rains down in africa - toto

.

Wendy's To Beat Chick-Fil-A In Franchising to Uganda

Chick-Fil-A is yet to break into the Bigtime diverse Chicago, Philly, NYC, Boston franchising arena.

Cardinal George of Chicago is rooting for Chick-Fil-A BTW as his choice for Catholic Values Fast Food.

Wendy's in Columbia SC, one of a 74 chain Wendy's subdivision operated by Jim Furman, Tarheel Capital, is rooting for the competition, as seen above, in serving unwholesome mechanically separated tortured chicken as opposed to good old A-merican Beef.

Rumor has it that Wendy's will beat Chick-Fil-A into the East African franchising market namely Uganda where Evangelical Christian fast food must bribe the local pols with cash and have a uniquely American version, of the Christianity Hate Brand seal of approval.

.

Condom Head No More ?

I have to suppose that in dealing with the Roman Church, that traditions or rituals that are thousands of years old must outrank ideas from a modern age.

No doubt a lot of internal shouting from bishops to the seat of Peter within the very thick walls of the Vatican has finally registered a small amount of modern common sense on a pontiff steeped in the past.

The pope, far from changing any official church doctrine, has in a way and in an unofficial sense commented on the use of condoms to prevent the spread of disease, as in the case of Aids in Africa where it is of epidemic proportions in some areas.

Without changing anything, everything changes on the comments Benedict XVI make in an upcoming book due out this week - Peter Seewald - The Light of The World.

Pope’s remarks on condoms

It seems a turnaround from the pontiff’s stance on the issue in March 2009 during a visit to Africa, when he went as far as saying that condoms “aggravated” the Aids problem.

“In certain cases, where the intention is to reduce the risk of infection, it can nevertheless be a first step on the way to another, more humane sexuality,” the head of the Catholic church said, giving as an example a male prostitute having sex with a client…

“I think it is very good that the pope sees the discussion in the worldwide church and he listened to other bishops who said there had to be discussion about condoms when we speak about Aids,” Florian Flohr, spokesman for the Catholic church of Lucerne, told swissinfo.ch.

“It’s very important now that the pope says the same thing.”

Can the pontiff’s remarks be regarded as a revolution? “It’s going too far to say it’s a revolution, but it’s a change of view. There is no more taboo of speaking about it and I think that is very good because the condom is not the most important thing,” he said.

“The most important thing is that people are responsible for their sexuality and that they think about it.”

Rick Warren Keeps Getting Fatter and Fatter

Rick Warren keeps getting fatter and fatter. His books sell millions. His opinion supposedly carries weight. President Casper Milquetoast was so afraid of the big man of religion that the big man of religion showed up in his very big clothes at Inauguration Day to invoke his god of success on himself and to the cameras.

Other than the 10,000 people who show up every week at his mega church in California, who does the good pastor serve except maybe a dozen tailors working overtime on his expanding waistline.

Warren does not serve humanity. The Jerry Falwell success model is based on money and power. Warren has the money. He is waiting for a Christian President, Sarah Palin(?) to anoint him in similar fashion as the emperor-god Reagan anointed Falwell to bring out the GOP vote on election day.

In the meantime, a bunch of anti-Jesus agenda freaks aka as The Family, the Doug Coe Family, have taken over the country of Uganda, with taxpayer money (something of a Charlie Wilson’s war scenario – but without a good ending).

Where is the MSM? In bed with Glenn and Rupert again? (naughty boys!)

The Family has talked the Ugandan’s out of condoms in favor of abstinence and prayers to Jeebus to cure HIV/AIDS there. The sales commission or bonuses on that inhumane bullshit from the Vatican must be in the tens of millions.

Chickenfeed when compared to a Purpose Driven African nation that can muster arms and god to conquer all of the extremely rich mineral rich territory of all of Africa in the purpose driven game plan of decades to come. Of course most of them, the Africans will be dead from HIV/AIDS, but isn’t that God’s will and not Goldman Sachs?

Rachel Maddow has now challenged Rick Warren to do more than a little mumble of his disapproval of the official Uganda Gay Hate Bill on her cable TV Show. Mumble on Rick - The mediocre, Jesus vomits out.

