Broken Communication in America – The Sound of My Voice – Father / Son / Holy Ghost – Limbaugh / Osteen / Maddow (redux*)

This began the other night when my usual source of “Progressive” information MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow was presenting a propaganda show that night to tell of airline shootings of the last three or more decades and telling us directly or indirectly (subliminally) that America should not go to war with Russia over Malaysian Flight MH17 shot down over the Ukraine / Russian border by Russian terrorists.

Not satisfied with my own personal questions about this tragic act of Russian State Terrorism, I resorted to what I did in the dark days of George W Bush and sought foreign English Speaking news sites in the UK, Singapore and Australia to try and get a handle on the truth – something not available in America on this specific incident.

I realized that Rachel was doing a favor for the liberal/progressive party in general and maybe even specifically directly for the White House. That Professor Barry was not going to get off his ass and break a sweat over this one – he only will break a sweat doing hoops btw. But that is his style. George W. Bush’s style was similar as he sat in his tub and painted his toes etc.

I had to stand back and reflect on why I had sought Maddow as a news source and realized that I was seeking a comfort zone source and she had inherited that main source title at MSNBC after they hounded Olbermann into obscurity and back to the sports locker room gig – a job he was not best, but better suited for as far as the establishment was concerned.

But Olbermann was a shouter, a preacher and the sound of his voice gave comfort and his words too in most cases. Olbermann was a bit of a diva and they can easily be gotten rid of etc. – don’t you know.

But was it the sound of Olbermann’s voice that I trusted and maybe not all his words? That by default, Maddow’s voice had now become to me the surrogate Olbermann voice I suppose, (the ghost of Olbernmann past?) and or the surrogate voice of comfort available on the cable airwaves for me at least and my POV. And of course, it is a limited elite audience in America that can afford private cable news and or propaganda. I am certainly not your everyday hoi polloi. Yeah right.

I also in the case of comforting voices harkened back to something said by the Catholic theologian Bill Lindsey over at the Bilgrimage blog somewhere about how his assessment of listening to Rush Limbaugh on long car trips in the South put him to mind to analyze why a babbling tub of lard like Limbaugh had such a wide and hardcore group of listeners. The answer Bill had was that people fell in love with Rush’s voice and no matter what he says, no matter how vain, vulgar or stupid, it is the sound of the voice people are listening to and not the string of words that Rush outputs by the ton on a daily radio message day.

The trick to the magic of communicating at least in America was to trust the snake oil salesman or saleswoman and then the snake oil tastes like sugar candy from that point on in time.

And then there is Joel Osteen with his $100,000 perfect plastic teeth smile doing a nihilistic circle jerk of "success" with his Texas congregation – Christian??? - of reaffirming to his middle-class audience in an indirect oblique manner, that it is okay to cheat on your income taxes so long as you tithe to him - Joel - kindasorta religion? 

Of course Joel is not political that I know of, but the Catholic U.S. Supreme Court has okay-ed anonymity in political PACs (Citizens United) these days even if tax exempt preachers, Salt Lake City temples or Russian dictators want to fund any looney these days in the Tea Party and its “I don’t give a shit about my neighbor” Ayn Rand pagan libertarian godless philosophy.

I hear he has something like a hundred million mortgage on the former professional basketball  arena he calls a mega-church down there in sub-minimum wage Texas. When the founding fathers gave tax exemption to churches, meeting houses and synagogues and such, those congregations were in wooden buildings and memberships numbered in the hundreds each. How times have changed.

Funny thing. I heard a story about how the safe in his church got robbed one weekend recently in the News. The thieves got away with over half a million dollars which was supposed to be the weekly take  for his local god business.  So people start to think – wow – that times 52 weeks is like twenty six million a year. 

Wow! That is success. Right?

Well being an old war horse in the mortgage business among other things over the years. The thing is this. Twenty-six million income on a 100 million mortgage represents four times income or so. That is the base bottom line for allowing any mortgage or it used to be until politics and the whoring banks along with politicians ruined the mortgage business in this country.  Four times income.  Joel is barely getting by - treading water. Not much of a success in terms of old mortgage business standards. But those are old standards.

Who am I to question the success that the lord has pissed out onto Joel Osteen standing on his humble solid gold preacher pedestal? lol

But many, many, many may never hear the word Jesus out of his mouth during his hour long success story homilies preaching thing – or understand the words. But he has one hell of a comforting voice. Amen?

* (July 26, 2014 - http://thisculturalchristian.blogspot.com/2014/07/broken-communication-in-america-sound.html )

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Broken Communication in America – The Sound of My Voice – Father / Son / Holy Ghost – Limbaugh / Osteen / Maddow

This began the other night when my usual source of “Progressive” information MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow was presenting a propaganda show that night to tell of airline shootings of the last three or more decades and telling us directly or indirectly (subliminally) that America should not go to war with Russia over Malaysian Flight MH17 shot down over the Ukraine / Russian border by Russian terrorists.

