BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

Too good to not post! Dear Mark Heard, Hey, so I heard about your little service in which you convince true-believing Christians to sign up to email their friends and loved ones after the Rapture takes them and leaves all the lesser Christians behind to suffer under the rule of the Antichrist for 7 years. Um, dude, I don't know if you put the dates together on this one, but George W. Bush took office in 2001. You're kind of the ones that got left behind. But I wanted to give you some advice from out here (where, by the way, it's pretty fucking cool). I'll admit, I too figured I'd be the one suffering in the Rapture, no doubt. I left the Church when I was 17 (not that Catholics are eligible anyway, right?) and I've professed to being too lesser a being to know the nature of God thus never picked up another religion (it's sort of hard to pick when each says all the others are wrong and you're not sure any of them are right). Plus, you know, I had sex outsi...

SAFER WITH CHRISTIANS IN CHARGE? By now, unless you've been in a cave for the last week, everyone knows or heard what Ann Coulter said about Jews needing to be perfected. I blogged about it myself. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to realize Ann loves selling books and doing paid speaking engagements. Those little black dresses and teeny thongs cost big money! And Ann's hate speech and stupidity make news, news creates interest and interest sells books and keeps Ann in the spotlight. That nasty mouth of hers is P.R. even money can't buy. Disaster sells. Unfortunately. (just look at all the press Brittany gets later) But both Coulter and Justice Scalia get it wrong about merging religion and government. Something our founding fathers knew for sure was a recipe for disaster. Yet, President Chimpy and his neocons are trying to lock step the country to Christianity; helped along by stupidity like Coulter & Scalia's. Safer with Christians in Charge? Apparent...

HOW TO MAKE FRIENDS & INFLUENCE PARISHONERS My Nana, of blessed memory, used to tell me, "Barbara, even a worm will turn." What she meant was, given enough time, power and sense of entitlement - some people will even turn on those who were once their friends. My Nana was a formidable woman in her own right and she was on point with that observation. It was she, who was a devout Catholic, who got our family to break the tradition of no meat on Friday - well before the Church said O.K. And I watched her mince no words with a Monseignor who was angry that yours truly was actually reading the Bible as a teenager. We see it in Judaism, we see it in politics, we see it in everyday life. Sometimes you just can't please people - the more you try to make things right or do something good for them - the nastier and more accusatory they get. Pope Benedict XVI is on a roll and has really been working overtime to bring back the good old days. I am just waiting for a new In...

Has God Changed the Rules? A psychiatrist takes the pulse of America's Christians by Carol Wolman This is a very confusing time. The most powerful nation in the world, led by a "Christian" president and backed by a "Christian" coalition, is flouting every law of God and man, slaughtering and torturing at will. Yet Bush is so thoroughly identified as a man of God in the eyes of his followers, that they put his name inside the fish symbol, and use it as a bumper ornament. Eighty-five percent of Americans identify themselves as Christians, as followers of Jesus Christ. Jesus taught us to love our neighbors, love our enemies, and to forgive seventy times seven, not to punish and retaliate. As Jim Wallis and Sojourners magazine repeatedly point out, Jesus was nonviolent, healing people and raising them from the dead rather than maiming and killing as the "Christian" government of the US is doing. How can we understand this schizophrenia, this refusal to see...

I Guess Cleopatra Isn't the Only Queen of Denial... Katherine Harris, that paragon of upright-judgment, is at it again, as many of you likely know. There's been much good written about her statement that the Seperation of Church and State is a lie. Check out Vince Isner of Faithful America for a particularly well-put response. Crossposted from Faithful America First it was Oral Roberts... then Robert Tilton...then Pat Robertson... Now it seems Florida Representative and candidate for Senate Katherine Harris(remember the hanging chad?)is now claiming to speak for God. Now listen up all you Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Unitarians, and other non-Christian U.S. citizens: If you are not electing Christians to represent you, you are simply legislating sin... according to Ms. Harris, that is. I suppose her most bizarre, off-the-wall comment is that GOD chooses our leaders... If this is true, then why did HER party go to such lengths to impeach one of "God's le...