How Obama Is Losing It

I think I posted earlier (or maybe that was on Twitter) a comment about the President that went like this: ” Obama carefully preparing to get angry about the oil spill.”

Wherever I posted it, that was weeks ago.  The oil is still gushing.  Americans were convinced in 2008 that he would finally be a President who would fight for them.  Represent them.  Get angry and passionate for them.  They must now feel stranded.  I’m disappointed to say the least.

President Barack Obama has effectively and with great skill, marginalized himself through all of this–the oil spill, health care, Afghanistan.  For all of the things he’s done in his more than 1 year as President, what his non-reaction to and seeming internal confusion about each of these major issues suggest is that he’s lost the command he so easily gained during his campaign.

During his 2008 campaign he was a warrior.  Now he looks like a man defeated.

During his campaign he convinced me that he was one who was too smart to use political propaganda–who knew that Americans were tired of political posturing.  He seemed to me to be above it all.  He was a clear break from the normal politician–he was here for the people and not to protect his own political viability.  He was the American President.

Maybe he would be one of those Presidents who didn’t care who he offended as long as he defended the American people from politics run amok.

That’s what I hoped then.  That’s not at all what I see now.  What I see now is a President too scared to offend anybody at  all.  A President who confuses diplomacy with being a doormat.  Who isn’t taking charge at all, but is being blown away by the harsh political winds of Washington DC.

At the risk of saying something that sounds like it’s from the intro to MTV’s “Real World”, President Obama needs to stop being careful and start leading this country.

Here’s a part of Peggy Noonan’s peice:

The president, in my view, continues to govern in a way that suggests he is chronically detached from the central and immediate concerns of his countrymen. This is a terrible thing to see in a political figure, and a startling thing in one who won so handily and shrewdly in 2008. But he has not, almost from the day he was inaugurated, been in sync with the center. The heart of the country is thinking each day about A, B and C, and he is thinking about X, Y and Z. They’re in one reality, he’s in another.

Here’s her complete article:  Peggy Noonan: He Was Supposed to Be Competent – WSJ.com.

Teens Take Vodka Straight Up – Through Their Eyes – TIME NewsFeed

Things are getting stupider.  The newest trend among teenagers–evidently only among white teenagers–is called eyeballing.

Eyeballing is taking shots of vodka  not through their mouth–no, that would make too much sense–but through their eyes.

I wonder what my optometrist thinks of this.

Teens Take Vodka Straight Up – Through Their Eyes – TIME NewsFeed.

Science and Theology As Partners

Science and religion are both their own unique searches for truth, but, as Michael Zimmerman points out in his article Religion and Science: Respecting the Differences, the means by which science gets its ideas are rooted in method rather than simple  assertion.

A piece:

Where does that leave religion? Well, it depends what you mean by religion. When religion (or more likely its fundamentalist adherents) begins to make claims in the complete absence of evidence and in a manner that is not falsifiable, and when those claims are passed off as scientific, the record must be set straight. Creationism, in all of its guises, including intelligent design, regularly makes claims of exactly this sort. Rather than addressing evidence, creationists simply make faith statements and expect that those faith statements be taught in science classes.

Zimmerman goes on to praise the United Methodist Church, for one, for making this particular assertion at its quadrennial conference in 2008:

Be it resolved that the General Conference of the United Methodist Church go on record as opposing the introduction of any faith-based theories such as Creationism or Intelligent Design into the science curriculum of our public schools.

Unfortunately, the UMC and other more progressive denominations are in the minority when it comes to inviting science into theology.

Intolerance towards science abounds in other, more fundamentalist strains of  all faith traditions.

On a more personal note, I have heard a story from a former fellow seminary student who said the administrative assistant at the church she did her summer internship at told her she believed that Satan planted dinosaur bones in the ground to mislead us all into thinking that the world was older than creationists say it is.  I other words: dinosaurs never existed; they are fabrications of satan.  This coming from a Presbyterian.  And I’m sure she’s not alone in her cosmic conspiracy theories.

As long as this sort of ignorance exists within the Church–within faith at all–the entire Church, as well as faith itself, looses out on the very thing it says it possesses: the Way towards Truth.

Allen Ginsberg: Poet And Photographer : NPR

Beautiful shots of a forgotten photographer and submerged poet.

Allen Ginsberg: Poet And Photographer : NPR.

Bristol Palin Deal: $30,000 Per Speech.

Bristol Palin Deal: $30,000 Per Speech. That averages out to $10 for each time she says the word “like” during said speeches. http://goo.gl/efiC

Why Is Anyone Still Catholic? | Belief | AlterNet

Fair question.

Why Is Anyone Still Catholic? | Belief | AlterNet.

Should More People Skip College? – Business – The Atlantic

Been thinking a lot about this lately.

Should More People Skip College? – Business – The Atlantic.

Wise Words from President Obama

“If you’re someone who only reads the editorial page of The New York Times, try glancing at the page of The Wall Street Journal once in awhile. If you’re a fan of Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh, try reading a few columns on the Huffington Post website. It may make your blood boil; your mind may not often be changed. But the practice of listening to opposing views is essential for effective citizenship. So too is the practice of engaging in different experiences with different kinds of people.

For four years at Michigan, you have been exposed to diverse thinkers and scholars; professors and students. Do not narrow that broad intellectual exposure just because you’re leaving here. Instead, seek to expand it. If you grew up in a big city, spend some time with some who grew up in a rural town. If you find yourself only hanging around with people of your race or your ethnicity or your religion, broaden your circle to include people who’ve had different backgrounds and life experiences. You’ll learn what it’s like to walk in someone else’s shoes, and in the process, you’ll help make this democracy work,” - president Obama.