the Wordherder Online

Well, it has come to this…

After failing to get BP on-board with James Cameron and Kevin Costner, Hollywood has recruited another celebrity humanitarian with extensive experience that would greatly aid BP in plugging its leak:   Richard Gere

Richard Gere (right) and Lemmiwinks jr. (left)

Well, we can only hope Richard Gere can finally help BP plug the leak. He is confident that his way will work better than the golf ball technique BP used early in the tragedy. Clearly the voice of experience!

I offer my Facebook friends the special privilege of reading my ridiculously long comments to their simple little status posts. Sometimes these turn into fun and stimulating debates, sometimes my “friends” quickly search for the “ignore user” option that Facebook supplies.

One such moment occurred sometime this morning as the sun began to peek up from the horizon. The topic was of Religion because certainly there is no better way to begin an early Monday morning than to challenge someone online with opposition to their views on Religion.

Behold!  an unedited (ok, edited slightly for length) transcript and proof of why I annoy the hell out of otherwise faithful Facebook friends:

Nell: thinks anyone who claims to believe that there is no God is either ignorant or full of shit. There, I said it.

Jeremy: “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?” – Nietzsche

I think Nietzsche was not debating in god as a concept… only that we seem either too arrogant, too ignorant, or perhaps too self-reliant that we have stopped looking to heavens for the answers we continually seek.

Nell:
I think it’s a bit arrogant to think that human kind has the power to destroy its creator, even if it is only symbolic, since we are the ones that are truly dying, physically, and in the given case, spiritually. Interesting concept, though. One of my favourite quotes is from Nietzsche.

Jeremy:
it might be something different than arrogance… or at least arrogance with a purpose.

one of the most universal moments that all animals, most especially humans, share is a moment in their life where they must separate from the nest, so to speak for us at least… in order to live their own personal lives and make their own personal choices. this leads first to discovering one’s self which in turn aids in finding that perfect mate for us to reproduce the best possible future of our species.

as people, we go through teenage years of building defiance to our parents… some sooner, some longer, some worse, some better, than others.  though it doesn’t always seem obvious… this helps us discover self-reliance to allow us to create our own lives away from our parents.

what if, as human civilisation progressed to the point that most Western cultures have achieved, we have reached a point in our species development to strike out on our own?  Nietzsche meant this when he talked that we killed god.  Whether god is a wizard in the sky, a force of nature, a form of fate, a flying spaghetti monster, or even a balance of dark and light… none of us can really truly speak of knowing.   but i don’t think that matters really in the slightest.

if god exists and an atheist doesn’t believe god exists, god still exists. if god does not exist and those of faith believe that god does exist, god still does not exist.

but if we find answers, questions, strengths, weaknesses, happiness, or sadness in either the belief or disbelief of a god… the THOSE are what truly exist. those are and have always mattered more. and those are undeniable.  if i find strength in a faith… no one can tell me that i don’t find strength in a faith.  in the end… it doesn’t matter at all what we call our higher powers, does it?  it has never mattered what name we give them, what face, image, or depiction that we give them. it has never mattered what stories we pretend that they command us to spread, does it?    what matters and has always mattered is a very personal thing that we might not be too good at sharing because perhaps it was never meant to be shared.  its our own faith, our own strength.   and i think the realisation of that is what killed God because it brings god’s purpose into us.  and no one outside of us could ever say a damn thing about what we have inside ourselves.

I think I rather like that response. Well, of course I do… its MY response, lol. Can’t argue with personal belief, right?  haha.

From MSNBC.msn.com

HONOLULU – Hawaii is a step closer to joining a small group of other states in allowing same-sex civil unions.

In a move that still needs the governor’s signature to become law, the House of Representatives Thursday night approved a measure that has drawn some of the state’s biggest protest rallies.

Republican Gov. Linda Lingle hasn’t said whether she’ll reject it or sign it into law but her office said later that she will carefully review the bill.

The House voted 31-20 in favor of the legislation, which had been stalled but was unexpectedly revived on the last day of this year’s legislative session. The Senate passed it in January.

The measure would grant gay and lesbian couples the same rights and benefits that the state provides to married couples.

If approved, Hawaii will become one of six states — along with California, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon and Washington — to grant essentially all the rights of marriage to same-sex couples without authorizing marriage itself.

Five other states and the District of Columbia permit same-sex marriage: Iowa, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connecticut.

The Aloha State has been a battleground in the gay rights movement since the early 1990s.

A 1993 Hawaii Supreme Court ruling nearly made Hawaii the first state to legalize same-sex marriage before voters in the state overwhelmingly approved the nation’s first “defense of marriage” constitutional amendment in 1998.

The measure gave the Legislature the power to reserve marriage to opposite-sex couples. It resulted in a law banning gay marriage in Hawaii but left the door open for civil unions.

This year the issue has proven divisive in Hawaii with religious groups arguing that civil unions are a step toward legalizing same-sex marriage. During one of the biggest ever state rallies, several thousand people protesting the measure rode buses to the Hawaii Capitol last year following Sunday church services.

