For the past four years I've come to really enjoy the Canadian series "Little Mosque On The Prairie".

I admit when I first heard the title, I rolled my eyes, and assumed it was .... well, to be honest, I don't know what I thought it was, but the idea of a satirical, perhaps inappropriate slam against Muslims came to mind.

About halfway through the 1st season, I finally succumbed to the generally positive reviews, and managed to get a the episodes I had missed. I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that I almost instantly fell in love with this show.

I suppose it's hard to really express why to people who have not seen it. Here in the United States, we tend to not have comedy shows that are not full of innuendo and racy behavior and dialogue. And I actually LIKE the innuendo and racy stuff, but I guess there's a time and place for everything, and this show is a complete 180 from that. It wasn't something I was really expecting, and I was really happy with how it plays out.

The show involves a Muslim community that lives in the small fictional town of Mercy, in Saskatchewan Canada. It attacks the obvious points of "fish out of water", showing the reactions by the nearly all white town of Mercy to their new neighbors, but also hits on the unfortunately not so obvious to many people, which is that the Muslim people are just like everyone else.

They go to school, they go to work, they go on vacations with their families, they simply have a different faith. Unfortunately there's too many people who ignore all the former, and focus on the latter.

This show, though, doesn't really hammer you over the head with the political or religious subject matter, although it does address various of these types of subjects.

The thing I like the most about this show, is that it's kind of a sweet innocent type show. As I said, it doesn't overdo the political or religious angles, presenting instead, a family type show dealing with community, and the tolerance and acceptance of other people's beliefs.

However, the current season (the fourth season finale airs next week) has been a bit of a departure, with the addition of a new character, and the removal of a previous beloved character.

The character of Rev. Magee, who ran the Evangelical church and allowed the Muslims to rent the back half of his church for their Mosque, when no one else in town would, was always a very positive and sweet character, if a bit simple. This season began though with him gone with very little reference, and in his place was a new Rev Thorne, who is pretty much the antithesis of Magee.



He is a horrible bigot and spouts racist stereotypes about the Muslim faith, nonstop. I'm not exaggerating when I say that the man has not had one single redeeming moment in the previous 16 episodes. Usually in shows, a person who is a bad guy or does reprehensible things, the show eventually tries to make him somehow likeable or at least provide some insight into why he feels that way.

Thorne has none of that. He continues to do everything he can to get the Muslims out of the church, going so far as to stir up dissension, lie and even steal (he stole a sermon from Amaar, the Muslim Imam) and fobbed it off as his own, and then went out of his way to make Amaar seem to be an intolerant racist (a bit of projection, I must say).

Now all this would be interesting, if there was some bit of balance, but there's not. Thorne rarely if ever has his comeuppance, and I can only recall twice that he's ever been shown up, once when getting knocked out in a boxing match (which he then used to smear the Muslims as violent and barbaric) and then when he went off on a racist rant about an African American Jesus statue, only to be embarassed when the priest he thought was going to be offended by it, turned out to be Black himself.

Everytime Thorne succeeds in turning the town against Amaar and the other Muslims, culminating in him succeeding in getting Amaar fired, and then the entire Muslims thrown out of their Mosque.

At this point, there's many fans who have gone online to vent about the character, and how they have stopped watching the show. I'm not there yet, but it's close. As I said, if there was some balance to Thorne's vile repugnant behavior, that'd be something, at least, but there's not. He almost always comes out on top, and there's very little of that "Thorne got his" retribution.

I'm not sure if Brandon Firla (who plays Thorne) will be back or not, but I have a feeling that until he's gone, or at least until they learn to balance the show out, and remove so much of the nasty rhetoric, that the show will not recover.

those of you who haven't heard rapper Guru, one half of the legendary hip hop group Gangstarr, suffered a cardiac arrest, which put him into a coma. Here is the statement by his friend and frequent collaborator, Solaar on his Twitter:

Guru is struggling with a serious health issue. And We appreciate all your love and well wishes. we continue to hold out hope that Guru will make a full recovery from this. And ask that his privacy on this matter be respected. Again Thank you for all your support through this trying time.

While Guru's standing in hip hop was LONG ago established with Gangstarr, it was his Jazzmatazz albums that first attracted me to his music.

Below I've included some of his best tracks with the Jazzmatazz releases. God speed, Guru.

Guru feat. Bob James & Common - State of Clarity



Guru - Lifesaver





Guru feat. Chaka Khan - Watch What You Say

Remy Shand has to go down as one of the most inexplicably frustrating artists out there, rivaled only by perhaps D'Angelo. Here we have, in Shand, an artist who seemingly comes out of nowhere, drops a fantastic soul album in which he plays all instruments, produces it, arranges it, and writes it, garnering four Grammy nominations.

Then he vanishes. Just flat disappears. I've looked online, and apparantly there are many people wondering what happened to him. Can't say I've seen this often, where an artist releases an album as good as his debut album "The Way I Feel", gets critical acclaim, and then just retreats into seclusion.

For the last several years I'll occasionally look online for something, anything by Remy. Hoping to find a maxi single that has a bonus track or two, but there's really not much. It's like he made just enough songs for his album and an extra bonus track in Canada (where he's from) and that's it.

Today I lucked into finding a concert of Remy's that was posted online, of him performing in Milan Italy. Very nice show, albeit a little short for my liking.

The version I found online over at Bama Love Soul's blog was a single track, which you can download over at his blog by clicking HERE. And I was directed to that blog (which I had discovered a few months back) by the great and much needed "Where is Remy Shand" Twitter page. Feel free to follow them by clicking HERE.

I split the single track into individual tracks for each song, and tagged them properly in Itunes for importing to your Ipod or Zune or whatever MP3 player you might have.

You can download it below, where I've also included the setlist for this concert.

Enjoy, and let's hope this is a sign that there'll be more Remy Shand in the future!

Most of my posts lately have been a bit heavier than I normally try to do. I just realized today that for several weeks it's been mostly political, religious type posting.

Enough of that for now. Here's some good hip hop music. Enjoy.

Isn't it interesting how seemingly the most non-political things can be used to make outrageously ridiculous accusations against your political opposite? Isn't that interesting? I find it interesting that something can happen, that, you would think, would bring everyone together into one cohesive and unanimous reaction.

And yet that's never what happens. And it didn't happen when Joe Stack, a man who was angry at the government, wrote a suicide letter, set his house on fire, and then flew his small private plane into an IRS building in Austin, Texas.

At first glance, to the uninitiated on how things in America works, you would look at that and say "wow, that's a horrible thing to happen. We should mourn anyone who lost their lives, and see if we can see WHY this happened, and how we can prevent it in the future".

Instead, we have people on both sides of the political aisle, lobbing baseless accusations of "He was OBVIOUSLY one of YOU" and in the process, we all become a little less of a United Country.

