Screw the Nat’l Day of Prayer!
Instead of praying, Mr. Bush, read Brinnaine’s diary, “I don’t do prayer” (amen, sister), then get off your shriveled butt:
- DO NOW FOR the future generations of Americans — the nation’s children and their children — who will have to pay through the nose for your monstrous fiscal irresponsibility, your cruel wars, and your refusal to end tax cuts for the wealthy or come out against the estate tax
- DO NOW FOR the 73-year-old woman who “remains in jail on a $50,000 bond after police arrested her for looting sixty dollars worth of sausage.” (DN!)
- DO NOW FOR the New Orleans mother of the little baby who we all saw on repeated MSNBC video in the early days after Katrina. The baby was limp in her arms, and the mother was begging for help. MSNBC crews later found the young mother, and learned that her baby had died. (Having seen that video so many times, I am heartsick about the outcome. That poor mother must be mad with grief.)
- DO NOW for the neighborhoods of New Orleans whose electricity was solely restored last night for your motorcade’s passage, and then promptly plunged into darkness again. (“A Trick of the Light?,” from Brian Williams’ MSNBC blog, via Susan T in Michigan)
- DO NOW FOR the humane groups across the U.S. that have rallied to save animals, but are still being restricted from getting to the animals. (MSNBC’s Katrina Blog)
- DO NOW for returning power to rural communities. The day after Katrina hit, your VP Dick Cheney “ordered a Mississippi energy utility to divert its emergency crews from restoring power to rural hospitals and local water supplies — and instead set them to work on a pipeline that sends fuel to the Northeast.” (Chris Floyd’s blog)
And, for god’s sake, DO SOMETHING about the massive oil spills:
Oil Spills Almost Equal EXXON Disaster
44 oil spills found in southeast Louisiana
Largest is nearly 4 million gallons, most big ones are on Mississippi River
More than 500 cleanup specialists are working to contain 44 oil spills ranging from several hundred gallons to nearly 4 million gallons, the U.S. Coast Guard said in an assessment that goes far beyond initial reports of just two significant spills.
The assessment comes nearly three weeks after Hurricane Katrina … and reflects the fact that [agencies] are able to only now tackle environmental problems …
The Coast Guard estimates more than 7 million gallons of oil were spilled from industrial plants, storage depots and other facilities around southeast Louisiana. (MSNBC)
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The Guardian of London is reporting that the gulf Coast region is suffering from one of the worst oil spills in the country’s history. … In addition, more than 250,000 cars were submerged underwater from the flooding as were many gas stations. This marks the country’s most severe oil spill since the Exxon Valdez went ashore in 1989 leaking 11 millions gallons of oil in Alaska. (Democracy Now!)
BELOW, the criminal skulks home in the dark:
Doesn’t he look like one of those criminals we see on TV news who are running away from the press? (AP)
Damn it Susan! I should have KNOWN you would have done it and done it way better than me — should’ve waited and just added my pathetic attempt at a diary as a comment on yours….
I am so pissed off right now I can’t see straight, nor can I write the diary that I wanted to, about what I DID yesterday, with a family from New Orleans….
GREAT DIARY! I linked you at the top of the story ..
We must have been pounding the keys in fury at the same time!
I had to put the dumbass — and UGLY! (notice how ugly it is) — image from the White House page into Photoshop and resize it. I also had to capture it first, since I couldn’t save the imge from the WH page. Hmmm…
You’re too kind!
This perversion that masquerades as religion in “my” country turned me off to the entire thing when I was but 11. Some day, I’ll have to write about that….
Just added two more items to my rant list …
what Dick Cheney did the DAY AFTER Katrina to rural hospitals, etc….
and what Brian Williams reports about last night’s speech / electricity
In a recent diary of mine, the discussion was about the true nature of the environmental disaster that has struck our nation and how the EPA is covering up. I’m not pimping my diary, I won’t even link to it here. Point is, (and I hope he/she won’t mind), Dem in Knoxville had this comment:
If some reporter wanted to win the next Pulitzer Prize, she should be out collecting samples around New Orleans now and having them analyzed, and comparing them to what is released to the press. If anyone out there is interested in doing this, I will offer my services as an environmental chemist pro bono in helping you plan the sampling and analyses, and in interpreting the results. Email me.