The gay and lesbian community urged lawmakers to act on their principles rather than back down in the face of public pressure from opponents threatening to vote them out of office.

Civil-union supporters wearing rainbow-colored leis, or flower necklaces, jumped and screamed for joy outside the House chamber following the vote.

“Hawaii is the Aloha State, and this vote shows that the greater community has love and acceptance for everyone,” said supporter Van Law.

Disappointed civil union opponents wearing red “iVote” buttons as a warning to legislators this election season quickly departed the Hawaii Capitol, with only a few lagging behind.

“Civil unions are a step down the very slippery slope toward legalizing same-sex marriage,” said Rachel Nakasaki, a Christian who believes traditional marriage between a man and a woman should be preserved.

Hawaii’s civil union legislation appeared to be dead in January, when the House didn’t take a vote on the measure and postponed it indefinitely out of fears that Lingle would veto.

The issue was revived Thursday after every other bill introduced this year had been acted on. Democratic House Majority Leader Blake Oshiro made the motion to reconsider the bill, although the House fell three votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to override the governor.

The bill was written so that civil unions would be available to both same-sex and opposite-sex couples to avoid claims of discrimination.

“Equality feels really good,” said Suzanne King, who said Hawaii would recognize her Massachusetts marriage to her partner as a civil union if the bill becomes law. “It allows us to strengthen our family.”

If Lingle vetoes the bill, it’s unlikely lawmakers would return to the Capitol to try to override her. They lack enough votes, and it’s an election year where legislators are hesitant to take stands on contentious social issues unless they’re forced to, as they were during Thursday’s roll-call vote.

“I’m looking forward to not coming back,” said Democratic Speaker of the House Calvin Say.

There is something historically significant occurring today… the disastrous oil rig explosion that led to what is looking like to be the worst environmental oil disaster of all time comes during a significant debate between leftist environmental concerns and the right “Drill Baby, Drill!” rhetoric. Environment vs. Profit. In this age of economic turmoil existing parallel to global climate change concerns we seem now, through immediate concerns instead of ideologies, at an important crossroads to which a decision will dramatically impact not only our immediate future but also any long term realities as well.

Our leaders now make decisions that will very importantly change each and every citizen’s lives and lifestyles. Shouldn’t we be a bit more concerned about all of this?

from boston.com:

To young voters, socialism isn’t a bad word

TIM ROESCH, a 46-year-old tea party supporter at last Wednesday’s rally on the Common, was not happy with a group of nearby college students.

“You should get a group picture and send it to your parents,’’ he grumbled at them. He was displeased with the signs they held, which hefound offensive; one referred to folks like him with a derogatory sexual term. He blamed the youthful flippancy on a lack of critical thinking and genuine knowledge as to how the world works. “They don’t understand what socialism means. They don’t understand what democracy means.’’

But it’s not that the youngest voters don’t know what socialism means. It’s that most aren’t scared of it — and find it bizarre that, decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a political movement would center itself around opposition to it. The fact that both the tea party and the Republican Party have made vociferous opposition to “socialist’’ policies a key part of their rhetoric helps explain the tepid response among young adults.

Republican strategists see short-term advantages in the tea party movement’s passion. But if conservatives can’t wean themselves off of Cold-War-era rhetoric, they risk alienating an entire generation of young people. The tea party is well on its way to doing just that. A recent New York Times/CBS News survey found that three-quarters of the movement’s supporters were older than 45.

Behind the main crowd at the Boston Common rally, counter-protesters and protesters mixed and argued amidst a carnival-like atmosphere that included costumed provocateurs and what felt like every fringe group in the state handing out pamphlets. But younger attendees expressed skepticism about the tea party message.

Naveed Easton, a 19-year-old Emerson student, said he thought the group was out of touch. “You can notice the shift in society over the past 30 years,’’ he said. “It’s just getting more and more open-minded, and some people are just very resistant to a progressive society. Especially when it comes to, like, ‘Oh, that’s a socialist program!’ ’’

And if the health care reform bill actually were socialist? He shrugged off that concern. “Socialism itself isn’t terrible,’’ he said, unless it involves the abrogation of individual rights.

Easton is just one college student, of course — a liberal one in a liberal town. But his views are far from radical among his peers. A year ago a Rasmussen Reports poll found that Americans under 30 are essentially equally divided on whether socialism or capitalism is a superior economic system.

This may shock those who lived through the Cold War, but there’s nothing irrational about it. Young people grew up in a post-Soviet world. When they hear “socialism,’’ they think Scandinavia, not Russia. They’re much more likely to be struggling with student-loan or credit-card bills than to have been affected one iota by the sort of government overreach that can be credibly tied to socialism.

Conservatives can continue beating the dead horse of socialism. But if they want to finally build a youthful infrastructure they should heed the lesson of Wednesday’s rally. The graying tea party throng cheered wildly when Sarah Palin took the stage; the younger spectators stood around the edges of the crowd — looking unimpressed.