(1) THE OLYMPICS…ALWAYS THE OLYMPICS!
When it’s on TV all the time, and one is on holidays, there’s not much else to watch…it’s the addictive soap opera to end all soap operas. Mind you, after one week, it should really be called “The Michael Phelps Show” — his face is everywhere, his record of 8 gold medals sung from the highest mountain tops. There has been so much pool coverage, I think I dreamed one night of dolphin kicks…
Hmm…scratch that. Maybe the Olympic soap should be titled “What Happened to Canada?” Seven days with no medals sent the media into a feeding frenzy of “we suck” stories. There was hand-wringing, there was gnashing of teeth and beating of breasts…it was all very mass-media-meets-biblical-terror. Unfortunately, our athletes had to go and ruin this national scourging session by picking up 7 medals (including two golds) within the last 48 hours. How dare they ruin our monumental sob story!
But take heart. This IS Canada, and with a probable federal election on the horizon, we will have plenty to torture ourselves with in the coming months. In the mean time, sit back and enjoy more of the medals that will (no doubt) be acquired by our team this week.
(2) SPEAKING OF SELF-FLAGELLATION…
U.S. Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain appeared on stage together at a ginormous, Evangelical Christian Super-Church gathering hosted by Super-Church Pastor Rev. Rick Warren. They proceeded to admit their spiritual failings in a demonstration that was worthy of a Maoist Communist self-criticism session.
(Pause as I reach for the sick bag!)
Pray tell, can you imagine, in any way, a Canadian politician being asked — during an ELECTION — what faith in Jesus means to them? What in the name of all that is reasonable has Jesus to do with the running of the most powerful nation on Earth?!? Jesus himself would be telling these men to get a life, and leave him out of it!
Reason won’t triumph, however. We’re going to suffer through more and more of this nonsense. Too many voters are afraid that Obama is secretly a Muslim, and he needs to flash his Christian street cred to all and sundry. Meahwhile, the religious right thinks that McCain is too often in bed with the anti-Christ (most people who argue against tax cuts and easing entry for illegal immigrants are, after all, against Jesus), and he needs to remind them that he’s as much a good old, church-going, 700 Club member as the next man. The kind of man Pat Robertson would be happy to invite to tea.
This isn’t just ridiculous…unbelievable…or incredibly sad. This is terrifying — terrifying for the entire United States of America. The home (we NEED to remind ourselves of this, because you’d NEVER believe it these days) of the separation of church and state! Even Stephen Harper would start sweating if someone asked him such a preposterous question during a campaign event! Peter Mansbridge would be intoning the apocalypse from his desk on The National, and the papers of Canada would be screaming with headlines asking if our election is for the position of an Ayatollah!
Let’s be blunt. Religion has no place in government, or in running for government. There’s MORE than enough historical evidence to back this up (and if you don’t believe this, go back and return any high school history credits you own, because you don’t deserve them) But this determination of American politicians to supplicate themselves to the “values” voters makes my skin crawl. Do we not have enough problems and enough issues to keep us occupied without the spectacle of pandering to people that make the Puritans look like spineless nothings?
Apparently not…
Even as Russia runs rough-shod over Georgia, and now threatens Poland (what were we just saying about the lessons of history?)…the U.S. Presidential candidates are too occupied with bible-belt sycophanthy to offer much leadership as the world enters a new and dangerous phase. Still, I’m sure many people are happy — they’ll take it as a sign that the rapture is close!
Don’t laugh…it’s true…I’m told you can even read about it in Tim LaHaye’s (cough…cough…) book.
OK…now you can laugh. ;-)