Maddow to Warren: Come on air to denounce anti-gay Uganda bill

Night after night, Maddow, who is gay, has been hammering conservative U.S. evangelical leaders and politicians for failing to speak out promptly, loudly and clearly against a bill in Uganda that would criminalize homosexuality.

After days of being blasted by name, a few politicians have now issued statements against the bill, just recently toned down from a life imprisonment and death penalty provisions to mere jail time for being actively gay -- or even knowing someone gay and failing to report them. (Imagine the chaos that would create for the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS, apart from legitimizing hate.)

Earlier this week, Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life and leader of vast social action networks in Africa under his PEACE plan, issued his first specific denunciation of the legislation, days after initially saying he couldn't interfere in another nation's politics.

The Christian world, the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Family, the Jerry Falwell wannabes do not give one shit or damn about the people of Africa except to manipulate then or reinslave them in this new modern Goldman Sachs redesigned imperialism and colonialism.

The money changers are in charge of the churches and or the purpose averted mission of Jesus. They got there with permission of Goldman Sachs and other ruling world leaders. Is this the New World Order?

Obama, the congress, healthcare, climate control is all just some sideshow with all the cameras in Washington doing a daily soap opera.

The sooner that a greed monger like Museveni gets replaced by moderate, reasonable, humane leadership in Uganda and other African countries, the sooner that humanity can mature toward the true message of Jesus which is people first, state and religion second.

The gospel of Jesus is to make a better world. It is not to make your life more comfortable by letting the people you do not like or do not like you – be killed.

Killed because of the omission of your humanity. Killed because of your purpose averted humanity doctrine.

GOP and the New Racism

I do not think that it is intellectual or moral backbone that has the Cardinal Newman Society, a once harmless national on-campus organization, campaigning against President Obama, to prevent him from speaking at Notre Dame on May 17. I think it is out and out pure old fashioned racism. Not so recognizable as racism but the coded worded type so frequently used in the recent past.

This moral outrage – is it funded in anyway by the down and out GOP?

GOP money seems to be funding this tea bag thing against whatever – taxes? - too.

The GOP is looking for a hook. Anything that will stick and get them back into Sodom and Gomorrah like absolute power in Washington D.C.. This wanting "Obama to fail" strategy is publicly professed by Gingrich and Limbaugh among others. This wanting Obama to fail is unpatriotic in my opinion. I feel that it goes deeper than failed politics on the GOP side. I think it also goes to the level of race.

I don’t think it is coincidence that Tony Blair converted to Roman Catholicism as a prelude to his campaigning to be the first president of the EU.

I don’t think it a coincidence that Newt Gingrich has now converted to Roman Catholicism. I think the new “IN” for the republicans and their tired decades old “family values” hypocrisy is in hiding behind the skirts of the RC Church to push its fascist agenda forward.

I do not think it coincidence that a nationally mounted campaign in the Catholic Blogoshpere against Obama speaking at Notre Dame - or on any level - but with this run let's call it moral - and not racism coded or otherwise - is anything but a test run for politics and new GOP strategy.

If this new fascist strategy wrapped in moral sheep's clothing - if it works at Notre Dame, then the New Racism (the hook) is born and and the GOP will try to rise again using this new found gimmick of pushing its agenda forward on the "moral" Catholic Blogosphere, coded or otherwise.

I watched this person last night, this Raymond Arroyo “News” anchor on the EWTN – Eternal Word Television Network – and heard him pump up and advance this (covert racist) campaign by the Cardinal Newman Society to throw the black guy off campus at Notre Dame. The spokesperson for the Cardinal Newman society said that he would be happy if they withdrew the honorary degree and the (second class negro citizen) President be allowed to only talk at the commencement.

Sound familiar? ASU in Tempe Arizona will not give the black guy an honorary degree. Like what has Obama done lately? Not much apparently. Arizona, has a republican Governor and two republican senators. Arizona, under a republican governor, shot down the MLK federal holiday a generation ago – a good red neck state and it’s Universities suck too.

I had come to believe lately that the party of Lincoln and their recent round of debauchery, of sodomy in airport bathrooms and fondling page boys in the Capitol hallways and the adultery, drunk driving and making of bastard children was on its way out for a long needed rest.