Not satisfied with my own personal questions about this tragic act of Russian State Terrorism, I resorted to what I did in the dark days of George W Bush and sought foreign English Speaking news sites in the UK, Singapore and Australia to try and get a handle on the truth – something not available in America on this specific incident.

I realized that Rachel was doing a favor for the liberal/progressive party in general and maybe even specifically directly for the White House. That Professor Barry was not going to get off his ass and break a sweat over this one – he only will break a sweat doing hoops btw. But that is his style. George W. Bush’s style was similar as he sat in his tub and painted his toes etc.

I had to stand back and reflect on why I had sought Maddow as a news source and realized that I was seeking a comfort zone source and she had inherited that main source title at MSNBC after they hounded Olbermann into obscurity and back to the sports locker room gig – a job he was not best, but better suited for as far as the establishment was concerned.

But Olbermann was a shouter, a preacher and the sound of his voice gave comfort and his words too in most cases. Olbermann was a bit of a diva and they can easily be gotten rid of etc. – don’t you know.

But was it the sound of Olbermann’s voice that I trusted and maybe not all his words? That by default, Maddow’s voice had now become to me the surrogate Olbermann voice I suppose, (the ghost of Olbernmann past?) and or the surrogate voice of comfort available on the cable airwaves for me at least and my POV. And of course, it is a limited elite audience in America that can afford private cable news and or propaganda. I am certainly not your everyday hoi polloi. Yeah right.

I also in the case of comforting voices harkened back to something said by the Catholic theologian Bill Lindsey over at the Bilgrimage blog somewhere about how his assessment of listening to Rush Limbaugh on long car trips in the South put him to mind to analyze why a babbling tub of lard like Limbaugh had such a wide and hardcore group of listeners. The answer Bill had was that people fell in love with Rush’s voice and no matter what he says, no matter how vain, vulgar or stupid, it is the sound of the voice people are listening to and not the string of words that Rush outputs by the ton on a daily radio message day.

The trick to the magic of communicating at least in America was to trust the snake oil salesman or saleswoman and then the snake oil tastes like sugar candy from that point on in time.

And then there is Joel Osteen with his $100,000 perfect plastic teeth smile doing a nihilistic circle jerk of "success" with his Texas congregation – Christian??? - of reaffirming to his middle-class audience in an indirect oblique manner, that it is okay to cheat on your income taxes so long as you tithe to him - Joel - kinda sorta religion? 

Of course Joel is not political that I know of, but the Catholic U.S. Supreme Court has okay-ed anonymity in political PACs (Citizens United) these days even if tax exempt preachers, Salt Lake City temples or Russian dictators want to fund any looney these days in the Tea Party and its “I don’t give a shit about my neighbor” Ayn Rand pagan libertarian godless philosophy.

I hear he has something like a hundred million mortgage on the former professional basketball  arena he calls a mega-church down there in sub-minimum wage Texas. When the founding fathers gave tax exemption to churches, meeting houses and synagogues and such, those congregations were in wooden buildings and memberships numbered in the hundreds each. How times have changed.

Funny thing. I heard a story about how the safe in his church got robbed one weekend recently in the News. The thieves got away with over half a million dollars which was supposed to be the weekly take  for his local god business.  So people start to think – wow – that times 52 weeks is like twenty six million a year. 

Wow! That is success. Right?

Well being an old war horse in the mortgage business among other things over the years. The thing is this. Twenty-six million income on a 100 million mortgage represents four times income or so. That is the base bottom line for allowing any mortgage or it used to be until politics and the whoring banks along with politicians ruined the mortgage business in this country.  Four times income.  Joel is barely getting by - treading water. Not much of a success in terms of old mortgage business standards. But those are old standards.

Who am I to question the success that the lord has pissed out onto Joel Osteen standing on his humble solid gold preacher pedestal? lol

But many, many, many may never hear the word Jesus out of his mouth during his hour long success story homilies preaching thing – or understand the words. But he has one hell of a comforting voice. Amen?

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Dumb U.S. Congress Needs to Graduate from High School

Members of Congress speak at a 10th-grade level - down almost a full grade since 2005 - raising the question of whether they are embracing a more effective communication strategy or dumbing down their messages, a new report says.

The findings published by the Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan government transparency group in Washington, found that California representatives use more complex words - speaking at about the 12th-grade level.

The foundation analyzed floor speeches as reported in the Congressional Record, using the Flesch-Kincaid scale, which rates speeches based on the complexity, length and difficulty of words and sentences. Congress speaks at roughly the same level as the typical American, who speaks between the ninth- and 10th-grade levels.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/06/01/MNTQ1OPAQ7.DTL#ixzz1wrGS1VlF

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Luke 18:31-43 - Quinquagesima (Feb. 22, 2009)

Do you know yourself? Simple question, isn't it? When you leave here today will you know who you are and in terms of your relation to friends, family, the community?