There are some on the left who are accusing Stack of being a textbook case of being a member of the Tea Party movement, pointing to his hatred of the government, and how he was railing against taxes in his suicide letter, although many have since backtracked and "clarified" what they meant.

There are others on the right, such as Rush Limbaugh who are accusing Stack of sounding like a Democrat or Liberal, since he didn't like banks, insurance companies, or President Bush, and Limbaugh added that his writings were "almost word for word" like Pelosi, Reid and Obama.

Then you also have people on Fox News and other outlets such as NBC and even including the White House, saying that this guy was not a terrorist. Fortunately several people have pointed out that if Stack had happened to be Muslim, is there any doubt that Fox News would be screaming about this guy being a terrorist?

I mean, there were many on the right upset that we weren't labeling the Fort Hood shooter a terrorist, and yet this guy, who was vehemently anti-Government, flies a plane into a federal government building, and he's not a domestic terrorist?

I don't know man. I think that everyone is losing their minds in the process of trying to label blame and association on those they disagree with.

Raw Story, today, has had various headlines referring to newly minted Senator Scott Brown from Massachussetts who went on Fox News and, in perhaps a very poor choice of phrasing, said the following in regards to Stack:

"Well it's certainly tragic and I feel for the families obviously being affected by it. And I don't know if it's related, but I can just sense not only in my election, but since being here in Washington, people are frustrated. They want transparency, they want their elected officials to be accountable and open and talk about the things that are affecting their daily lives. So I'm not sure that there's a connection, I certainly hope not. But we need to do things better.

Well, yeah, of course it's extreme. You don't know anything about the individual. He could have had other issues, certainly. No one likes paying taxes, obviously. But the way we're trying to deal with things and have been in the past, at least until I got here is, there's such a logjam in Washington. And people want us to do better. They want us to help solve the problems that are affecting Americans in a very real way.

And I think we, I'm hopeful that we can do that, with a lot of the things that are coming forward. At least what I'm hearing through, and speaking with my colleagues this seems to be a diff feel there's kind of a message that was sent with my election, the fact that I was elected by a substantial margin taking the former Ted Kennedy's seat. They want difference up here and I'm hopeful that's going to happen.

And here is Raw Story's headline: (excuse the clumsy highlighting job I did there. lol)



Now, that's obviously not the way to perhaps go on TV and describe this, however what he said, while not the most tactful, isn't as crazy as many want to make this out to be. He said that people are frustrated and they are frustrated due to the fact that there seems to be nothing getting done in Washington. As much as you may want to blame Republicans for this, it's not all their fault.

Yes, they are obstructing damn near any and everything they can in an effort to derail Obama's presidency. The GOP has said as much, explicitly. However, a lot of the fault has to fall at the Democratic Party's feet as well, because they've got a majority of members. They had 60 votes and still couldn't get shit done, so, say what you will about Blue Dogs screwing things up, and Repub's in Dem's clothing and all, but at the end of the day, you have to accept responsibility.

And I think that's sort of what Brown meant, when he seemingly went off on a tangent about people being frustrated by Washington. Stack was OBVIOUSLY frustrated with the way things were going in Washington, he had aspects of his anger that was directed at the Liberals and directed at the Republicans.

So while I'm the LAST person to typically stand up for a guy like Brown, who I've ripped before, I think that for anyone to rip on Brown and say that he was sympathetic to the idea of someone flying a plane into a government building (or any building for that matter) is just reprehensible and deplorable. He was seemingly sympathetic to the things that get those of us into the mindset where they think this is a logical thing to do. There are many people out there who are not all there, in the mental category, and when they get pushed into a corner, this is their reaction. This is what they think is a perfectly acceptable thing to do.

And these types of sleazy faux journalism is exactly what's wrong with our way of doing things, and it does us no good in the search for a common ground with those we disagree with.

Posting articles with misleading or inflammatory headlines, adding the most embarrassing and ridiculous looking images you can find of a person when writing an article criticizing them (as people often do to Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, and others on the right, and those on the right do the exact same thing to those on the left) should be beneath us.

For the record, this guy, until proven otherwise, is not a member of the Tea Party, nor is he a card carrying liberal either. And to suggest otherwise is shoddy "journalism" and just flat out abhorrent.

I'll leave you with this video by The Young Turks. This video I watched yesterday and it was very good, and the host, Cenk, made a point to say that this guy was neither Tea Party member nor Liberal by all accounts. And then he brings up the great point that I referred to earlier, in which this is for some reason not considered a domestic terrorist attack. As he asks, if this guy's name was not Joe Stack, but a Muslim name, would those on the right still insist this wasn't a terrorist attack?

Check out the video, and feel free to leave comments below on this post. Just please be polite and civil, or the comments will be moderated.

UPDATE AT BOTTOM OF POST: BBC HOST ARRESTED.


When I heard this story today the first thing that came to mind, the first thing that I'm sure came to many people's mind, is Howard Beale in the movie Network. In the film, Beale (played by Peter Finch) had become disillusioned with the way the media was going, and the way the world was going, and he was just tired of it all.

And he said, on the air, that he was "mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore". He took to his pulpit, so to speak, to inspire the audience to just stop accepting things that happened, to stop feeling that there was nothing they could do. He implored everyone to go to the window and scream at the top of their lungs, that they were mad as hell and they weren't going to take it anymore.

I've always loved that scene, and yet I always viewed it as pure fiction, which of course it was. I felt that there's no way anyone would ever do that in real life. No one would risk everything they had to take a stand like that, and that even if they would, by the time someone got to that point, that Howard Beale was, they would not be on the air, they would have been removed by then.

Throw in the fact that there's usually a delay between the live newscasts, and what we see on TV and of course the FCC cracking down on what you can and can't say, it sort of prevents that type of thing from occurring.

And yet it has happened, although not in the same sense that Beale did it. On the BBC, a prominant tv host has admitted to murdering his lover who was terminally ill, suffering from AIDS. The doctors had said there was nothing more they could do, and unable to see his lover suffering anymore, he asked the doctor to leave, and then smothered him with a pillow.

This has, predictably, caused an uproar in the UK where assisted suicide is a hot button topic. Adding even more gas to the fire, is the fact that this segment didn't go over the air live, it was actually filmed back in December. The BBC have been criticized for not reporting this to the police, however they have stated that they were under no obligation to do so.

Here's the video, courtesy of Raw Story:

Download video via RawReplay.com

I watched that video and just stared slackjawed at my computer screen. This doesn't happen. As I mentioned earlier, I just never imagined that a news host would do something like this? And to a degree you have to give it to him. The man has been living with this secret for years, he's been unable to live anymore with this secret, and he had to tell someone, anyone. And he did what he felt was the right thing, and used his position at the BBC to put this out to the broadest audience.

Now Gosling says that he's not trying to make a point for the issue of assisted suicides or "mercy killings" or anything like that, however I think he has in fact done that.

