Hell on Earth

I don’t know where to start. I read today’s paper and was so disgusted at the state of our area I had to stop. Let’s look at the offending headlines.

Two abduct elderly woman
Berkeley County: One of West Virginia’s most polluted

Why did these two young people (one 15) kidnap and sexually assault a 70 year old woman? The paper says for money to buy drugs. Everyone can brush this off as an isolated case of two drug addicts just trying to get a fix, but I can not. When the day before a woman’s purse is stolen outside a large grocery store in the middle of the afternoon, it seems like a trend. The drug problem in the eastern Panhandle is enormous, whether it is talked about in the paper or by our elected officials or not. When are we going to realize that the problem is economics? Poor people and middle class no longer have a real opportunity at the American dream or even believe this opportunity ever existed. They begin their withdraw from society with occasional drug use and then steadily graduate to harder drugs and then to violent crimes to support their habits.
My heart goes out to this poor, elderly lady, but we also need to look deeply into the two boys lives and see what went wrong. Could we as a society have seen this coming and stopped it before it came to this? Is this just the price we must pay for a growing community or should we aspire to be a better community? Why does a growing, flourishing community have a seedy underbelly that has to go with it? As a local pharmacist I am tired of drug addicts coming into my pharmacy every day asking to buy needles for their insulin dependant grandmothers. Would it be wrong for me to turn these names over to the police?
I believe this is the price we pay when we chose to allow corporations to run our lives. People no longer feel any type of ownership to a community. When Wal-Mart is the community store your town is dead, and you can bet that the quality of life is falling like the prices at Wal-Mart.
I have been all over the map here, but am still at my wits end as to how this type of heinous crime could be becoming the norm in my community. The reason this has upset me so is because Rt. 480 where this abduction took place is only ½ mile from my house. My wife and children are home all day and it just as easily could have been their paths that these drug addicts crossed.

Let’s see if the local politicians take up this crime the way they have the animal abuse cases. Let’s see if the public outcry is the same for this poor woman as it was for the ducks and the dogs.

I am too upset to take up the second headline now.

Republican Priorities

Well we once again only have to look at the budget compromise between the House and Senate Republicans to see that they no longer care about the average American and only care about their wealthy friends.

Poorest Americans---Cut 35 Billion out of Medicaid funding
Richest Americans---Get 106 Billion dollars worth of tax cuts

The Republicans have no problem passing debt on to the next generation as long as their wealthy friends are taken care of now. Bush has dumped huge amounts of money into the large corporations coffer to try and show that the economy is growing but at a cost of killing the economy in the future. What happens when all the debts come due? We are headed for a crash and the Republicans are hoping that they are not in power when it happens. Americans can no longer afford to play partisan politics. The stakes are just too high.

The only thing that Mr. Bush said tonight that I fully agree with is that Americans want their elected officials to solve problems not pass them on to the next generation. Solving problems only gets harder with time. Now if our elected officials went to Washington to solve problems instead of protect their jobs life would be good. Partisan politics would be limited and America might actually be put first in line.

My biggest problem with the Bush plan for Social Security is that he has yet to put forth a plan. He and the Republicans constantly criticize the Democrats for not offering up a plan but he has not put an actual plan forward yet. He has run all over this country (wasting tax payer money) campaigning in front of hand picked audiences about Social Security without having a real plan to fix the solvency issue.

I wish I could talk about my Congresswoman, the Honorable Shelley Moore Capito, but all I can say about her is when forced to a vote she sides with the Republicans. If she is not forced to vote then she answers she is looking into the issue. I have written her many times and have asked her where she stands on multiple issues and have never gotten a definitive answer. I just do not see this as a leadership quality that I want in an elected official. I hope she decides to run for Senate against Robert C. Byrd because then we will be rid of her.

Keep Right and we will go wrong!

Why is this country headed further and further to the right???? Real Americans have real problems and they are voting against their best interest. How do we show them that electing Democrats is in their best interest? How do we get out from under the tax and spend label? How do we get the Eastern Panhandle, the second Congressional District, and the White House back? Do we continue to polarize or do we try to unify?
I think Democrats do need to stay united and fight every piece of bad legislation the Republicans put out by attacking the Republicans in their home districts that would be most affected by the bad legislation. In other words force Republicans to vote against it or face the voters at home. We need to inform, inform, inform.
Here in the Eastern Panhandle we need to be attacking Corporate Capito every day with her voting record. She votes against working class West Virginians daily, but gets to run all over her district handing out cash. It looks like she is doing great things for West Virginia when she is on the front page of the paper handing communities money, but of course this money is a mear pitance compared to the money she gives large corporations in the form of tax breaks and incentives. She is a virus which must be stopped before she kills the host. We all know that 98 percent of incumbents get re-elected. Our mission should we choose to accept it is-How do we put her in the 2 percentile???

W does not lie!!!

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=542&e=2&u=/ap/20050423/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/terror_report

Condi, Colin, George, Dick, Karl, Paul, Rummy lie to the American people to make them selves look good? No Way! And do it before the election to make the number of terrorist attacks around the world look smaller than they are, you have got to be kidding.

If the American people still believe that they can trust anything coming out of this administrations mouth they have their heads in the sand. Let me count the ways they love us.

1. Iraq and Al Qaeda are linked
2. Saddam has weapons of mass destruction
3. George knows nothing about Jeff Gannon and Talon News
4. Medicare prescription drug bill will cost 400 Billion.
5. Bush Administration does not produce propaganda.
6. Bush administration does not pay columnist.
7. Global Warming is rubbish.
8. Drilling in ANWR will lower gas prices and relieve our dependence on foreign oil.
9. John Kerry will take your guns.
10. and my favorite----“They hate us for our freedom.”

