Jesus!

I posted another comment at Draft Ciresi! Let’s see if they respond.

Really, it should be very easy for them to combat my assertions that they’re Thune-style Republican bloggers trying to pass themselves off as DFLers. If they were real, don’t you think Ciresi’s people would know more about this? 

Another shabby fraud from shabby people whose first instinct is to always lie, cheat and mislead.

And again, they should email me if they’re for real. There are lots of ways they could establish their bona fidés, and I promise not to reveal their true identities if they come forward to talk to me in confidence. 

I leaned Ciresi pretty strongly earlier in this cycle, and if Draft Ciresi! is for real, I’d be glad to coach them on helping their blog achieve its goal. As it stands, they’re probably more of an impediment to Ciresi getting back in than they realize with their focus on destroying Al, but not tearing down Norm.

A couple of years ago the local political media all knew that paid Republican party activist and strategist Michael Brodkorb was anonymously sliming Democrats with his phony Thune style Minnesota Democrats Exposed blog. Now the local media is bemusedly linking to Draft Ciresi!, but they’re not questioning what’s really going on. 

Dirty tricks aren’t cute, and this should be the #1 political mystery in Minnesota right now, not more tired attacks on Franken by Bush speechwriter/hacks.

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Thanks to Charlie, I now know that Mitch thinks SUV is some kind of defamatory word like kerstenated or bushian.

I think he’s right. Words are heavy things, and no one wants a fresh load of Kersten (or SUV) dropped on them.

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Fun with RSS readers. (Click the Birkey link to get the joke.)

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James Kunstler explains our ag mess, while John Feffer ties it all together by explaining why North Korea’s agricultural efforts imploded. The applicability to our own situation is pretty much 1:1.

Good Spotty.

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Book buyers should check out the new Progressive Book Club. Buddy Vick has details. [more on that from David Neiwert]

Wisconsin-based crony WINston SmITh explores the Bakken Oil Boom, the so-called upper Midwestern Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile, Mick from the East Coast uses Theodore Dreiser to analyze the American religious renaissance. Good, deep reading. See also his wagon-circling post at Fact-esque.

No one I know, but Francis Wilkinson gets some pixels in the WaPost to discuss biracial candidates. Barack Obama may be a complicated person, but the bulk of his complexity comes from our culture, not anything within him. Watching Mandingo (just out on DVD finally) won’t help explain this man because his father’s family was not dragged here in chains. Understanding British colonial policies in East Africa would be a better study guide for where Barack’s Obama side comes from.

And The Back Forty’s seanreagan reminds us that winning won’t be pretty, especially on plantation row.

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Neal Pollack writes a vaguely amusing partially accurate account of what taking salvia divinorum is like, and for some reason it really pisses tristero off.

No clue what that’s about, but I wouldn’t rely on either of these guys to be my sober guide. I love music, and have listened to or have everything tristero links to, but what that has to do with taking salvia, I can’t imagine.

Does tristero think every Iowa farm kid just kicks the shit off his boots and settles into avant garde culture? or does he realize that music is just part of a much larger culture of expanded personal horizons? You don’t get to gamelan music via Johnny Cash, you get there because something you took opened your mind to new experiences.

That or you backdoor in through Lou Harrison. Same diff.

And, just in case tristero trackbacks to this item, I really, really liked the score for Voices of Light but dude, don’t think for a second I’d be into that kind of music if I’d never smoked pot or dropped hallucinogens. Sure drugs can cloud your brain, but they can also strip away the bullshit and help you to again value those things you would have otherwise left behind.

Sure, it’s probably best to attend a conservatory and learn about music from experts, but we don’t all have that option. I just hope tristero won’t be even more pissed when he discovers that some of us like to mix our classically inclined soundtracks with lounge music. Voices of Light, for example, really goes well with the Geisha Lounge collection….

And do try to see a restored version of The Passion of St. Joan sometime. Richard Einhorn’s Voices of Light score combines with the incredibly strong B&W imagery to create a whole much greater than its parts.

Especially if you’re Disney-strength stoned.

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Digby reminds us that the right doesn’t truly drown us with their bullshit, they just let their sewage drip, drip, drip into our water supply, with even more devastating results than if they unloaded their manure spreader full of allegations all along Main Street.

Seriously, reading the wrong media is more harmful to your health than buying discounted tomatoes from that Mexican truck parked next door in an empty lot.

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Fair and balanced obit. (and more fair and balanced “facts”)

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I’ve been engaged in a dialogue with a very nice Christian I met at Target a while back. He just sent me this link, and for my money, it’s one of the most vicious propaganda attacks I’ve ever read. 

Christians don’t just deny the true teachings of Christ, they demolish anyone or any group that challenges the authenticity of the Roman-influenced New Testament. Read this one carefully and note that the author never really discusses the actual St. Thomas fragments. The entire article is simply one long attack on groups that have used the St. Thomas fragments to promote their own causes. 

I believe there was an historical Jesus. I also think we don’t know shit about him, his teachings, or what he was really about, and the reason why is that the power-hungry church won’t let any competing narratives take root in the public forum. They don’t care if you make up shit like golden plates or e-meters, but if you dare suggest women were equal to men in the eyes of Jesus, they melt down completely.

If I had to boil down the history of the early church to just a few words, they would be homosexual priests write women out of the New Testament as they consolidate their chokehold on the gullible masses while kissing Roman ass.

Gays are fine, but not when they’re women-hating misanthropic priests who are more into being on the sharing end of pain than the giving end of love.

 

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