So much of Jesus' ministry in those ancient times was in trying to make people see things differently. A business psychologist in college once stated the definition of what it takes to be great to us, his students.

He stated that a great person makes the whole world turn around and look at the world differently. Great men and or great women move the world. They change the world. My teacher cited the examples of Einstein, Gandhi, Darwin, Buddha and of course Jesus to name a few.

It is a crowded field for great people. The world is changed not every decade these days but every day. I detest the term 24/7 because it connotes business every hour of the day, seven days a week. When do we rest from the labors of our life? Even God rested on the seventh day.

Indeed, the secular nature of our culture pushes out, eradicates or even discounts the value of things that some of us can remember. Half a century ago, there was little or no business done on a Sunday. Sunday was for family and a rest from the everyday workaday world and a day for church. God is not that important anymore to the secular world. God and or Jesus have to be in the secular rat race of life everyday to get any recognition or respect. It is a sad commentary on our times.

I look back at the past and am not all that nostalgic for it. Rather, I am looking down the road to better days ahead. What we here today are doing is recognizing the greatness of God and his Son and his mission to earth. How great thou art. How great thou art indeed.

In the opening reading from Samuel, it would appear that God was not happy with King Saul and he is telling Samuel to go to Bethlehem and seek out a son of Jesse. Samuel is to anoint this son of Jesse with oil. God is looking for a new ruler of his chosen people. And going back to my opening question - do you know yourself? - I think that perhaps God saw beyond Saul's great abilities to be a king and warrior. Perhaps he saw into the heart of the man and knew that Saul was not fit for the job or was losing his grip.

Time for change is coming down the road. Why not let a few people starting with the prophet Samuel know that change was coming in the form of King David. King David would one day lay the foundation stones of the first temple not by building the temple itself but by choosing Jerusalem as a permanent Jewish city and a permanent home for the wandering Ark of the Covenant. His son Solomon built the temple. David picked its location.

Jesus, perhaps in his temporary role as prophet, is standing there in front of his apostles and telling them what is about to happen to him. He is to be taken by gentiles, mocked and killed. And in three days he will rise. Their eyes glaze over. They do not see what he sees. No doubt Jesus might have been thinking this about his Apostles - Do you know yourself? Do you know who you are? Do you really know who I am?

Communication then was as difficult as it can be today. There is the theme of the great man to make others see the world differently. Besides predicting the future, Jesus is trying to make people to stop looking at outward appearances. He is in so many ways trying to appeal to people to look inside to what their hearts tell them. He is in so many ways trying to tell people to change religious beliefs from rules and outward appearances and obsolete rituals.

Saint Paul in first Corinthians thirteen is evaluating perhaps his own person and the human condition as well. It is difficult to turn around and to see ourselves differently. But in Jesus, in his teachings, in his grace from on high, we can change our lives in so many ways. Go thy way and sin no more. Recognize our faults, our sins, ask forgiveness, receive forgiveness. Change the way the world sees us. Move the world! Be a great new person.

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels - and have not love, I am nothing.

Jesus is traveling and there are the crowds following him. The quiet of the country side is disturbed. Crowds, noise, talking, shouting. The circus has come to town? No. Just Jesus. Just Jesus?! More like the most truly greatest show on earth that has ever been or ever will be this side of eternity.

A blind man hears the hubbub and asks who is in town? To which they reply Jesus of Nazareth. The man is excited. Jesus' reputation has preceded him. Like Samuel looking to anoint a new up and coming king, most of the prophets of the old testament talk in some futuristic way of this man and his mission, of this special anointed by God man, of this Jesus.

The blind man is shouting. He wants attention. He wants something from Jesus. The blind man who cannot see shouts and anoints Jesus with a proper title - "Jesus, Son of David". Finally the blind man gets the direct attention of Jesus. And Jesus says something remarkable as far as I am concerned. He asks the blind man what he wants from Jesus.

"What do you want me to do for you?"

It should be obvious. The blind man wants to see. Right? Or does he? Do you know yourself? Does the blind man know himself? Jesus does not assume that the blind man wants to see. So he asks. The blind man might want forgiveness for some wretched sins from his past. He might have wanted something for his child or grandchild.

Jesus looks the blind man in the eyes and asks. What do you want me to do for you? The blind man asks to be able to see. Jesus restores his sight with the words "You are healed because you believed".

Do you know yourself? Do others know you? What do they see? What do you feel? What is inside of you? What do you want from Jesus? These are fair questions. Only you have the answers. Faith can cure you. Restore you. Change the way you look and see the world.

From Jesus today I want the whole world to turn around and look first at themselves and to see themselves inside and out in a different manner. I want you to be great people. I want you as Christians to change the world. That is what Jesus wants from each and every one of us. Not too much to ask. Is it?

How great thou art! How great thou art!


For more homilies: http://www.amazon.com/Lenten-Homilies-Lectionary-Cycle-ebook/dp/B0077QUHA8/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1329408622&sr=1-3