But no. Fox News may be in decline. The Catholic Blogosphere is the next wave, the secret weapon of the GOP. I told you that Roman Catholicism was not a fascist religion so much as a religion in search of a fascist patron – President Newt Gingrich?

I can’t find any credible journalistic credentials for this Pee Wee Herman look alike spokesperson for the Church of Rome – Mr. Arroyo seems to be an official spokesperson supporting the church’s (racist?) policies in Africa and the Pope’s evil (coded) pronouncements on condoms. We in the west don’t take the Pope’s unscientific pronouncements on condoms seriously.

But a bunch of poor uneducated Africans do take the words of the pope as sacred or sounding like they come from Mt. Sinai or such.

The pope is not pro-life

Appearing on Fox's O'Reilly Factor last week, I debated the pope's statement with writer Raymond Arroyo. I pointed out that UNAIDS, calls the condom the “single, most efficient, available technology to reduce the sexual transmission of HIV.” Arroyo responded with a bizarre conspiracy theory saying that the United Nations group was only trying to “protect the government infusion of money to these condom programs that have demonstrably not worked at all.”

Then I asked Arroyo point blank: “If all the condoms in Africa magically disappeared, would the number of HIV cases increase or decrease?”

He responded that HIV would decrease if people would model their lives on the pope's “ideal way in which to live.”

In the ideal world promoted by Arroyo, priests would not rape little boys, while getting shuffled around parishes to protect the church. In the real world, the Vatican has spent millions of dollars to pay for child abuse lawsuits. In Arroyo's fantasy world, young people pledge abstinence until marriage. In the real world, studies show that teens taking virginity pledges were just as likely to engage in sex—and less likely to use birth control or condoms when they finally did.

Beware of the new power of the RC church as an agent of the GOP.

Fascism in America or it’s secret agenda within the GOP is not dead yet.

Darfur - the dogs and demons of war

I see in the world press that the President of Sudan has been indicted for War Crimes in Darfur by the International Criminal Court in the Hague, Netherlands. This is a step in the right direction for the International Global approach to try and put a lid on and discourage future atrocities from happening in Sudan and elsewhere.

Bashir Defies Arrest Order on War Crime Charges

After months of deliberation, the judges charged Mr. Bashir with war crimes and crimes against humanity for playing an “essential role” in the murder, rape, torture, pillage and displacement of large numbers of civilians in Darfur. But the judges did not charge him with genocide, as the prosecutor had requested.

In issuing the order, the three judges put aside diplomatic requests for more time for peace talks and fears that the warrant would incite a violent backlash in Sudan, where 2.5 million Darfur residents have been chased from their homes and 300,000 have died in a conflict pitting non-Arab rebel groups against the Arab-dominated government and its allied militias.

Because of this international indictment, there are likely to be disruptions in humanitarian aid going into the war torn region as written in the following article, along with a synopsis of the political story behind this tragedy.

Graham: Arrest of Bashir Threatens Chaos in Sudan

“Mr. Bashir is rightly accused of great cruelty and destruction,” (Franklin) Graham writes. “But I have been able to deal with him.”

The op-ed was posted just one day before the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for President Bashir for the violence in Darfur. Bashir is charged with seven counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder, extermination, forcible transfer, torture, and rape, according to CNN.

Violence broke out in the western region of Darfur, Sudan five years ago when ethnically African Darfurians rebelled against the central Arab-dominated Khartoum government. The government, in turn, is accused of unleashing Arab nomads called janjaweed militias on Darfur civilians, resulting in more than 200,000 deaths and the displacement of 2.5 million civilians since 2003.

News of the arrest warrant for Bashir have been met with cheers from human rights groups that have long sought for greater international intervention regarding the Darfur genocide.

Save Darfur Coalition president Jerry Fowler commended the ICC for issuing the arrest warrant and called the act a “game changing moment.”

I, as a common man or global observer, do not completely know what to make of this "man's inhumanity to man" that is going on in place like Sudan. In a 10-15 second sound bite media world it is hard to get the planet’s attention about war, murder, rape, famine, overpopulation and the vestiges of the cold war in the ongoing and lively armament sales industry.