The good news about the last one is the Bush administration is doing everything it can to erode away the freedoms we have so the terrorist will not hate us. Thank God, for George W. If God did not choose him to be our President in 2000, where would we be today?

The Bible as truth

Tonight I was preparing a presentation on the Bible. How can we as Christians today fight the popular view of Christianity being portrayed by the media and fundamentalist? Marcus Borg does a wonderful job of explaining how one who has trouble with the views of popular Christianity can survive in today’s world. He explains in his book “The Heart of Christianity” that one does not have to read the Bible literally to take it very seriously. In fact to read the Bible literally will never allow the Bible its full voice. Borg’s emerging paradigm describes the Bible using the adjectives, historical, metaphorical, and sacramental.

Historical- The Bible is a product of 2 historical communities, ancient Israel and the early Christian movement.
He goes on to explain that it is a human, not a divine product. This is where the fundamentalist would cry foul, but Borg explains that this in no way denies the realities of God. Rather, it sees the response of these two ancient communities to God.

Metaphorical- Everyone knows what a metaphor is and some see it as not being true. Borg explains that a metaphorical reading of the Bible allows for deeper meaning and while not factually true it can be true to the heart. Borg speaks of metaphorical truths not metaphorical fictions. Borg’s last point is not to “believe” in a metaphor—but to “see” with it. Thus the point is not to believe in the Bible—but to see our lives with God through it.

Sacramental- “the Bible is a sacrament, a human product whereby God become present to us.” Until the end of time, God will be able to speak to us through the Bible and we need a relational approach to it.

As Christians we must study the Bible and look for the real truths in the message not look for errors, or reasons for exclusion, hate, or to use it as a weapon.

I will leave you with a few lines Borg uses to explain the metaphorical approach

A line a catholic priest once said in a sermon “The Bible is true, and some of it happened”

A Native American storyteller’s line about the beginning of his tribe “Now I don’t know if it happened this way or not, but I know this story is true”

Black and White no longer makes Gray

Why does the world and everyone in it have to be black and white? Why can we not see that there is more than one side to every issue and actually have a debate about the issues? Is it Republican or Democrat? Is it conservative or liberal? Is it Christian or Agnostic? Is it Muslim or Jewish? Is it Rich or Poor? Is it black or is it white? That is what politics and the voices of the media have come to and this is why we can not discuss what is really happening to this world.
What is the answer? Do we kick out the loudest voices (which are normally the minorities) and go from there? How do we get the middle ground to take a stand and say I am not going to put up with the dirty politics any longer? How do we get America back on track? How do we take back our country and our voices?
I am not going to provide any answer tonight. I just want everyone to ponder the questions. I have had to work the last 8 out of 9 days and am to tired to provide the answers.

Please help me.

Condi, you so crazy!

I love how the White House and all of Bush’s yes men and women have responded to the Weapons of Mass destruction report. This the report that the White House purposely stalled until after the election, the report that was not allowed to criticize how the White House used the “Dead Wrong” information. Condi Rice says that just because the information was wrong and just because we do not have good intelligence on weapons of mass destruction that Iran or North Korea may or may not have, we can not “UNDER REACT”. I guess we are to continue the policy of preemptive war, the policy that terrorizes other countries women and children, the policy that allows us to torture and kill detainees.
As long as America supports state sponsored terrorism in Israel we will never beat terrorism. It is amazing that the world can not even agree on the definition of terrorism. What is terrorism? As long as we are occupiers there will be freedom fighters against us. I am in no way saying that the events of Sept. 11th were not terrorism, but I am saying by claiming that it was an act of war, we will never win. If we were willing to claim the act was criminal the rest of the world was with us. Then we would have had a police force mentality instead of a war mentality. No one wins in a war.
This administration just does not get it. There are other options than to continue to fight fire with fire. There are other options than bombing someone who bombs you. Violence begets violence! Why must we continue our “Biggest Bully” mentality??????

No film of little Jimmy's birth-Damn Lawyers

Doctors are deciding to no longer allowing filming of child birth. They say they do not want the footage to become exhibit #1 in a malpractice case. What a bunch of malarkey! Hospital surgeries are routinely filmed. West Virginia urologist no longer perform vasectomies in the office, they make you go to the hospital so it can be taped.
This is nothing but a continuous barrage of misinformation by doctors to try and get the public to support them in lobbying state representatives to take away individuals rights to legal recourse in cases of malpractice. The doctors are being manipulated by insurance companies and they are in turn manipulating us.
Insurance premiums have gone up across the board ever since the tech bubble burst in the NASDAQ. It is not the doctors’, the consumers’, or the lawyers’ fault that the insurance companies lost so much money in the stock market fall. It should also not be our job to build their surpluses back. Now we are being lied to as to why all premiums are rising at out of control cost. Everyone is blaming the legal system for the increase in premiums but they are just the scapegoat.
I am not a lawyer and as a person who has been sued by a frivolous lawsuit, I am the first to say reform does need to be made. But, to just cap damages across the board, to take away third party bad faith lawsuits, and to even think about believing the insurance industry is a big mistake. It only helps in the promotion of continued, unchecked corporate greed of which our Republican leaders are so in favor.
If West Virginia wants to lower the malpractice claims against doctors then get rid of the bad doctors. 3.5 % of West Virginia doctors are responsible for 36.5% of malpractice payments. These 3.5% have each had 3 or more claims against them. Of doctor who have had 10 or more malpractice payments only 1 out of 7 have been disciplined. Maybe it is time to break the white coat code and discipline and get rid of the bad doctors. They cost us much more than an increase in malpractice claims, their bad medicine also cost people lives and increased health care cost.