the rix mix

At 4 p.m. Sunday afternoon -- nine hours before the 1 a.m. vote that would effectively clinch the legislation's passage -- Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) went to the Senate floor to propose a prayer. "What the American people ought to pray is that somebody can't make the vote tonight," he said. "That's what they ought to pray."

It was difficult to escape the conclusion that Coburn was referring to the 92-year-old, wheelchair-bound Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.V.) who has been in and out of hospitals and lay at home ailing. It would not be easy for Byrd to get out of bed in the wee hours with deep snow on the ground and ice on the roads -- but without his vote, Democrats wouldn't have the 60 they needed.

Dana Milbank, Washington Post

While making a list of my fav middlebrow bedtime reading of 2009, I was mulling over why Kevin Roose's account of a semester at Liberty University fell off the list, since I had enjoyed reading the book, found it amusing & informative, but had an increasingly negative take on it afterward. The phrase that kept occurring to me was "genial violence." Roose allowed himself to be lulled by the geniality - the good Sunday School manners - of the university's culture because he's basically a friendly, get-along kind of fellow who looked for commonalities. But in doing so, he was unable to maintain a clear view of the culture's violent attitudes & language. Roose had never really known many other types of Christians. He was as uninformed as some of the anti-religion ideologues at Kos. Going into that place, Roose needed to know more about the varieties of Christian practice & belief .

Liberty students really would let the poor starve to death. They really are terrified of homosexuals to the point of sounding like blathering idiots. What is permitted women in their culture doesn't alter the fact that the underlying patriarchal assumptions about women aren't much different from Islamic Wanhabism. I won't go into why it's sad they can't look at a bird, see what used to be a dinosaur, & still Praise the Lord. Tom Coburn, a Southern Baptist & an M.D,. gives us a good example of the "genial violence." Later, of course, he said he didn't mean to wish "misfortune" on anyone.

"If senators are napping before the vote he would not be disappointed if alarm clocks don't go off," spokesman John Hart said in an e-mail.

As dutifully reported by we report we decide. They don't have to apologize, or retract, unless maybe they're caught with their pants around their ankles in the vicinity of someone other than their legal wives. Only guys like Jeremiah Wright are expected to do complete turnabouts, never mind that the Rev. Wright could teach conservative, white, middle class Christians a thing or two about running a successful, open-door fish & loaves church in a desperately poor neighborhood, & he never leaned on anyone to jump in a dunk tank for a free lunch.

Coburn is up to no good. Back home in Oklahoma he plays to the angry gospel church folks, the ones who say "Keep your government hands off my Medicare ," or are working stiffs only two missed paychecks away from having a food basket delivered this week by the Church Home Visitation Committee. In Washington, he hangs out with the "C Street" crowd, who have contempt for the multitude hoi polloi & would've counseled Jesus to invest in a decent robe & pair of sandals & get himself invited to a meet 'n' greet at Pilate's palace.

We know what you meant, Senator.

Labels: blogging against theocracy, religion, what I'm reading