He's put this out, not by doing an interview, or by turning himself in, he went on a show that he hosted and admitted this.

I really don't know what to compare this to. I'm still stunned. I was telling my friend about it, and showed him the video and we both had the same look on our faces, like "this has to be a joke".

The issue of assisted suicide isn't much more tame here in the States, as it is abroad apparantly. One only has to look back to the Terry Schiavo case to remember that this country is full of people who identify as being against that type of thing.

And yet I have a hard time deciding how this makes me feel. On the one hand, I don't believe in taking another's life. That's not a decision I think is mine to make, for sure. However, I can't help but feel extremely sympathetic towards Gosling. I mean, I can't imagine having to make that decision.

I've been around terminally ill patients before, and I've seen that look in their eyes that are pratically begging someone to please end the pain they are going through. I've always resisted the urge to speak in absolutes with situations like this, because unless you are someone who deals with pain like this, unless you are someone who lives through this type of pain, then you really can't say. It's easy for me, as someone that, while I deal with pain on a daily basis, is nothing like terminal AIDS or cancer.

It'll be interesting to see how this story turns out. It seems that Gosling is refusing to talk to the police about it, and that's gotta be going over really well with the police over there.

We'll see how this turns out, but damn this is a tough situation.


Veteran BBC Host Ray Gosling has been arrested after his admission during a news documentary aired recently in England, that he killed his lover who was terminally ill from AIDS.

A spokeswoman for Nottinghamshire Police in central England said officers "this morning arrested a 70-year-old Nottingham man on suspicion of murder following comments on the BBC's Inside Out programme on Monday evening."

Gosling's confession comes amid a fierce debate about so-called mercy killings and whether people with terminal illnesses be allowed to commit assisted suicide.

Last year a friend of mine emailed me and asked me why Republicans were so mean. And I had meant to get back to her, and then told her I'd be addressing it in an upcoming blog post, and that never happened. I got sidetracked with other things, and it just ended up passing me by.

I have come back to it because I think I perhaps have an answer. Republicans are no more "mean" than Democrats or Independents. They're no more "Mean" than anyone else who has a team that they pull for, so to speak.

I think in the last ten years, it's gotten worse than it ever has, as far as the lack of civility in public discourse, and I think it ties in with the fact that we're discussing (or antagonizing) over subjects that we hold near and dear to our hearts. Subjects that we use to define who we are as people. Whether it's religion, politics or race, or any other slew of subjects, the fact is we self-identify with these topics, and thus it brings out the inner asshole, so to speak.

People get riled up and perhaps rightly so, when certain topics are broached. The problem comes in when you get so riled up that you end up lashing out and ridiculing others for their beliefs, because they don't square up with what you believe.

And we all do that. I try not to, but I get carried away. I haven't really identified myself as a "Liberal" or a "Conservative" for awhile now, because both disgust me. There are conservative beliefs that I hold, and there are liberal beliefs that I hold, however neither label defines who I am.

I look across the internet landscape, at a political movement that has been started on both sides of the political spectrum. The internet has allowed anyone with a computer and an internet connection to have a voice. Whether that person has nothing much to say, or has lots to say and many people who want to hear it, they seemingly have equal opportunities to put their message out.

Many people use that voice wisely, and are thoughtful and rational and are even handed. However the VAST majority of political "debate" out there isn't really debate. It's uneven, one sided slanted "journalism" that is only serving the purpose of "preaching to the choir". That goes for those on the left and the right.

Newshounds is one of the worst offenders of this. They are set up to report on Fox News' bias. That's a fantastic idea, and something that is needed. However, everyone who knows who they are knows a couple things here.

1. They're liberal, and they make no bones about that. Their entire purpose is to highlight the bias in Fox News' supposed "fair and balanced" reporting. So anyone who's going to read them and be even slightly moved by what they read, are already on their side. They're preaching to the choir. I'm sure their endgame is to hopefully find people who normally watch Fox and have them see clips of them lying or whatever, and have an epiphany, but it's not going to happen. At least not in numbers that would signify success. Everyone who's reading that site, agrees with them already.

It's called Cognitive Dissonance. People flock to like-minded websites that tell them what they already believe to be true. If you go to the site regularly, you already believe that Fox is lying through their asses about many things. So at the end of the day, I'm not sure what the point of the site is. Yes, it's to "expose" Fox New's bias however I'd say anyone that goes to that site and buys into their mantra, already feels that way, and aren't learning anything they don't know.

How is it supposed to branch out from that if your audience is already defined. There's really no growth there.

2. And this is the thing that irritates me. Even though I find that site annoying, I tend to read it anyway, just out of habit. The thing that bothers me is that they will make a "mountain out of a molehill" all the time. They'll often post up something about a Fox host and either misrepresent things they said, or they will flat out lie and make things up. Then when they are caught on that, there's either a deletion of the original post and a "oops we made a mistake" with no further elaboration, or the post will just disappear.

And it's not just them, because another site, Crooks and Liars sometimes do the same damn thing.

It's almost like the Ann Coulter accusation of liberals being "professional victims", and anyone who knows me knows I can't stand Coulter, and think that she, along with Michelle Malkin, Nancy Grace and Dick Cheney, are four of the most vile evil creatures on this earth.

That said, there's so many posts that I've seen on those sites where I just roll my eyes and am like "are you kidding me? You're getting upset over THIS?"

A prime example of this is when the Democratic Primaries were going on, and it was Barack Obama against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Nomination. There had been talk of an "October Surprise" that would knock Obama out, and Hillary would take over. However at this moment, Hillary was being talked about dropping out, and there was a video of someone talking along the lines of "God forbid if something should happen between now and November" referring obviously to a scandal or whatever.

Of course Nicole Bell jumps in with both feet proclaiming that the man was wishing for an assassination or something bad to happen to Obama. To their credit virtually everyone who commented correctly pointed out that's not what he meant. And the video disappeared, as I can't find it in their archives to post up here, however that could simply be me not being able to find it.

That's not to say that Nicole always does this, or that Crooks and Liars (a site I like) isn't a reputable site or that they're all full of hystrionics.

More to the point that this is a case of being what you hate. Often you see on Liberal sites like Media Matters, Huffington Post, Crooks & Liars, Raw Story, Newshounds, etc, about hateful comments on sites like Free Republic (which I've posted on here), and Fox Nation wishing death on the Obama's or just various Democratic Politicians.

And yet, on virtually every single one of those sites, I've seen death wishes and hateful vile comments about Republicans and the such. I posted recently about the Tim Tebow commercial, and how on Huffington Post, people were attacking Tebow's mother, because they were affiliated with Focus on the Family.

On Raw Story, a site I go to often and have as my home page, some of the comments about the late Oral Roberts (who I have NO love for) were sickening and full of anti-Christian venomous comments.

