statement for a Godservant. According to the “What We Believe” section of the Tucker First UMC”s website, Cash”s own church specifically believes:

• There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body or parts, of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness; the maker and preserver of all things, both visible and invisible.

So God is of infinite power and is the maker and preserver of all things … except in this case?

• [God] is infinite in power, wisdom, justice, goodness and love, and rules with gracious regard for the well-being and salvation of men, to the glory of his name.

So except for at the coach”s house Tuesday night, God uses this infinite justice to rule (graciously) for the well-being and salvation of men?

I suspect Cash “wants the kids to know this is not the will of God” because it”s a very poor marketing tool (the Unique Selling Proposition for you marketing types) to say “yeah, God was behind this. I don”t know why, but since God is the maker and preserver of all things both visible and invisible, he must have his reasons.

Politics ain”t my thing here at the Wisdom - and neither is religion (in the sense of “religion is good”), but the stories coming about about asshat Howard Dean”s plan to talk up Jesus in the South compells me to mock.

Dean, of course, is a politician. And politicians, of course, will say and do whatever they think they need to to get elected. Dean needs the South; the South loves Jesus … so Howie will praise Jesus - but only in the South.

But here”s the rub: Dean”s not exactly Another Boy for Jesus. Both his wife and his daughter are Jewish. He claims to be a “Congregationalist” which - as near as I can tell - is some New England sect rooted in old colonialist traditions.

And, best of all, he used to be an Episcopalian (a Catholic who doesn”t like to work hard at the whole religion thing), but left the church back in the 1980s over a dispute about a bike path he wanted to build in Vermont.

Yes, a bike path. He wanted a bike path, the church didn”t … so he left the church.

A bike path.

I guess if President Dean wanted to build a base in Norway and NATO opposed it, the U.S. would just quit NATO.

But I digress …

So his family is Jewish, he used to be Episcopalian but quit over a bike path, and now he”s a Congregationalist. That”ll go over well down at Ebenezer Baptist.

P.S. The super-cool “Jimmy Dean for America” button appearing in my right rail (a Cap”n Ken original) was conceived and built before this whole Rev. Dean thing came out. It”s just a coincidence that they were both published this weekend.

I don”t often get into the “big issues” Americans are talking about, except when I see a good opportunity to mock and poke fun.

But the reaction to this “gay marriage” ruling up in Massachusetts has really pissed me off.

I could rant on about this for a long, long time. But this blog isn”t meant to be a heavy read. For the record, however, I will say this:

This “gay marriage” issue has nothing to do with religion. So all you Christians who see this as a threat to “the family” “the Judeo-Christian tradition” or any of that garbage just shut up. If your religion is against “gay marriages”, then don”t allow them to happen in your church. That is the only religious issue here.

What the Massachusetts ruling applies to is “civil marriage”, which is the set of rights and privileges a state determines married couples should enjoy which unmarried couples do not. These typically involve things such as inheritance rights, exemption from estate taxes, the ability to sue for wrongful death of your partner, etc. It”s basically the state”s certification that two people are one legal entity - in other words a “family.”

And when a state institutes these rights and privileges, then denies those rights and privileges to a committed couple because they happen to be of the same sex, it”s wrong. Yep, simple as that. It”s as wrong as denying black people the right to vote.

But the thing that really, really bothers me is that the anti-gay sentiment in the U.S. appear to be growing with each court ruling that favors the rights of homosexuals. CNN showed a poll to that effect this morning.

Interestingly, according to CNN, those polled were much more inclined to support allowing gay “civil unions” than “gay marriage.” It”s the same thing, people. The word “marriage” just freaks out your little Christian soul.

But now there is fear of a “anti-gay backlash” because of this ruling and the sodomy a few months back. And, sadly, that”s probably accurate. God help you if you offend the Christians.

To fight this backlash, it”s important that we in the “straight but not narrow” crowd not sit by quietly as the Christians work to keep the gays down.

So, leave the gays alone. They deserve the same rights as the rest of us. And if a gay couple wants the rights and privileges of a civil marriage, they are entitled to it.

After hitting the game-winning, elimination-stopping, 11th-inning home run at Fenway Park last night, Boston”s Trot Nixon explained what happened to ESPN”s Gary Miller:

“I went to the plate asking the Lord to just calm my nerves … I told him to just calm my nerves and allow me to honor Him out there on the field. And he came through for me today. It wasn”t me swinging that bat; it was the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Fortunately for Boston, Jesus choose to spend his Saturday at Fenway Park keeping the Sox” post-season hopes alive.

That”s too bad for Jerome Bright.

While Jesus was taking batting practice before the game yesterday, he didn”t notice Jerome, an 8-year-old Philadelphia boy, riding his scooter out in front of an SUV.

Jesus was happy to help Trot calm his nerves at the plate for his big baseball moment. The Lord could have helped keep small planes from crashing in Utah and Iowa Saturday, but who would have noticed that?

Trot is proud to be able to honor The Lord at the plate. And he was rewarded by Jesus” guiding hand on that home run.

Elsewhere Saturday, Jesus guided a hit-and-run driver into Stephen Gates as he changed a tire along I-40 in North Carolina and an 18-wheeler into an Idaho man as he was putting gas into his pickup on I-84.

Seems Pope John Paul II may be nearing the end of the road here on Earth:

More concern about Pope”s health

One of the Vatican Cardinals was quoted as saying: “He is in a bad way. We should pray for the pope.”

I”m not much for Catholic prayer, so how about a cheer instead?

Go, Pope, Go!
Die! Die! Die!
You can do it!!!

No, I don”t really want the Pope to die. Apart from Carol Channing and radical Muslims, I don”t really want anybody to die.

But shouldn”t Catholics be rooting for the Pope to kick it? In fact, shouldn”t the Christian desire for all good Christians be that they die as soon as possible?

The whole Christian experience is built on the idea that life here on Earth prepares you for eternal life, which for proper Christians is a swell gig. Heaven is the ultimate goal.

And it”s standard practice at Christian funerals for the minister to talk about how the dead person is “at Jesus” side”, “in a better place”, “starting his life of eternal joy”, etc.

Once somebody dies, it”s an easy comfort mechanism to say it”s a good thing for them that they are dead. Sure, it”s painful for us left behind, but he happy for Mr. Dead Guy, who”s having brunch with Jesus as we speak.

So if dying is a good thing if you”re a right and proper Christian, we should hope Christian folk die as soon as possible. No suicides, of course. Jesus don”t like that.

Seems pretty logical. Of course, logic and Christianity do not work very well together.

But here we have the Pope. Obviously a good Catholic, 83 years old, suffering through Parkinson”s and maybe cancer … and that nagging ache from being shot in the gut 22 years ago.

Even if there is no afterlife, a peaceful death would not be a tragedy for J.P. at this point.

And if there is a heaven, he”s got a first-class ticket. He”s paid his dues as a Christian; he”s old, and he”s suffering.

It probably won”t count, because I”m not a Catholic, but I have posted a prayer request for the Pope, and I encourage you to do the same.