The UN ( United Nations ) is used at times to stand on a dividing line between “us and them” and to distribute basic food stuffs and aid to famine victims and war refugees. The UN can do little else unless empowered by many nations to do something more than just hand out packages after some tragedy has occured.

Under the land that is Africa there is no doubt a lot of minerals and natural resources. It is difficult at times to understand all the sides in a conflict that makes up what seems likes a civil war fighting for, in this case, limited surface resources such as water, food and grass for herding. How can so basic a human right as food and water trigger so many global conflicts and concerns? Where is there decent management and husbandry of the land?

The outside world picks a point of view that suits its own economic, political, ethnic or religious spin. Pick a side or POV. It is too complicated for a convenient ten second sound bite solution.

The people on the ground are suffering and we seem to be in the distance playing at some celestial focus, gazing out on the images of the idiot box in the living room, if we are interested at all - many are not interested sad to say.

I cannot see too clear a picture of this mess other than to agree that it is a tragic mess indeed. The conflicts being played out in Darfur so far from the central capital makes me want to make a few points which may or may not help you in forming an opinion in this human tragedy. It reminds me of the Nicaragua thing of a generation ago.

I never could figure out the linguistics (PC) of Nicaragua in the 1980’s in terms of who we (USA) were backing and who we were opposing. I still could not tell you who or what the Sandinistas or Contras were all about and that I used to watch the “Great Communicator” Ronald Reagan keeps pounding on these sound bites. This must make you think how dumb I must be.

Perhaps I knew that I had nothing to do with U.S. foreign policy in Nicaragua. It was already a crock and was decided or was a legacy going back to 1849 with shipping magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt trying to build a canal to go from the Caribbean to the Pacific ocean. If you are interesting in an offbeat movie on that historic situation, footnote, I recommend “Walker” 1987, Alex Cox Director…

"Walker", 1987, Alex Cox Director

…whereby an American mercenary walked into the civil war involving Vanderbilt, British and internal Nicaraguan interests and got himself “elected” President of the country and recognized by the U.S. government. The US foreign policy has been stuck there ever since.

So too in Sudan and Darfur, the story line must go back decades, generations and centuries and even before the European Colonial Powers started to draw lines on paper maps in London, Paris, Lisbon, and Berlin.

Part of the difficulty and reason for the present war in Iraq goes back to a fcuked up set of map lines dividing the middle east into British and French spheres of influence after the sleazy Treaty of Versailles and following the European World War One.

But Nicaragua and Iraq are not Darfur or the Sudan. I see it as a global formula or equation by which the standards set up by the major world religions - do not live up to these ideals in dealing with global situations wherever they occur. All politics are local, all beliefs are local and sad to say all mercy and justice must be local as well. Humanity is factored out in so many possible win-win global equations of the media, politics, economics etc. - or humanity is used all too often to frame a self interest agenda.

I cannot directly help cure the present Darfur genocide or whatever PC word your government or monied or cultural interests demands that you label it. It is a mess. I am a helpless bystander witness of the world stage and the world’s inability to get a little more human and economically efficient. The future of Africa and the planet may get better only if we start building a future from the zero of now.

What I would suggest in the decades to come to prevent these Keystone Cops, puppet regime forms of government in the Raped Lady = Africa, is to let big one-city countries sprawl and rule and corrupt themselves. Let a more aggressive United Nations or Capitalist Interested Corporation administer all the small towns and villages that do not get aid from any central regime in times of drought and famine.

That investment through capitalist interests in that continent could distribute wealth and profits from exploitation of natural resources and minerals. That roads, clean water and education be given global priority for a couple of decades. Then step back and decide where political and economic lines can or should be redrawn in the capitals of real world power, corporations, and local centers of common human interest.

The feudal way that Africa is still administrating itself is indirectly a threat to future world peace.

Let us start to set long term common goals in the vast regions of the continent of Africa. The age of two bit dictators and two bit capitalism is over I hope. Yeah right.

I can do little more than pray for the victims of war, make a check out to a reputable charity, and write my congressman.

God have mercy on us and God be with us all!