I was wishing that more people here could see Dem in Knoxville’s offer, so I’m posting it here. It’s an incredible offer, I hope and pray something comes of it.
Bush had better pray for his own black soul.
Had, above the fold, the following headline:
Katrina leaves a toxic nightmare
I was so shocked, I had to buy the paper (none of the others I saw had this on the front page) … DMN is not usually known for it’s hard-hitting reporting or bold editorial decisions….
I too hope someone will take the blogger formerly known as Dem in Knoxville up on this offer!!
Dem in Knoxville seems to me to be quite special, if anyone in Journalism is reading this, I would take him up on the offer.
I was going to post a comment at the end of the scroll, but this looks like a better place. I have been asking myself, where are the news reports from the Gulf itself? What about the oil and natural gas infrastructure? How about some stats! How many wells damaged, pipeline leaks, refinery damaged and the like? What are the consequences of the damage? How long to repair?
What about the ecological damage? Besides the oil spills referred to here, what are we dumping back into Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River and Gulf? What affect on animal and plant life, and so forth?
Our attention has been on the people immediately affected, and rightly so. Beyond that however, I fear lasting and severe damage, not only to our infrastructure, but to the environment as well.
Am I missing something, or has this kind of information been lacking?
Read a bit more about Bishop Jakes the man who just finished blathering on in the National Cathedral… make sure to scroll down a take a hard look at that ‘transparency grade’…..
THE MINIONS ARE LEGION!
Right On Susan Give Em Hell! Lets drag him back to reality. If thats possible.
EXCELLENT EXCELLENT WORK!
You speak for me on this.
Kudos!
I woke up this AM, thinking,Nov.2,, should be labeled, the National Day of Shame,or Disgust, or Regret.
I slept in a bit today, thankfully, and when I got up and flipped on CNN there was that preacher – Jakes – and I thought “sigh”.The National Day of Prayer. My first reaction was that all of those platitudes mean nothing. Nothing. Not in the political environment of the US right these days.
Then I came to Booman, put on my glasses, had a look at Susan’s headline and thought “holy crap!” and a smile came to my face. I wasn’t alone.
Pray all you want, Bush, but are you going to be speaking at other places of faith today or are you just sticking to promoting your own religion in the name of this National Day of Prayer? I suppose those other faiths’ prayers don’t count enough for you to make an appearance in their temples or mosques.
Bush as a preacher – makes me sick. If he understood his faith’s traditions, he’d relegate his butt to the back of the church and just listen – hoping he could actually learn something about what it means to proclaim a faith. Hypocrite.
Bush’s so-called faith has no spiritual component. The primary purpose of his religion is as his anger management program and, (by assuaging his guilt), as a sleep aid.
that’s a lot of sausage!
Maybe for most people. But not for you and the BooMan little bitty doggie.
P.S. C-posted at DKos … for what it’s worth (not much these days!).
you meant snausage.
She’s being released although it took her family 16 days to do so. It was sausage she’d brought in a cooler and she was getting it out of the trunk of her car to cook some for her husband at the motel where they were staying and for which they’d paid with a credit card.
Yahoo News
Miss Devore told me about this story.
Did any of you also see the video of the mom holding that limp, very hot baby on MSNBC? They showed it over and over. .. that baby looked like it was having heatstroke, or something similarly life-threatening.
Oh god … if only someone had airlifted that baby — and it was a beautiful baby! — to a children’s hospital.
My question is why the press, themselves, do something for that baby! Instead covering with pictures of such a thing whey did they not just swoop that mom and her baby up and take them both to a place where they could get help! Just like the press getting in when they would let the red cross and others in. It is such a smaeful display of all things and everyone, about responsibility. NO prayer needed just plain and simple action for the humanity in us all….
On Kos, RonV in Seattle just posted that tomorrow is Constitution Day.
Think special services will be held for the Constitution?
Maybe one of the good historians here could wriet that up as a diary?
You mean like funeral services for it now that the Bush regime has killed it’s meaning?
No lists of specifics.
No repetitious patter.
Never in public view.
Remember–no government in history ever prevented a single Christian prayer.