And yet, anytime a Democratic politician passes away, you're guaranteed a post about somewhere in the right wing world, there's people celebrating and dancing in the streets. And I'm not saying those people should not be spotlighted. They absolutely should.

The problem comes in when you do what you profess to hate. Now is the level of hatred on Newshounds, or Raw Story or HuffPo or whatever anything remotely approaching that of the Freepers or the Fox Nation members? Of course not, that would be stupid and ridiculous to even suggest that.

However that doesn't excuse you from doing what you criticize your "enemy" for. If you want to criticize them for doing that type of thing, that's fine, great and well needed. Just don't do it with an air of superiority as if you would never allow that to happen on YOUR site, because it does happen on YOUR site. ALL OF YOUR SITES.

Which brings me back to my topic of this. The lack of civility. We get carried away sometimes when defending our views, especially those such as politics and religion, in which we use those to identify who we are as a person.

And it's easy to get carried away and lash out in anger and with venom at those who we oppose. I think many people have in their head that just because this other person is a Republican, and I'm not, that means we're supposed to be mortal enemies or something. Politics or religion is simply one of many aspects of ourselves that we use to identify who we are.

Being friends and civil with others, doesn't mean that we are violating our core principles. In fact, one of our core principles SHOULD be to get along with each other, and work to overcome our differences.

Some people are able to do that. Some people are not. If you find yourself dealing with those who can't, perhaps it's best to just make plans not to be around those people. That's not always possible, if those people happen to be family members, or spouses even.

All I can say is try to make it work. And if it won't work, just perhaps come to an agreement that certain things will not be discussed when you're around each other. As I said, those things that divide you are only a small portion of what you represent and what you are about.

Don't let that define who you are, and allow yourself to get dragged down into the gutter of partisan and personal attacks.

We should strive to be who we are, not what we dislike in others.

As a long time Mavs fan this is bittersweet for me to see Howard go. I mean it was only a few years ago in which I envisioned Devin Harris and Josh Howard being the centerpiece of a Dallas Mavericks team that should have been in contention for a title every year. And just like that, both are now gone, if you can believe the Washington Post.

According to the Post's Michael Lee, the Dallas Mavericks and the Washington Wizards have agreed in principle to a deal involving Caron Butler, Brendan Haywood and Deshawn Stevenson, for Josh Howard, Drew Gooden and a few extra pieces to make things even.

As I said, this is bittersweet, because even though I was a big fan of Howard, and Harris as a potential dominant twosome, it never really happened. Harris ended up being virtually given away to the New Jersey Nets, although Jason Kidd, who we got in the deal, hasn't been terrible or anything.

And Howard, for all his talent and potential, just is a trainwreck in the mental category. Whether it's going on the air on a radio station and admitting to smoking weed, or being on camera talking about how he doesn't celebrate the National Anthem "cause I'm black", to hosting a birthday party for himself while the Mavs are getting stomped out of the first round by Golden State a few years back, the guy is, as sports radio host Jorge Sedano is fond of saying, a "mental midget".

And throw in all the games he's missed due to injuries and his horrible season this year, you just had to get rid of him while he had some value, due to his final year being a team option.

With Caron Butler we get a decent scorer, and a pretty good defensive guy at that. Haywood will give us a pretty good option at Center, something we thought we had last year when it seemed all but certain that Marcin Gortat was coming to Dallas. That was until the Orlando Magic in an admittedly brilliant move of chess, totally stabbed Dallas in the back and matched the offer when it seemed they weren't going to. Then to add insult to injury, they snapped up Da Sagana Diop, who the Mavs let go because they thought the Magic wasn't going to match Gortat.

I still haven't gotten over that, and will always wish for the Magic to fail miserably.

Stevenson, I don't know how he'll figure in, whether he'll get waived, or if the Mavs will try to find a way to fit him in.

I'm happy with this deal though.. We get rid of a guy who, despite his talent and abilities was never able to put it together minus the negative baggage, and we gain a couple guys who can help us right now as we go towards, hopefully, a good post-season run!

Go Mavs!

NOTE: If you are reading this on Facebook, please go to my blog at www.searchingforchetbaker.com and then you will see the entire post, including the embedded video(s). Facebook for some reason transfers the images and formatting, but not the embedded youtube videos.


My post last week really seemed to speak to a lot of people. I didn't really post it to "get attention" or anything like that, more of a thing I have where if there's something bothering me, I write about it and it helps to sort of let me deal with it, instead of letting it bottle up inside me and wreak havoc.

That's the main reason I started this blog, nearly two years ago (this April 9th), because I would see things online, or in the news that would either interest me, or bother me. And I'm not a very social person so this is my way of venting.

I can just post up whatever my thoughts on various topics are, and maybe a handful of people see it and a fraction of them may enjoy it.

So when I posted what I did, I didn't really think anyone would read it or would comment on it if they did read it. I was apparently wrong.

I got a variety of responses, some on the comments to the facebook post, and a few direct messages to me on my facebook (where my blog is crossposted) and some were very touching and heartening, advising me to "hang in there" and that God would speak to me when He was ready, which admittedly doesn't really help in this situation, but I understand. lol.

Others seemed to celebrate my somehow rejecting Christianity and "finally seeing the light" which is a tad bit ironic if you think about it.

And others, along the same vein, were concerned because they felt I was revoking my faith and disavowing myself of it.

That's not exactly true. So I wanted to post up, this time with the intention of perhaps making myself more clear than I obviously did before.

I'm not declaring myself an athiest, or agnostic, or non-believer, or any of that. I still believe in God. I still believe that Jesus was the son of God, and that he died on the cross for mine and other's sins, and rose several days later.

What I have an issue with, and what I've admittedly had an issue with for awhile, is the fact that I don't necessarily buy into everything I'm told that I need to, in order to be a "real" Christian.

I look at the Bible and there are things in there that I flat out agree with and believe and there are other things in there that I scoff at and roll my eyes at. Things that fly in the face of common sense and reality.

Get the whole "lean not on your own understanding", but as I told a friend of mine yesterday about this, that sounds a whole lot like what a cult leader would say to their followers. "Don't pay attention to what your common sense is telling you, ignore everyone else, and only believe what I say. I know what's best for you. Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?"

That said, as I pointed to in my previous post, there are elements to my faith that I'm told by other supposed "real Christians" that my opposing them somehow makes me a "bad Christian" or a pretend one.

Things such as gay rights, or things of the political nature that seem to intersect with my faith.

They tell me that in order to be a true Christian, you are accepting of the Bible wholesale. You either accept ALL of it, or NONE of it. There's no inbetween, because as well all have learned growing up in Church, God doesn't have an affinity for lukewarm reactions.

However that brings to mind a few troubling things. Christians love to point to Leviticus as the beginning and end of the discussion on homosexuality, quoting Lev. 20:13 which reads (KJV) "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them."

