Supporting the Separation of Church and State
Posts Tagged ‘Liberality’
Compassion Makes Conservatives Puke
Categorized: Politics
Tagged: Fundamentalism, Hypocrisy, Liberality, Tolerance
The Roman Catholic Church lists 7 holy virtues which include both Charity and Kindness so you would think that Compassion would be something that conservatives would embrace. Well at least you would think that if you just listened to what they say and paid no attention to their actions. Eric over at RedState has apparently decided to give up the charade however and published this … (reposted in full as its too short to excerpt from)
Only CNN and the Democrats would put together a “Compassion” forum. Isn’t the Democratic Primary already a compassion forum where Hillary and Obama express their compassion for the little guy while doing their best to avoid actually touching them?
Amazing. He managed to pack hypocrisy, racism and sexism into two sentences all the while being condescending to one of the main messages of Jesus. Pretty amazing. Not surprisingly the conservatives who comment on RedState failed to connect compassion to the teachings of Jesus as well so I decided to help them out.
Liberals are weenies. HaHa! Compassion is something that Jesus guy would talk about.
While I doubt my comment will make any difference as conservatives have an amazingly strong ability to filter out any bits of reality that differs from their own opinions. It did brighten my Monday morning though. Eric at RedState declared that an open thread so please head on over and remind them about the teachings of their professed religion.
William
WWJV4
Thomas Beatie’s Miracle
Categorized: Politics
Tagged: LGBT Rights, Liberality, Thomas Beatie, Tolerance
Thomas Beatie, the transgendered pregnant man from The Advocate, was on Oprah telling what I feel is a beautiful and romantic story. Thomas became pregnant himself instead of his wife as she is unable to become pregnant for medical reasons. The more I watch and read about the couple the more I am drawn to admire their decisions. I hope that their story helps others who are struggling to come to terms with their sexuality and body image.
Watch Oprah’s promo on this story below, and for clips from the show check out Melissa McEwan’s coverage on Shakesville .
I don’t have much more to add to this story except to say that I am very happy for the couple and I wish them and their daughter the best. Hopefully them taking the brave steps to go public with their story will progress the dialog on equal rights for everyone. It should defiantly put into question our society’s shallow view of gender and sexuality.
Not surprisingly the mainstream media has been pretty quiet about all this, with the unfortunate exception of Fox News. Never one to approach a story with tact Fox ran it with this lead “A transsexual woman who has undergone reconstructive surgery and testosterone therapy, and who calls herself a “man,” claims to be five months pregnant with a baby girl.” There is so much wrong here but what’s most offensive is the fact that Fox understands their audience and this is written perfectly for them.
By contrast The Guardian, a UK based news outlet, ran the story the following day with “An American married man, who used to be a woman before having gender reassignment surgery, has sparked shock and disbelief after claiming to be five months pregnant with a baby girl.” Notice how much more respectful and unbiased that sounds? I guess its all in how you write for your target audience.
Please let me know what you all think on this story.
The Kindness of Strangers
Categorized: Miscellaneous
Tagged: Diligence, Kindness, Liberality
Every now and then a complete stranger will do something that reaffirms my faith in humanity. Most of the time I read about them in the news, or see them on television, but very rarely I have the pleasure of being personally helped out by a stranger. Most often you only hear about the big acts of kindness, but really its the small acts that seem to make the most difference. Today I was lucky to have been on the receiving end of one of these small acts of kindness and I wanted to take a second to say thank you.
A MyBlogLog reader Cooper sent me a message letting me know that my website and RSS feed was broken. The fact that she took some of her own personal time to send me a message means a lot to me. More importantly she did so without any expectation of payment or any other selfish motives. This may seem like a minor deal for many, but I am leaving town to go to a funeral and had she not said anything my site would have been down all weekend, potentially costing me quite a bit in terms of readers and ad revenue.