How nice. Yes. With modesty and reflection.
And never pray for a parking space (as I’ve seen people do).
In the church I attended as a child there was a term used for prayer, “prayer treatment”. I often heard people say, “prayer treat, then move your feet.” In other words, say your prayers and then take action.
I LOVE that! What church was it?
I can riff off of that:
Have mass, then move your ass!
heh.
Religious Science.
You are so wrong on this. Most people–almost everybody–have some degree of traditional conventional religious faith. It comes out particularly when things are tough. People need faith, and express it in community fashion by prayer, meetings, AND by actions.
So on the one hand you have the LDS church out in Utah pampering a bunch of displaced New Orleans people–and probably gaining some converts in the process, and a whole bunch of black churches in the south struggling to cope with their difficulties in the aftermath of the hurricane–and praying in public while doing so, and a president who ran on a religious ticket and now is praying in public.
And on the other hand we have a high profile liberal blog where we’re blasting away at religion using rude and confrontative language. It’s totally disfunctional on both the social and political levels…
I think you’re taking the headline and first sentence a little too literally. Reading the rest of the diary does not give me the impression that Susan actually hates prayer or people that pray, but that she wants to see actions that match the words of the prayers. She wants to see people who proclaim to be Christians to actually follow the example of Jesus Christ.
ASDF,
If you knew Susan, like we knew Susan, you would love her, tooooooo !! She hits a bulls-eye with this thread. When bush talks of god, substitute satan. When bush asks you to pray to god, he is suggesting you worship his god, satan. Sooooooo bush can shove his god, and his prayers right up his ass; with gusto. A lot of religions(man-made, with a nice profit built-in) are doing the work of satan. When people are killing in the name of god, you know there is a problem… Do pray for clarity of thought by the masses, do pray for a helping hand to the needy. I strongly suggest you avoid praying to the god of boy bush, and his killing regime.
I’m not anti-religion — personally, I am a heathen — but I feel strongly that people have the right to practice their religion.
However, Bush is HIDING behind this national day of prayer crap. He’s full of shit when he does this — he does it solely to make himself look holier than thou.
When you have a president whose staff has to create a video tape of news reports about Katrina so the dimwit knows what’s going on, that’s pretty damning.
I wonder how much that extravaganza cost this morning. It’d probably have paid for food and water drops the day after Katrina.
Susan,
Check out this song when you get a chance. Very well done, and she has a beautiful voice. LINK: http://www.cloakanddagger.de/shows/webcast/_PRE-FEB/cowboy.mp3
The song Cowboy(Ode to Bush). She mentions as one of her refrains, that no one is holier than thou !! A loose quote from the song: ‘ gun totin’, bible quotin’ fake. His work is that of Satan, and it is amazing how people that are loving and caring, can still support this ass.
I had a pleasant mention of heathens in Brinnainne’s diary. Your work here at Boo, underlines the solidness of your heart and soul.. Keep up the fight, America needs you. :>) :>) :>) EtJ
Personally, I’d think these so-called people of traditional faith would be more closely adhering to their own professed theology if they did more of things like not voting for those who refuse to raise the minimum wage, not supporting those who provide huge tax giveaways for the affluent at the expense of the working and low wage classes, not supporting those who consistently fail to advance quality in education, and repudiating those who would keep cutting all those social programs that deal specifically with helping the disadvantaged.
If these hypocrites did more of this then they’d not have to spend so much time parading their selflessness and charity for all to admire. If they were empowering people rather than giving just giving them handouts, then they’d truly be doing the work of that “Lord” they purport to revere.
Agreed, but note that many of these hypocrites are Democrats. Is the goal of the so-called liberal blogosphere to drive away every single constituency group? In the past couple of days we’ve gone from “virtually ejecting”:
What next? Will we end up with only blue-collar union members as our official Democratic party? Hint: They’re mostly Republicans.
The goal is not to drive groups away. It’s to point out the hypocrisies and contradictions between word and deed with a goal of dealing with issues and problems more effectively.
I have no problem with prayer, for instance, but I fail to see the bigger benefit of embracing prayerful people if they consistently act counter to what they profess to believe.