They point to that and say "ahhhhhhhhhh HA! See, they should be put to DEATH! " and that that points out that God obviously detests homosexuality and that somehow that relates to denying homosexuals the right to marry, or have the same rights that I, as a straight white male, have.

And if you don't follow that and adopt that way of thinking, then you can't truly be a Christian, because if you were, you would accept God's word as LAW and abide by it.

Then what about Leviticus 11:10 declares that eating shellfish is an "Abomination", and that Leviticus 25:44 says that we can possess slaves, (male or female) as long as they're from a neighboring nations?

So does that mean we can, by God's decree, run down to Mexico and bring back some slaves?

Furthermore, Exodus 35:2 tells us that if someone works on the Sabbath, they should be put to death.

Yet when you bring these things up to some of these same Christians who declare the Bible 100% God's word and that we must abide by them, suddenly it's "Well, we don't really do that type of thing anymore".

Really? But we do the thing you don't like. Just not the ones you do like, is that it? I mean, it's not like it's separate areas of the Bible. Lev. 18:22 says that Homosexuality is an "abomination" before God, and Lev. 11:10 says that eating shellfish is an "abomination" before God.




So which is it? Do we follow everything or not? Since you refuse to execute those working on the Sabbath, are you not a real Christian?

See these are issues that I have. These are things that I have wrestled with, because of my dealing with people who have proclaimed that they know God's word and that because I don't have the exact same beliefs as they do, that somehow I'm less of a Christian than them.

Another issue I've had is that my faith is one, going by what the word of God says, that while Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell (RIP) , two people who have made a living and millions and millions of dollars dividing Americans and preying on fear and hatred, are going to be in Heaven, and yet Mother Theresa (Catholic) and Ghandi (Hindu) are not, because they are not Christian.

Does that make sense to you? Maybe it does, I dunno. All I know is that I've got a lot of confusion and conflicting emotions dealing with my faith.

Doesn't mean I've abandoned my faith, it doesn't mean I'm rejecting God. Far from it. More to the point that I believe in my faith so strongly, that I actually CARE enough to try to make sense of things, instead of simply throwing up my hands and saying "That's it, forget it".

According to Jesus, the only way to Heaven is through Him. By accepting Him, and His Father, and repenting sincerely for your sins, you will get into Heaven. And that's the ONLY way.

So everyone who is not born/converts to the Christian faith, is just plumb out of luck, it appears. Well, what about those in other countries who have never heard of Jesus? Are they out of luck and destined to spend eternity in the Lake of Fire?



What about those who have been turned off of Christianity by the false prophets like Pat Robertson and the late Oral Roberts? Those who refused to identify with any faith that would be represented by those who thrive on hatred and divisive violent rhetoric?

As I said before, I don't know. I'd like to know though. I'd like to be able to reconcile my strong desire to follow my faith, with aspects that I sincerely and vehemently oppose. I have no doubt that many people I've spoken with are either intentionally misleading me, to further their own beliefs, or they are sincere in what they say, but they are sadly mistaken.

There are many people out there that believe that in order to be a Christian, you have to align yourself with the Conservative/Republican party in politics. And the only thing I can gather is that it's essentially due to the abortion/homosexuality aspects.

However, I would venture to say that neither the Republicans or the Democrats have any place claiming Jesus Christ as representative of their party. Neither are worthy of that and anyone that would say otherwise (for either party) is sadly mistaken. Neither party has a monopoly on Christianity, just like Christianity doesn't have a monopoly on moral and ethical behavior.

I think many people seem to have this notion that the only reason people don't go out and murder and rape and pillage and plunder, is because of their fear of God. And many people, I'm sure fall into that category.

However, there are many people I know who are not believers of any faith, who are moral and ethical and genuinely wonderful people. They don't do that, because it violates their own moral code.

That's another reason why a lot of athiests out there don't like Christians, is because of our seeming sense of superiority both morally and ethically. As if we're somehow greater than they are because we believe in God. I think that's a bit ridiculous, to be honest with you.

Well, that's pretty much what I wanted to say. This has gone on way longer than I expected, but hopefully this will be the end of this topic for me, and I can just sort of find a middle ground between the beliefs I have and those that I don't.

So the SuperBowl has come and gone, and what a game it was! In the previous week or two, there's been arguably more attention on the upcoming Tim Tebow/Focus on the Family commercial that would air during the game, than the actual teams playing in the game.

We heard all sorts of thing from CBS about how it would recount Tim Tebow's mother, Pam's, decision in the Phillipines to not have an abortion, which the doctors suggested she have due to her illness, and how he would grow up to be the Heisman trophy winning quarterback of the Florida Gators.

And Pro-Choice advocates went crazy over this, and I expressed some of my own issue with the ad, namely that it may create a false image of that specific situation as it applies to women all over the world. Yes, it worked out for her, and that's great. However, there are many many women who will get sick, or who's pregnancy could kill them, or the child if they go to term who will not have some "Tebow-like" ending. They very well could die. And I just would hope that people wouldn't be like "well, look at what happened with Tim Tebow's mom, why should I listen to MY doctor?" That would be unfortunate.

However, one thing that the Pro-life people don't seem to take into consideration, is that Tebow's story could be viewed as the ultimate Pro-Choice ad. She had the choice to either have an abortion, or have the child. She CHOSE to have the child. Why would people who make the choice to have the child, deny others the right to have that very same choice?

Anyway, the ad has aired and has proven to be quite anti-climactic. It was pretty tame, and you'd be hardpressed to find anything objectionable in it.

Although that hasn't stopped those who are vehemently anti-Christian and anti-Focus on the Family, and who are strongly Pro-Choice. Despite the evidence that this is NOT an Anti-Abortion ad, rather a celebration of family, there are still those on the Left that are like rabid dogs around a bloody steak.

First, here's the ad:



Um....that's it? That's what the furor was about? THAT was the big controversial ad that had people up in arms either defending or attacking it? In the immortal words of Davy in those Mountain Dew Ads, "we got hosed, Tommy, we got hosed".

In fact, John Amato over at Crooks and Liars has a brief piece up today about how it appears that CBS possibly pulled a fast one on the public by hyping up this commercial into something it wasn't.

It wasn't really an anti-choice ad at all. It was a CELEBRATION OF FAMILY ad. And truly, who could argue with that message, of loving your family and worrying for their health? It made no mention of abortion, and only the briefest of references to his birth. So who could possibly be mad at this still?

Well, if you said random people posting on the internet, you would be right! Ding Ding Ding Ding.

I checked out a post on Huffington Post, about the video after it aired, and there were some pretty ugly comments, and there were many people who despite there really being nothing even remotely political or offensive in the message, were struggling to find SOMETHING to attack.

Comments attacking Tim and his mother, making comments about "Where's the father?" and making various "some family" type remarks.

The overwhelming consensus by those who aren't simply attacking the Tebows because they feel they need to be mad at someone, is that it's not as much as what was in the ad, it's who sponsored the ad and what those people are all about.