Of course she had no way of knowing that I was leaving town, or even if I was aware of the problem. Thats the amazing part of doing small acts of kindness for strangers; you never know how one of them may make a huge impact on someones life. So I want to take this time and send out a huge thank you to Cooper and invite each one of you to check out her websites. Thanks!
- Wonderland or Not – Personal blog with a little social, political and pop cultural commentary added.
- Darfur: An Unforgivable Hell on Earth – Solely about humanitarian causes, in this case mainly Darfur.
- Should Be Famous – About Blogs and Bloggers who should be famous
10 Simple Tips to Making A Difference
Categorized: Activism
Tagged: Diligence, Liberality
Today is the third day of the 16 Days of activism against gender violence and I will be sharing 10 simple steps to getting involved and making a real difference. Many people are passionate about a cause but struggle to get involved because of their busy lives. I completely understand this problem. My wife and I have 5 kids, I work 2 full time jobs, and I’m a full time student. Below I have listed 10 simple steps that have worked for me and will help you get involved no matter how much free time you can spare.
#10 Subscribe to RSS Feeds – Keeping informed is the single most difficult and time consuming part of becoming active. There is simply so many great sites that there is no way to visit them all regularly enough to keep up. This is where RSS feeds and a free RSS Reader like Google Reader comes in handy. With Google Reader you can get all your news in one place and it automatically updates so you never have to go out looking for news. Try it out by subscribing to my feed here.
#9 Comment on Blogs – Joining a discussion on one of the many great liberal blogs is an excellent way to get involved and start making a difference. This can take as little as a few minutes a day and will help get you involved in the community. Look through my blogroll and find a site that interests you and get involved. Of course I welcome everyone to comment here as well.
#8 Make a Donation – Not a ground shattering suggestion but one that is still badly needed. If you have more money than time giving even a small monetary donation can really help out. If you have even a few hours to spare there are many charities that always need help. So whether you are donating money, items, or time it is very rewarding knowing that your efforts are appreciated.
#7 Attend a Local Rally – Getting involved with local groups is one of the most rewarding parts of getting active for a cause. My wife and I try to find as much time for this as possible and we never regret it. The rallies and vigils are always great fun and the media attention these rallies generate will greatly help your cause. Last month my wife and our 3 youngest attended a vigil for SCHIP and they had a wonderful time, met some great people, and helped raise awareness in the community.
#6 Write a Letter to the Editor – Taking 20 minutes and writing up a good letter to the editor of your local newspaper can have an enormous impact. Even a small newspaper has a circulation of thousands of readers who are informed and interested in local events. The return on time for writing a letter is huge as a well written letter can bring in lots of support.
#5 Contribute to Liberal Blogs – Many liberal blogs, including this one, allow contributions from readers like you. Best of all these blogs often have daily readership of tens of thousands of progressives who are open to your ideas and thoughts. Daily KOS is the largest liberal site on the internet with hundreds of thousands of daily readers and they allow you to set up a diary for free where you can write about your cause. Take advantage of these offers to get your message out there.
#4 Tell Your Friends and Family – Many people overlook the simple act of talking with their friends and family. Oftentimes you will find that the person you least expected to be interested is in fact very receptive to your ideas. In fact quite commonly you will find that some of your friends and family are more than willing to join forces with you to help out.
#3 Start a Personal Blog – While this seems intimidating for many people, in reality it is as simple as filling out a quick form. Blogger.com and Wordpress.com are both excellent, fast, easy, and FREE. There is simply no easier and faster way to make a difference than starting your own blog. In less than 2 months we have had almost 50,000 visitors and you can easily do better than that.
#2 Get Involved Locally – The more local the cause the more of an impact you can make on your own so get involved with the local government. Take advantage of open forums and contact your local representative. You will be surprised at how much even one person can accomplish working at the local level. So even if all the time you have is to write a letter to your local representative that is time well spent towards making a difference.
