Moore Lies

How the leader of the Senate Democrats exposed another whopper

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WFB vs Ron Jr.

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Remember When

Ever wonder what sports columnists think of politicians who conjure up sports memories to paint their millionaire, ivy league selves as somehow relating to the common man? In an article for ESPN.com legendary sports journalist and Bostonian Peter Gammons weighs in on John Kerry's attempts in the vein:

We have been led to cynically believe that many politicians are disingenuous and generally phony, but few will ever beat Massachusetts Senator John Kerry. This man, who changed his middle initial to be JFK and at an anti-Vietnam rally threw someone else's medals into the water, made a self-promotion appearance with Boston talk-show maven Eddie Andelman and claimed he was a big Red Sox fan from his days growing up in Groton, Mass. And at the promotion he said Eddie Yost was his favorite player.

The problem with that is just the simple fact that Eddie Yost never played for the Red Sox.

On Sunday, Kerry made a ”surprise” stop in Boston to throw out the first pitch at the Red Sox-Yankees game. He continued to affect the air of a Bo Sox fan “''The idea of missing a Yankees-Red Sox series right before a convention week was not acceptable, so we changed the policy.'' Putting aside “the policy” element, who does Kerry think he is fooling? In another piece Gammons shows an alacrity for political punditry commenting that Kerry is “going to get 70 percent of the vote in Massachusetts. He doesn't have to be a Red Sox fan, all he has to do is not be John Ashcroft."
If voters really do vote on the basis of who is a bigger baseball fan, and I think it cynical to believe the electorate so simple, then Kerry is definitely in trouble.

9:25:07 AM     Comment [] TrackBack []

New Bible Promotes Dipping

Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: [It is] good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, [to avoid] fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband."

(1 Corinthians 7:1-2, The King James Version)

Some of you think the best way to cope with sex is for men and women to keep right away from each other. That is more likely to lead to sexual offenses. My advice is for everyone to have a regular partner.

(1 Corinthians 7:1-2, The One Translation )

The Anglican church refuses to die a slow death; instead she now stabs at her body to bring more rapidly the end. Relativist cowards, hateful of judgement and tradition are the hands that grip the blade.

The end will be unannounced. Radicals, despite their loathing for her, will in the most despicable act of all don her splendor, take her name, and besmirch its goodness spouting heresy to the masses. They will, in a classic fallacy, assume the world to be as weak as themselves and thereby able to justify the crime. In this assumption, for all their victories up to the present, the apostates are wrong. It will not require guidance from the ethereal, to see through this modern day Claudius. The corruption is as plain as the transformation of meaning and soiling of language in the second translation above.

The verse comes from The One Translation of the Bible by a former Baptist minister, John Henson. Rowen Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury has called it, revealingly, a book of "extraordinary power". It is, according to the ONE For Christian Renewal website, "what Christian language would sound like, if we really tried to screen out the stale, the technical, the unconsciously exclusive words and policies, and to hear for the first time what the Christian Scriptures were saying". The word "baptism" is changed to "dip", Saint Peter becomes "Rocky" and parables are now "riddles". To read it as a serious tome must take great faith. Another example shows how trying the task:

John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

(Mark 1:4, Revised Standard Version)

John, nicknamed ‘The Dipper’, was ‘The Voice’. He was in the desert, inviting people to be dipped, to show they were determined to change their ways and wanted to be forgiven.”

(Mark 1:4, The One Translation)

If a move towards the vernacular is designed to make the text more clear, --to say nothing of the death to the poetry of King James­-- I believe that The One Translation fails. The choice of "dip" instead of "baptize" doesn't revise the meaning, it beclouds it making one think more of baseball players and chewing tobacco than of the locust-eating recluse John the Baptist. Many linguistic changes are similarly humor inducing and strange. The attempts to modernize the words fall flat more often than they succeed.

The translations true crime can be found in its creation of new biblical meaning. Returning to the first example, the shift in the message in Paul's words, from "let every man have his own wife, and every woman have her own husband" to "everyone to have a regular partner" is a blatantly political bastardization. In King James, a man should have a wife, a woman a husband. In TOT, all that is advised is "a regular partner". Does the Archbishop think that by rewriting the Bible with a politically correct hand is for the good of The Church? This Bible and its promoters, including the current Archbishop of Canterbury, must be rebuked and their agenda stopped.