Focus on the Family, in my opinion, and many others is not a good organization. They are an extremist organization that puts all their money into denying the equal rights for all Americans. They actually preach to people that the reasons that people "become gay" is due to pornography, spousal abuse and abuse.

Yeah. I've heard of many homosexuals that "became gay" because their mother got knocked around by their dad when they were a kid. Or they snuck time with a Playboy or Penthouse magazine. That definitely "made them gay".

Also, James Dobson, the head of Focus on the Family, has stated that "Spongebob Squarepants" is a vicious conspiracy to promote homosexuality.

And who can forget the brilliance of Focus on the Family opposing a political candidate because the candiate was gay, and their vicious attack on him:




What the hell man? Seriously. The fact that these people have ANY sway in politics and society is just sad and pathetic and quite frankly very scary.

So I'm not a Focus on the Family fan or a James Dobson fan. But this commercial was not offensive, and it was perfectly fine.

I just find it interesting that, as of right now, the Huffington Post poll had 37.64% of the people who think that "The Super Bowl Should Not Include This Type Of Message".

What type of message? That family is great? That family is important? It said nothing about Abortion or anything like that, although you could argue that it was implied or that everyone by now KNOWS about the Tebow birth.

Much ado about nothing, in my opinion. Some people will complain about anything.

When I was younger, my parents would take me to church. I didn't really have a choice in the matter, it was just what was done. We didn't go every week or anything, but whenever my parents went, I and my younger brothers would end up going as well. Once I reached High School, my parents told me that it would be my decision if I went or not. And so I stopped going, for two reasons.

1. I was incredibly bored by the whole thing. It was always amazing to me how there were some really interesting stories in the Bible, and yet whenever I was reading about them or hearing people speak of them, I was overcome with just out and out boredom and I would often sit in church and just count down the time til I could get out and do ...well, anything else.

2. I often hear people talk about being moved by the Holy Spirit. I hear people speak of this and I often felt strange, because I had never felt ANYTHING. NOTHING. In fact, while I considered myself "Saved" and then later rededicated my life to Christ, I never once felt anything. The closest I came would be just the overall wonderful feeling that came from knowing that others that were with me in Church were proud of my decision. Aside from that, nothing.

I have been to many churches in my lifetime, of various denominations. I've been to a Wesleyan Church, I've been to Evangelical churches, I've been to a Catholic service, I've been to "White Churches" and "Black Churches" and I have yet to feel anything at all even remotely resembling The Holy Spirit.

I don't know if I'm expecting too much, but I often see people in church when singing, they'll have their eyes closed and their arms outstretched, or even on their knees, with their arms outstretched, and I just look at them and think, "what phonies!"

And perhaps that's a bit harsh, but even though I've struggled with my faith over the years, and felt a bit put off from the fact that everyone around me supposedly felt the presence of the Lord, and I haven't, I've always treated prayer and things of that nature as a private thing. Not something to "show off". Even though I don't really believe that prayer is doing anything, I tend to do it nonetheless just out of habit.

That's why I don't wear crosses around my neck, I don't wear these ridiculous commercialized shirts with (in my opinion) abhorrently offensive slogans, one of which depicts Jesus' pierced hands, with blood on them, and the phrase "Body Piercing Saved My Life".

I see things like that and it makes me angry, because I considered myself a Christian, and that type of thing is patently offensive to me. I've long despised the crass commercialization of Christianity.

And while I've sat back and watched as all around me seemingly were filled with God's love, I sat alone. Empty. I was a paper Christian, for all intents and purposes.

I don't know what I expected. Whether I expected it to be something subtle. Some cliched "sign" that everything was going to be alright, or if it would be like a sledgehammmer between the eyes, in the form of Jake Blues standing in the back of the church screaming "YES, I SEE THE LIGHT!"



I waited, and waited, and it never came. The light never came, the subtle cliched "sign" never came. In all my years trying to be the best Christian I could be, while simultaneously accepting that I would never live up to that due to my sinful ways, I would help people who needed it, often to my detriment. I'd help people out with anything they needed, even if I needed it too.

For years I had been homeless without anything of my own, without any money, without anyone giving a damn about me, or so it seemed. So when I see people who need something I gave it to them, not out of some Christian desire, but just out of a HUMAN desire. I'd been in their place, and remembered what it was like.

And often, people would come to me and they'd have issues with their own faith. Why they would think I would be someone to rely on, I have no idea, but they would. And I would tell them things like "God has a plan" and "Things will work out" and "Well, the Bible says..." and the entire time I was speaking hollow words. Because I didn't believe them myself, I don't think. Looking back it is clear to me that, when I say these things, it's more of a fact of me repeating what I've been told.

I've long had a hard time accepting the idea of "prayer works" because common sense would say otherwise. It opens the door to realizing that Prayer worked for this person but not THAT person.



We're all supposed to pray for those in Haiti. Why? Why does MY Prayer mean ANYTHING? As if God is going to sit up there and say "well, I was going to help out in Haiti, but that guy in Spokane didn't pray, and well...we're a couple hundred short of the goal, so Haiti's shit out of luck." This isn't Oral Roberts, and God isn't going to bring you home if you don't get the right number of prayers donated.

And the go-to response to that line of thinking, that common sense dictates that the idea of praying for help brings up some very dicey logistical and ethical quandaries, is to quote the Bible that says "Lean not on your own understanding".

Although to me, that sounds like the perfect cop-out when you want to convince others of what to do. "Don't worry about what makes sense to you, do what I say. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! Who are you going to believe? Me, or your lying eyes?"

I don't even know anymore. All my life I've spent trying to live up to some impossible standard, and have suffered for it. I've gone through bouts of depression, suicidal thoughts, and a half assed attempt or two and all because of my shame and frustration at not being able to be good enough.

I'm told that God forgives all, and yet based in this world where everything I've ever done in my fucking life is held over my head and used to somehow symbolize who I am, not who I WAS, I can't grasp that anyway.

I've proclaimed myself a Christian numerous times, and yet I'm not really. How can I be a Christian when I don't believe in Prayer? How can I be a Christian when I can't accept the things I'm told my faith requires?

I refuse to discriminate against homosexuals and refuse to support their lack of equal rights. I refuse to support the Death Penalty, I refuse to support the Pro-Life side of things.

These are all fairly important issues that directly tie in to the Christian faith as far as specific passages in the Bible.

So how can I be a Christian when I don't believe anymore? I've struggled with writing this for the past week or so, and it's gotten heavier and heavier on my heart the last few days. I'm so frustrated and conflicted on how to go about the rest of my life, however long I'm here.

I remember Comedian Bill Maher, who's an atheist, saying that he felt that most people believed in God "just in case", meaning that they figured "hey, I better go along just in case this Christianity thing is right, because who wants the alternative?"

