Religiosity 2011

Same ol' ... same ol'.....no new news here"




So what else is new???   Via Pew Research (details here).   And the usual suspects here!

A boy to be sacrificed!

Wow…I read this in this  Sunday’s NY Times.   It was difficult to get through.   It‘s heartbreaking and I’m at a loss for words.   But here it is…

In the Morocco of the 1980s, where homosexuality did not, of course, exist, I was an effeminate little boy, a boy to be sacrificed, a humiliated body who bore upon himself every hypocrisy, everything left unsaid.   By the time I was 10, though no one spoke of it.   I knew what happened to boys like me in our impoverished society; they were designated victims, to be used, with everyone’s blessing, as easy sexual objects by frustrated men.   And I knew that no one would save me - not even my parents, who surely loved me.   For them too, I was shame, filth.   A “zamel.”

It all came to a head one summer night in 1985.   It was too hot.   Everyone was trying in vain to fall asleep.   I, too, lay awake, on the floor beside my sisters, my mother close by.   Suddenly, the familiar voices of drunken men reached us.   We all heard them.   The whole family.   The whole neighborhood.   The whole world.   These men, whom we all knew quite well, cried out: “Abdellah, little girl, come down.   Come down.   Wake up and come down.   We all want you.   Come down, Abdellah.   Don’t be afraid.   We won’t hurt you.   We just want to have sex with you.”

They kept yelling for a long time.   My nickname.   Their desire.   Their crime.   They said everything that went unsaid in the too-silent, too-respectful world where I lived.   But I was far, then, from any such analysis, from understanding that the problem wasn’t me.   I was simply afraid.   Very afraid.   And I hoped my big brother, my hero, would rise and answer them.   That he would protect me, at least with words. I didn’t want him to fight them - no.   All I wanted him to say were these few little words: “Go away!   Leave my little brother alone.”

But my brother, the absolute monarch of our family, did nothing.   Everyone turned their back on me.   Everyone killed me that night.   I don’t know where I found the strength, but I didn’t cry.   I just squeezed my eyes shut a bit more tightly.   And shut, with the same motion, everything else in me.   Everything.   I was never the same Abdellah Taïa after that night.   To save my skin, I killed myself.   And that was how I did it.

Conservative Teen Magazine!

This is for real people!

Stand Your Ground!

He was a 17 year old high school senior who lost his life in Florida…under the premise of   “Stand Your Ground”.   Florida's "stand your ground" law, allows citizens to use deadly force if they "reasonably believe" their safety is threatened in a public setting, like a park or a street.

Floridians are not restrained by a "duty to retreat" from a threat while out in public, and would be free from prosecution or civil liability if they acted in self-defense.

There are 23 other states that have a “Stand Your Ground” provision/law. Below is a list of the “stand your ground” states (and their murder rates…in 2010…source).   Most of them are the usual suspects and not a surprise to me!



Rest in peace...Trayvon Martin!

Mississppi, Alabama...and Kentucky too!

Well...the votes are in! Some Republikkkans in my favorite 3 states believe that Santorum is their guy!   Why am I not surprised?   Some incredibly scary data according to the Public Polling Policy website:





Alabama:

• Edmund Petus Bridge (Bloody Sunday)
• Blew up a church (and killed 4 innocent young girls)
• Governor George Wallace
• 9th poorest state in America (16.1% poverty rate)
• 2nd fattest state in America (32.3% are obese)
• 2nd most religious state in America (86% believe in God with absolute certainty)
• 9th lowest state with college degrees (31.6%)
• last state to repeal anti-miscegenation (interracial marriage) law in 2000!   Yes…2000!

Mississippi:

• Murdered James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner (details)
• Murdered Emmett Till (details)
• Poorest state in America (21.3% poverty rate)
• 3rd Fattest state in America (32.2% are obese)
• Most religious state in America (91% believe in God with absolute certainty)
• 5th lowest state with college degrees (29.3%)

Although the citizens of Kentucky have already given Santorum their "blessings", they're right up there with Mississippi and Alabama.

Kentucky:

• home to Mitch McConnell (Senate Republican leader)…born in ALABAMA!!!
• home to Rand Paul
• 8th poorest state in America (17.3% poverty rate)
• 6th fattest state in America (29.5% of the people are obese
• 7th most religious state in America (83% believe in God with absolute certainty)
• 4th lowest state with college degrees (29.2%)

I could never live or retire to any of these beauties!

Sources:
Poorest
Fattest
Most Religious
Least Educated

Japanese Tsunami - One Year later. WOW!

God, Tornadoes & Prayer!

"Prayer Could Have Stopped the Tornadoes"



She Prayed That Tornado Away From Her And Right
Into Her Neighbor's House!



Stories of God's Protection Emerge After Storms
Leave 38 Dead!

In a small eastern Kentucky farming town in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, the Rev. Kenneth Jett of the West Liberty United Methodist Church is grateful to God for his family's safety when storms were causing destruction in five states: Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio.

"We're thankful to God," The Associated Press quoted Jett as saying. "It was a miracle that the five of us survived."
Full story here