#1 Vote – I cant stress enough how important getting out and voting is. In our great country the will of the people is represented by elected officials. By taking part in this process you validate your own freedom and help to ensure that the best candidate is the one in office. So please get out and vote because your one vote does make a difference.
Bonus Tip: Focus on a Single Issue at First – Often times we can get distracted by all the important causes and we start trying to do too much. This just leads to a lot of wasted effort and eventual burnout as we spread ourselves too thin. Pick the issue that you are most passionate and invest only as much as you can spare. This way you will maximize your efforts and combined with the 10 tips above you can start to really make a difference in the world.
There you have it, 10 simple tips to getting involved and making a real difference. I could have easily listed more but I wanted to keep this short and sweet. The single greatest threat is apathy so please bookmark this list and send it to all your friends because only by becoming active can we expect anything to change. Thank you so much and please feel free to comment and add to the list.
~ William ~
http://wwjv4.com
Jesus Saves Boy
Categorized: Politics
Tagged: Humility, Immigration, Kindness, Liberality
Christians have been saying for a long time that Jesus saves, but it’s still nice to see it actually happen. While it would have been more symbolic on say Easter or Christmas the noble and selfless act of a young boy being saved by Jesus on Thanksgiving cannot be overlooked. Of course in this case I’m not talking about the Jesus of Christian theology. I’m talking about Jesus Manuel Cordova, an undocumented immigrant who found a 9 year old boy in the Arizona wilderness and stayed with him until help arrived. (( Bob Christie “Kin of boy saved by immigrant after Arizona desert crash found” ))
The poor child had left his badly injured mother after a car accident to find help. It was only through fortunate circumstances that Jesus Manuel Cordova found the child about two hours later. Together they returned to the accident but were unable to save the child’s mother, who was pinned inside. Jesus Manuel Cordova stayed with the child through the night, comforting him and offering his jacket and building a bonfire to keep him warm. The next morning, after some passing hunters called for help Jesus Manuel Cordova allowed himself to be detained and returned to Mexico by Border Patrol agents who were the first to respond.
Jesus Manuel Cordova is a true hero, in every sense of the word. While the Right will be quick to point out his “criminal” status they cannot diminish the selfless act that saved that boys life. Jesus Manuel Cordova is living proof that no matter how the Right tries to criminalize the undocumented immigrants who risk so much for the chance at a better life here, they cannot succeed in making them into actual criminals. So while it is true that Jesus Manuel Cordova committed a misdemeanor crime by entering the country illegially, he is a better American than many of the “true Americans” who are now attacking him. (( Lawrence Downes “What Part of ‘Illegal’ Don’t You Understand?” ))
This story, though tragic in many ways, serves to illustrate what many of us on the Left have been saying for years. Jesus Manuel Cordova and the millions of other undocumented immigrants who live and work in this country are overwhelmingly good people. They work hard, often for sub-standard wages and in unsafe conditions, for the chance to make a better life for themselves and their families. This country owes them all, not just Jesus Manuel Cordova, a debt of gratitude for it is upon the backs of immigrants that America has become the powerful nation that it has.
I know that there will always be those who hide their bigotry and racism behind conservative propaganda, and for those people not even this selfless and heroic act will change their opinions. I try to hold out hope that some of them will see that the teachings of the Christian Jesus had more in common with the actions of Jesus Manuel Cordova than to their own hatreds, intolerance, and racism. Maybe some will see that and that is why I am cutting my Thanksgiving break short to write this.
I hope everyone had a great and safe Thanksgiving. As we finish up our celebrations, and eat the last of our Thanksgiving leftovers, I hope each one of you can take a second to give thanks that a man was there when a little boy needed him. I hope that someday our laws are fixed, and Jesus Manuel Cordova and the millions like him, can live without ever needing to make the decision between freedom and saving a life. So Jesus Manuel Cordova, Summer and I thank you, even though you will not get to spend the holidays in America as you had dreamed, there is a child that does because you were here.
~ William Ludwig ~
http://wwjv4.com
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