And all my life that's exactly what I've done. Virtually nothing in the Bible has resonated with me. Virtually nothing has had any impact on me whatsoever. When people ask me about my faith, and I say that I'm a Christian, I feel like the phonies that are genuflecting in front of everyone, and trying to put on the "Super Christian" identity for everyone, to somehow make themselves look better.

I'm no better than they are, those people I despise. I've been a paper Christian. And I don't want to be a Paper Christian anymore. I just want to be me, whatever that is.

I happen to live above a Church, and I remember telling someone a few weeks back that I have zero doubt in my mind that if I died right now, I'd not go to Heaven. I've done things in my life that I'm deeply ashamed of, and there are things I've done that I will never speak of, and for which I don't view as being forgivable. Whether I'm right on that, I don't know.

And I really don't know much of anything right now. I feel broken inside, I feel .... like nothing. A body filled with nothing. And I feel more alone than I think I've ever been in my life.

I'm writing this "stream of consciousness" style, because I think for this it's best. I've gone over the last several days of how to write this, and I didn't really know what to say or how to express it. I tend to ramble, and in my mind things are all jumbled and thrown together, much like my life, I suppose.

So if this doesn't make sense, or if this kinda jumps all over, I apologize for that. It's kinda the way I am. lol

And I don't really know why I'm writing this, or what the purpose is. I'm just at a very low point in my life right now, and I just don't want to deal with that shit anymore. Perhaps at some people I'll re-evaluate things, or perhaps God will somehow finally deem me worthy of hearing what he has to say, and everything will be clear. I dunno. And at this point, I don't care anymore. As of now, if it happens, it happens. Whatever.

So Lost is back, and just as crazy as ever!

I only have a couple thoughts, but here goes:

1. Nice to see John Hawkes here now as one of the Others at the Temple. He was really good in the few things I've seen him in, such as East Bound & Down, where he played Kenny Powers' brother, and the liquor store clerk in From Dusk Til Dawn.

2. I realize that this being the final season, ANYONE can die at any moment. That sure ratchets up the suspense, as we no longer have that "well, there's no way they'll kill off Sawyer or Kate".

3. And am I alone in wondering whether or not Sayid is now Jacob? Could Jacob have had Hurley get Sayid to the temple, so Jacob could come back in Sayid's body, in a place that is protected from the Man in Black aka Esau?

4. What do you think about the whole parallel universe thing? Do you think that Sun really doesn't understand English, or was she lying? I mean, normally I'd think she was lying, but remember that Hurley apparantly was talking about how he's the luckiest guy on earth and only good things happen to him. He was the owner of the Mr. Cluck's corporation, and apparantly it went well because Arzt recognized him on the plane. So I suppose that in this alt. Timeline, a few things changed.

And what was with Charlie's "I was supposed to die" comment?

This show is gonna rock the rest of the way, I just know it.

Post up your thoughts on the Sayid/Jacob angle, and anything else.

This past week at the State of the Union address, President Obama took his first real step towards the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, the policy that allows gays and lesbians to serve in the military, and defend their country as long as they keep secret their sexual preferences and lifestyle. However, a year has passed since Obama was inaugurated, and we're just now getting him to vocalize his support for an issue that he campaigned on, and no doubt garned a lot of support from those in the gay and lesbian community.

Why so long? I realize that the cliche "easier said than done" applies here, and it's way easier to speak about what you want to do, and changes you want to make, then it is to actually implement them. And I think a lot of the criticism that Obama gets for his inaction on this subject, is because he seems to not even give a damn about it. That's all well and good, but when you campaign on an issue, you're expected to give a damn about it.

The main roadblock to repealing this, is the fact that many in the military are uncomfortable with the idea of being in close living quarters with an openly gay soldier, which I don't understand. The only reason I can come up with for why soldiers would be uncomfortable with this, is a very cliched and ignorant one: That they're afraid that the other soldier would develop feelings for one of them, and/or make sexual advances.

Stop and think about that for a minute. Do you realize what they are saying? They're saying that their opinions of homosexuals are that they are such sexual deviants with such an uncontrollable sexual appetite, that if they happened to like another soldier, who was straight, that they wouldn't be able to help themselves, and that they would try to force themselves on the straight soldier.

Or at the very least, they would make their feelings known, and the straight soldier would be uncomfortable being around someone who they felt were "checking them out".

Is this not the very definition of "homophobic"? When the phrase "homophobic" is thrown around to describe the anti-gay movement, many people, particularly those Christian Evangelicals who are against gay marriage or gay rights get offended. They say that there not being homophobic, they just don't like it. The whole "hate the sin, love the sinner" thing.

However that's not true. They are AFRAID. They're AFRAID that if homosexuals are allowed to marry, that somehow that will destroy the "Sanctity" of marriage, that we obviously have now. However, that's kinda strange to feel that way, considering how many straight marriages end in divorce every year, how many straight couples are marrying and then getting divorced several months later, or how many straight people have multiple marriages and divorces.

Or they're AFRAID of the supposed detriment to society that giving gay couples the same rights afforded to straight couples would cause.

Or they are AFRAID that letting gay and lesbian soldiers in the military would lead to these obvious horndogs to be unable to control themselves, and force themselves onto the straight soldiers.

Or maybe they are AFRAID that the gay soldiers will not be able to bring themselves to shoot a cute terrorist?




Bottom line, the general consensus by many of the anti-gay crowd is that homosexuality is no different than pedophilia, incest and child molestations. Which is extremely offensive and flat out ignorant. There's no data to suggest this, although those on the anti-gay bandwagon have no problems pretending that there is.

Eventually DADT will be repealed, and supporters of the repeal are being told that it could be a few years before it's being implemented. Right now is the feeling out stage, so to speak, where they go about trying to figure out just how to do this, while we're in two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Hopefully this can be done in a way that the next Republican President and Congress, doesn't come along and just undo everything that Obama does.

It's interesting that the Pledge of Allegience that children recite at the beginning of each day contains the words "...and liberty and justice for all", and yet this country does NOT have liberty and justice for all. If it's not separate rules and guidelines for homosexuals, then it's laws that are used to arrest and prosecute them, such as the sodomy laws that were designed to go after prostitutes. If it's not that, it's seemingly different laws for white people than there is for black people. Different rules for rich people and poor people.

Will we ever truly be a country that embodies those six words that we hear so much that we take for granted? Even the optimist in me has a hard time believing that we will. I think people's prejudices are too deeply ingrained for this to be something that will change overnight.

My wish is that someday in the future, our future generations will be able to look back and wonder at the time that everyone didn't get treated equally, and wonder just how that ever happened.

Farnell Newton, who I consider a friend, is a jazz musician, a producer and oh.. did I mention, that he's a Professor at Portland State University? This past Wednesday, January 27th 2010, Farnell was given the privilige of playing the National Anthem at the Portland Trailblazers basketball game, where they played the Utah Jazz (how fitting).

