Monday, November 07, 2005

 

Surreality check

Somehow this parody of a news story from The Onion got on The AP wire!

--ER


By Deb Riechmann
ASSOCIATED PRESS
via the San Diego Union-Tribune

PANAMA CITY, Panama – President Bush vigorously defended U.S. interrogation practices in the war on terror Monday and lobbied against a congressional drive to outlaw torture.

Read all about it.

Comments:
There is one difference, the Onion is funny.
 
"We don't torture because we carefully defined the things we do as "not torture." Hence, since we don't torture, there's no need to make torture illegal; doing so is just a waste of Congress's time. They should be focusing on American priorities, like whether or not to recognize the 40th anniversary of Vatican II's Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, Nostra Aetate, and the continuing need for mutual interreligious respect and dialogue.
 
Almost Kafka-esque, don't you think?

Are you tired yet of the things this (mal)Admisitration is doing in your name?
 
RSB, I don't believe I've been defending it lately, although I might not attack it to suit you sufficiently. Or was that a universal you and your?

Oh, B. Jack Chick says Catlicks are bad!

--ER
 
Well of course we are. We worship saints, which means we don't worship the One True God. And we have that spooky Pope guy, who gets in the way of personal relationships with God. And we have that whole spooky mass thing going on. And we drink wine at mass. And, worst of all, we sometimes even pray to Mary--a woman!

I gotta admit, though, they've got a point about the Pope.
 
Sorry, ER, shoulda specified. That was the universal "your". Or more appropriately "my". Dang, these guys are wearing me out. Everything seems to be going so wrong, the war, tax cuts for the rich while food stamps for the poor are cut off, New Orleans drowning in incomptence, torture, culture wars, indictments, people claiming they know what God thinks. The list could go on! In my 45+ years in the world, I don't remember ever being quite this discouraged. Or cynical. (And I dispise cynicism!)

Where are the leaders who are going to bring us truly together? How did the 60-70% of the population who are fairly reasonable, moderate types get marginalized? Why do we let the fringes from each party drive the entire governing (as distinct from political) agenda? I don't know, but I feel like the process has been hijacked, and dammit, I want my country back.

Now, how was that for a fine Virginia whine?
 
B, you should be Orthodox then. Popeless Catholicism as far as I can tell. More conservative -- in all things -- though, I think. Maybe not.

RSB, Sometimes systems can't be fixed until they're totally broken beyond repair. I think it's actually a spiritual thing, because that usually seems to be when God actually starts to heal individuals spiritually: after they're broken and have given up.

Which means this is the Beginning of Sorrows for this grand land, not the end. We ain't seen nothin' yet, in other words.

Or, it could be that the country we lost is forever gone. It's happened time and again in our history.

And if we are the "outs," then, well, it'll take some reconfiguring with other outs to get back in -- after those in power today finally start cannibalizing one another. And that probably won't be too long, in the overall scheme of things.

--ER
 
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