And, of course, Democrat or Repub, it makes no difference as far as hypocrisy and double-dealing self-interest is concerned. If there’s a chance to change the majority party in congress that could be a good thing. But if we keep supportiing the same liars and deceivers and sellouts as we have been, whatever change might result may not make much of a difference.
Respectfully, I think you are. This statement here, especially.
Most people–almost everybody–have some degree of traditional conventional religious faith.
I have been hearing versions of this since I was knee-high to an altar-boy, and in my life’s experience that has been proven to be completely and absolutely false.
Perhaps I am misinterpreting what exactly you mean by “some degree of traditional conventional religious faith”?
“About two thirds of Americans (64%) report that religion is a “very important part” of their lives. This is especially true among women (74%) and African Americans (89%).”
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week534/specialreport.html
I’m sorry but, even if it were 99%, that doesn’t mean that those of us who do not ascribe to “traditional conventional religion” (whatever that means — would you define what it menas to you??) should have beliefs that are not ours held up as “the beliefs of Americans” by our govenment.
You asked why I said that most people had religious beliefs, because you didn’t see it. That’s all.
I hope we get some real, concrete information on this before people start to head back into New Orleans. Even some lefty bloggers have “refuted” that the water in NO is a “toxic soup” based upon this article:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_09/007122.php
In that piece, the EPA “stressed the uncertainty over toxic hazards that remain in flooded parts of the city.”
And let’s not forget what the EPA and others told us about toxicity in lower Manhattan after 9/11. I think it would be wise to assume it’s worse than they are telling us.
correction. the article about the enviro hazards is here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/14/AR2005091402597.html?nav=rss_nation
.
Don’t just throw all of Bush’s proposals in the waste bin. Build a coalition of Democrats and Republicans to write the New Marshall Plan for America’s Gulf Coast. The reconstruction effort and investments will be huge over a period of 10 years, much greater than the cost [=waste] of the Iraq War. A number is on the table between $200-$300bn.
I listened to the Governor of Mississippi, Haley Barbour on European broadcast of CNNi Larry King. Very sympathetic and down-to-earth remarks, which included a warning for Bush NOT to send in federal troops to take over the Reconstruction of the Gulf Coast.
The Mississippians are very well equipped and willing to reconstruct their own homes, community, townships – but need assistance from the Federal Government. Hurricane Katrine has destroyed all infrastructure along the coast that was build over a period of three centuries.
.
Much more an discussion on the air, with (D) Senator Harold Ford Jr. from Tennessee. A forum discussion on the economic impact and Federal Funding for a state disaster.
Stephen Moore– Club for Growth – did not want tax reforms repealed, spoke of needless New Deal funding of city and state disaster. Stae should seek private funding for recomnstruction. Agreed with Pork Amnesty remarks by Democrats. Estate tax reform should go ahead however and keep low taxes in place.
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Does anyone think a Republican dominated congress is going to approve $200-$300 billion spending for this?
Not a chance! Bush threw all these big numbers out knowing the true figures in the end will be far far less.
.
34 in Nursing Home Died During Katrina Flooding
NEW ORLEANS Sept. 14, 2005 — The owners of a nursing home were charged Tuesday in the deaths of dozens of patients killed by Hurricane Katrina’s floodwaters, the death toll in Louisiana jumped to 423 and President Bush accepted responsibility for the initial sluggish federal response to the disaster.
Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti charged the husband-and- wife owners of St. Rita’s nursing home in the town of Chalmette in hard-hit St. Bernard Parish with 34 counts of negligent homicide for not doing more to save their elderly patients.
«« click on pic to enlarge
A family picture is seen inside Saint Rita's Nursing Home where thirty-four people died in the floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina in Saint Bernard, Louisiana. Reuters/Carlos Barria
“The pathetic thing in this case was that [the owners] were asked if they wanted to move them and they did not,” Foti said. “They were warned repeatedly that this storm was coming. In effect, their inaction resulted in the deaths of these people.”
Salvador A. Mangano and his wife, Mabel, surrendered and were jailed.
34 Found Dead At Nursing Home In New Orleans ● VIDEO
In addition to St. Rita’s, the attorney general said he is investigating the discovery of more than 40 corpses at flooded-out Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans. A hospital official said the 106-degree heat inside the hospital as the patients waited for days to be evacuated probably contributed to the deaths.