My man just kills it here. Check it out, and you can also check out Farnell's website by clicking HERE, and see just what he's all about.

WOW! All I can say is FREAKING WOW! I think I need to start this off by saying the below video, (before I even see what the screencap will be) is EXTREMELY not safe for work. No nudity (besides a few see-through shirt shots) but this video is simply AWESOME!

I have no idea what ANY of the lyrics mean, and the guy, who looks like a guy I know (yeah, Riste, I'm talking about YOU) only says "Chica Boom" the entire video (although he DOES say it about 1,000 times, but I think every single man who views this will agree....that this is the single greatest music video ever made.

Behold the wonder that is Chica Boom, and remember folks...eye muff the kids, and keep the "boss button" at hand.

Tim Tebow, the former Heisman winning quarterback for the Florida Gators, is a very religious and spiritual man. That much, pretty much anyone who knows ANYTHING about him is well aware of. He's been on the record as saying that he hopes that his abilities in the sports world, which he attributes to God, enables him to further his message for Christianity to more and more people.

And now he's taking that step by filming a pro-life commercial to be aired during the Super Bowl in a few weeks. He's teamed up with James Dobson's Focus on the Family to produce this commercial which has many people upset.

We all have the right to voice our opinions, and Tebow has the right to voice his opinions, even those that I am fundamentally opposed to. However, now Tebow is putting himself out there front and center by taking part in a commercial for "Focus on the Family" to be aired during the Super Bowl, in which he talks about his mother's troubled pregnancy with him, where she was sick in the Phillipines. She was urged to have an abortion, and instead she had him, and he went on to greatness on the College Football stage.

As a Christian, I don't really have a problem with this. He comes off as a very positive man, someone who walks the walk, so to speak. He doesn't seem to be a hypocritical person.

This isn't the case of a politician who is vehemently anti-gay rights, and is a closeted homosexual. Tim Tebow is someone who is strong in his convictions, and so I don't really have a problem with it, because he's sincere.

There are many, however, who are opposed to this. While I'm not someone who believes that politics and the sports world should mingle, I don't have as BIG a problem with it, considering who it is.



Tim Tebow is a genuine person. He's not a "Pat Robertson" type character who preaches on hate and evil, while pretending to be a Christian. From all reports, Tebow is one of those "too good to be true" type stories, only it appears it's true. He does missionary work in third world countries, and is made out to be the second coming, or something. And that irritates many people.

I listen to sports talk radio, and one thing that I hear a lot is people who are tired of hearing about how great Tebow is. They openly root for him to fail so they can laugh and point and say "see, I thought you said he was good?". They openly tout how they think he's going to fail in the NFL and never amount to anything.

And so to see him getting so much more attention now, and being put in the limelight even more, is irritating to many people. Throw in the fact that the commercial involves a lightning rod subject such as Abortion, and well, you can see why there's some controversy here.

However, as I said I don't really see the reason to be up in arms. So he's preaching a message you don't agree with. So what? Isn't that what's so great about this country? That we have free speech to be able to voice our opinions, to be able to support any candidate we want, endorse any political message, any doctrine that we so choose?

People who are opposed to his message, have every right to disagree and make their opinions known. However, when you cross the line between simply disagreeing and voicing your disapproval into the area where you are trying to force the commercial to not even air, and to silence any opposing view that you find offensive or even reprehensible, then that's going into territory that should not be breached.

And the irony here, is that many people on the liberal side of things, who tend to be of the "there is no God" and "Christianity is the most evil thing ever" crowd, are up in arms about this, and are protesting and want CBS to refuse to show the commercial. Meanwhile, they are also the ones who get upset when those on the conservative side want to ban books that display things they don't like.

Why is it not okay for Conservatives to ridiculously try to ban "Heather Has Two Mommies" because it portrays homosexuality in a "positive light", or Stephen King books when they feel the books present ideas and situations that they are fundamentally opposed to, and yet it's okay for Liberals to condemn and try to get Tebow's pro-life commercial off the air before it even runs?

I don't get it. I've gotten so disillusioned with the whole political process that I don't even know what to refer to myself as. I'm not a conservative by any stretch of the imagination, however there are issues that I believe in, that would land on that side. And even though there are issues that I'm fairly liberal on, particularly social issues, I don't claim to be a Liberal despite many people who know me believing I am.

John Amato, over at Crooks and Liars, who I usually agree with on many issues, said something in his piece HERE that I kind of disagreed with and took issue with. He believes that Dobson and Focus on the Family are using Tebow as a "pawn" in this situation. I find it kind of offensive that people would say that, only because that lends to the idea that Tebow doesn't know what he's doing. He's not some dumb hick that just got to the big city and is being hijacked by some street hustler who's conning him into doing something he doesn't wanna do.

Tebow knows EXACTLY what he's doing, this is exactly what he wants to do. He has spoken of using his platform of sports to speak his message of Christianity to the world, and that's what he's doing. If anyone's using anyone, I would think people would suggest Tebow is using Dobson's influential reach to get his message out via the Super Bowl. Would there be a commercial without such an influential group like Focus on the Family? I don't like them, and think Dobson's a joke, but let's not deny the obvious that there's many many people out there, both influential and not that respect him.

And speaking of the Tebow commercial, let's face it: the reason that so many people are probably up in arms is because Tebow's got a helluva story. I mean, his mother was sick in the phillipines and told she was going to die or the Tim would die if she gave birth, and was urged to have an abortion. She refused, and carried him to term, not only surviving the birth, but her son goes on to be one of the most celebrated college football athletes the country has ever seen.

I think many who are for the right to choose, are intimidated by that, and are afraid that it will cause people to perhaps think about that and say "well, she gave birth and she's okay and look at what her son did", and unfortunately I think that was a, to be honest, miracle situation.




Everyone that is facing a life threatening birth is not going to end up like Tim's mother and him. In many cases like this, the mother and child would both die, or one of them would. That's why we NEED to have the option of abortion to at least be there in situations where the mother's life is in danger.

I personally am not for abortion, although I don't know ANYONE who wants babies to die, no matter what that vile creature Ann Coulter would tell you. However, in my view, despite my unwillingness to tell a woman what she can or can't do with her body, it should only be, excuse the pun, on the table for situations where the mother's life is at risk, or the baby will be born dead. Also in cases of rape or incest. That's it. I don't view abortion as a "get out of sex consequences free" card, even though technically abortion IS a form of birth control.

Hopefully the ad will run. I don't necessarily agree 100% with it airing during the Super Bowl, but CBS has stated that they will accept opposing view ads as long as they are "responsibly done". So one of the pro-choice groups can pony up the cash and present an "opposing view" ad to run on CBS.

Then if CBS balks at that, then we can discuss whether or not CBS should be running only one side of political issue such as this. Especially in light of CBS refusing to run an ad supporting gay rights in the past.