In the late 1970's the Episcopalian church decided to rewrite the Lord's Prayer. William F. Buckley's words on that stupidity read as apropos today:

Perhaps it was ordained that the Episcopalians, like their brothers the Catholics, should suffer. It is a time for weeping, and a time for rage. Do not go kindly into the night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. That would be the advice of this outsider to my brothers in the Anglican Church. They must rage against those who bring upon Christianity not only indifference, but contempt.

(Speical thanks to Slothrop's Dream reader Christine for the scoop)

12:03:37 AM     Comment [] TrackBack []

Ohio: The Heart Of It All

Until recently, Kentucky was thought to possess the worlds largest Ohio buckeye tree, much to the disgust of forestry majors everywhere. Turns out though, learned via the sharp eye of one of said students at The Ohio State University, the Kentucky champ is in fact a yellow buckeye, not an Ohio at all. Like the Greeks returning Helen, or Springfield taking back the lemon tree from Shelbyville, the rightness of nature was once again restored. Thus, the largest of the species (pictured) does in fact reside in the state called home by tree lovers like Dennis Kucinich, Dave Chappell, and Jerry Springer.

A recent issue of Business Week has handed Ohio another title, that of the most important state in the 2004 presidential election. Using a weighted scale to calculate the value of each state's electoral votes, the magazine has concluded that Ohio's 20 votes are in fact worth 60, more than those of any other state. Florida and Missouri, with 27 and 11 votes, were second and third with a weighted value of 52 and 43, respectfully. States like California and Texas with more than double Ohio's electors are worth less (Cali's 55 dropped to 31, Texas' 34 became 12) in the minds of the editors, but why?

Business Week weighed each vote based on factors like the states previous voting pattern. A state like New York, that consistently votes for one party, is considered in the bag for Kerry and therefore not as likely to be fought over. States like Ohio are less predictable, with no party holding a dominant majority. These are the “battleground” or “swing” states.

Battleground states are receiving massive influxes of advertising and other solicitations from the two parties, while the rest of the country is mostly ignored as a certainty for one candidate or another. For people in these select states it provides an engrossing atmosphere in which to learn about each candidate and observe the horse race. For the large number of states on the outside though, the feeling is one of exclusion.

Despite the near statistical tie in the 2000 election, a Republican in California or a Democrat in Texas may feel their vote is futile. Nearly 75% of the electorate lives within a state that is considered out of play. Because the Electoral College does not decide upon popular vote or divvy out state electors based upon what percentage a candidate wins, voters in red and blue states may also feel taken for granted, even if they reside with the majority. Business Week believes swing voters “account for only 8% to 15% of an electorate of 130 million registered voters, a huge swath of America -- and its concerns -- is being ignored as the parties home in on about 17 competitive states.” But if California is “being ignored” by the Dems, why wouldn't they just vote for someone else? The Golden state has elected Pete Wilson, Ronald Reagan, and most recently Arnold Schwarzenegger all from the GOP. The first two are pure conservatives and Arnold is a moderate from the “compassionate” camp. Californians, are perhaps the most reactionary electorate in the country and liable of anything; certainly not a group to take for granted. Rather than being ignored, it is more likely that California's voters see themselves as better served by Gore and Kerry rather than Bush.

Does this mean that Kerry/Edwards can spend time in other states that are less likely go their way? Yes. But it doesn't mean their campaign can ignore NY, California, and other strongholds. If they lose their base then they have no chance and they know this. Therefore they will continue to speak to liberals, just as Bush will continue speaking to his base, while they simultaneously talk moderate policy to the swing states. In an race as close as the polls have this one, no states can be take for granted. Or come election night the certainty of victory may be revealed to be as fallacious as Kentucky's yellow buckeye.

2:32:32 PM     Comment [] TrackBack []

Two Johns

Slothrop's Dream on analyzing the Edwards pick here.

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