As the water rose outside the Memorial Medical Center the day after Hurricane Katrina struck on Aug. 29, the hospital’s generators failed, leaving doctors and nurses to fan the patients to keep them cool.
With temperatures inside the hospital rising, patients began failing one by one, said Sharen Carriere, 47, a nurse who volunteered to work the hurricane and ended up staying until Aug. 31, when she was evacuated by boat.
“When you’re already ill and debilitated, dehydration and the extreme heat in there, that certainly was a contributing factor,” she said in a telephone interview on Monday. “These were sick people.”
The hospital staff began transferring patients out ahead of the hurricane, state officials said on Monday, but there were about 115 patients left on Aug. 30, the day after the hurricane, when three levees broke, sending torrents of water pouring into the city from Lake Pontchartrain. Searchers discovered 45 bodies at the hospital on Sunday, though hospital officials said some of those had died before the storm and had been in the hospital morgue.
«« click on pic to enlarge
This photo made available by Christianity Today, shows covered bodies in the Chapel at Memorial Medical Center, Baptist Campus in New Orleans on Monday, Sept. 5, 2005. According to the photographer, there were 16 bodies in the chapel. The exact number of bodies recovered Sunday from the 317-bed Memorial Medical Center was unclear. A state official said the corpses of 45 patients were found; a hospital administrator said there were 44, plus three on the grounds. It was not immediately clear how the patients died. AP Photo/ChristianityToday, Tony Carnes
None of the patients were left behind, said Ms. Carriere, who described a heroic effort by the hospital’s staff members to save those that they could. “We had no power,” she said. “We had no sanitation. We did the very best we could under extraordinary circumstances.”
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Well, I do not know what to say about this diary. I read it earlier this am and thought about it considerably.
I do pray. I do find time in my day to simply get back in touch with my innermost feelings of what life has brought me. I reflect and then I talk with my heart and then I guess one can say I pray. Prayer is something different for me. Preayer is a very useful tool for me to really get deep within my own heart and mind and think and then to the one I want to share my feelings with.
Maybe when we talk about prayer we need to consider the source of the person praying. Some do it for show..some do it for reality..some just do it, period. It is something they have been taught to do.
I am a very deep and emotionally thinking person, for the most part, or at least I would like to think I am.
I could be wrong, but we all do simular things to stay rational for our our own beliefs. Some meditate, which I have done and still do at times. Some just say out loud the words that is in their hearts and minds. I do not do this. I just feel that which in my mind and heart. I call this prayer.
I had religion shoved down my throat as a young person and I can not allow it to be done to me again. I had to find a way to deal with life for ME. This is how I pray. I still think there is a God out there…a higher being for all life. I am who I am and I accept how and what others think and feel. I am just saying what I think. NO harm intended. I have seen those in such misery that said they did not believe in anything like what many define as prayer, pray in times of dispair and need and scared shitless out of their minds. I think I understand what they were doing…this has changed my whole idea on much.
So this is where I am in my life. Thank you all for your thougths and for your ideas on this. I respect you all……..hugs…….
Just found another story that gives up the lie on the government’s position that the water in NO is not overly toxic…
How Toxic is New Orleans?
A Curse on the Men in Washington, Pentagon
om a ka ca ta ta pa ya sa svaha
As you shoot down the Vietnamese girls and men
in their fields
Burning and chopping,
Poisoning and blighting,
So surely I hunt the white man down
in my heart.
The crew-cutted Seattle boy
The Portland boy who worked for U.P.
that was me.
I won’t let him live. The “American”
I’ll destroy. The “Christian”
has long been dead.
They won’t pass on to my children.
I’ll give them Chief Joseph, the Bison herds,
Ishi, sparrowhawk, the Fir trees,
The Buddha, their own naked bodies,
Swimming and dancing and singing
instead.
As I kill the white man,
the “American”
in me
And dance out the Ghost Dance:
To bring back America, the grass and the streams.
To trample your throat in your dreams.
This magic I work, this loving I give
That my children may flourish
And yours won’t live.
hi’niswa’ vita’ki’mi
Digger Papers