The “Ground Zero Mosque” Non-Issue

Anyone who knows me knows I love to gripe about how the mainstream media, and cable news in particular, can twist and manipulate a story to fit into their personal ideals.  All of the big cable networks do it to some extent.  Blame it on the 24-hour news cycle or on each station’s politics but regardless, for someone who’s always appreciated good journalism, it sucks.  And once something becomes an issue on one station, the others tend to roll over and “report” it just to avoid looking like they don’t pay attention.  And then they all get in on it together to some extent.

The so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” is a great example.  When I first heard about it, it was getting praised by a lot of people in a lot of places.  It disappeared from my mind.  Fast forward a while and suddenly, it’s a huge disgrace, stomping on the memories of people who died on 9/11.

Considering the end…

When my mother’s ALS progressed to the point where she could barely breathe and she went into hospice, she was terrified that she would die by suffocation.  I personally can’t imagine a much more terrible end myself.  We called in the doctor and social worker and they explained that if mom wanted them to, they could give her enough drugs to keep her comfortable, and explained what would happen, why it would happen and what she would feel (or not feel) as it happened.

After that conversation she was much more at ease, and was able to focus on spending her last couple of weeks seeing her friends and family instead of shivering in terror 24 hours a day.

That’s kind of like the end of life counseling so many people are slamming.  The idea that these visits could be paid for, allowing more people to have access to them, to understand what was happening with their bodies and how to prepare, the idea that this is somehow terrible is baffling to me.

Politics and Church

This is in response to the CBSNews.com article here:  In IRS Protest, Pastors Back Candidates.  Apparently, a group of churches made political statements in an effort to protest the IRS rule that tax exempt churches can’t intervene in politics.

I totally agree with the pastors who want to be able to speak.  Free speech is pretty nifty after all.  However, they should have to pay the same price of admission that I do, and no longer be tax exempt.  Some of these churches could pay for whole communities with the tax dollars they haven’t paid through the years.  Many an evangelist has made quite the lifestyle using this rule.

So it’s that simple.  If you want to be involved in government, you should really be involved in government and help out your country by paying taxes.  Otherwise, you can tell your friends your opinion outside of church events like a lot of us do, and maybe spend church time helping people who are in need now.  You know, the homeless, the sick, the dying?  Those people Jesus wanted to help?

Just a tiny bit confused about the 9/11 billboard guy

Sometimes a story just jumps out at me, not so much for the overall purpose but for the contributions of the people they interview.

Right now there’s a story on CNN.com (Link) about a billboard a guy put up depicting the smoldering Twin Towers and the phrase “Don’t Vote For A Democrat.” Argue all you want about whether or not the guy is exploiting dead people to sell a song on his website, but there is a part that caught me in particular. This is from the article:

Mike Meehan, a St. Cloud, Florida, businessman who paid to post the billboards in the Orlando area, said former President Clinton should have put a stop to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda before 9/11. He said a Republican president would have done so.

“I believe 9/11 could have been prevented if we’d had a Republican president at the time,” Meehan said Wednesday on CNN’s “American Morning.”