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02-14-07, 03:47 PM
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Monday, October 09, 2006
Protesting at funerals is the lowest of the low
WHAT KIND OF IDIOTS would run a protest against President Bush, the governor of Pennsylvania and who knows what else at the funeral of little girls killed by a nutcase? Only in America today, perhaps, do such ridiculous displays occur and it is getting worse, it seems.
Poor William never would even think of interrupting the grief of parents at the funeral of their children, just to get on TV. These people doing the protesting claim to be “church members” for heaven’s sake!
PW does not presume to speak for God, but it doesn’t take much of a brain to know that there is no way any person’s God would be pleased at such an activity. Why don’t these nuts from Kansas just trot over to Crawford and do their protesting in front of President Bush’s ranch; this at least would be more honorable than getting in the way of grieving parents.
And, while PW is on his high horse over this, he might as well point out that he doesn’t believe anyone’s God would approve of killing innocent men and women who worship another God. This “my God is better than your God” is insane and people who kill innocent human beings by blowing themselves up in cafes and the like are absolutely crazy.
But don’t take the word of a lightweight (mentally, not physically) like Poor William. Consider what Sir Winston Churchill wrote back in 1899: “Besides the fanatical frenzy — which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog — there is this fearful fatalistic apathy.”
In “The River War,” the savior of Britain during WWII was speaking of the followers of Mohammad, but PW believes it could also be applied to the followers of any God who is perceived to be ordering followers to kill or behave abominably.
“Apathy” also is defined as “indifference,” and those who would protest at the funeral of Amish children killed by a maniac (and at the funerals of troops killed in Iraq) are showing an indifference when it comes to sensibility and concern for the feelings of the parents. In the same manner, Palestinians who blow up themselves to kill “infidels” are showing an indifference to basic humanity.
These murderers are inhumane to the nth degree and this is what Churchill was saying when, at the age of about 25, he wrote “The River War.” Everyone has the right to disagree, as always …
SOME OF THE THINGS “talking heads” say on television just blow PW’s mind. Today it was the allegation that “Rep. Foley engaged in ‘Internet sex’ while Congress was in session.”
Does this comment strike you as being stupid? “Internet sex” would be copulating with a computer; has the English language really sunk this low?
For that matter, why not consider all of the other things congressmen do while in session. “Theft of the constitutionally guaranteed rights of U.S. citizens” would be prime among things that PW could list.
“Internet sex?” Get real; there is no such thing although PW readily will agree that “pornographic behavior” could be committed in cyberspace.
POP QUIZ: When did the first U.S. serviceman die in Vietnam? No, it wasn’t in 1954 when the U.S. Military Assistance Advisor Group (MAAG) assumed responsibility from the French (yet another bailout by France) for training South Vietnamese forces.
No, it wasn’t in 1959 when then Vice President Lyndon Johnson toured Asia and visited Ngo Dinh Diem in Saigon, assuring Diem that he was crucial to U.S. objectives in Vietnam, calling the South Vietnamese leader the “Churchill of Asia.”
Instead, it was on Oct. 3, 1945, when U.S. Army Lt. Col. Peter Dewey, head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS, which became the CIA) in Vietnam was killed by North Vietnam (Vietminh) troops “while driving a jeep to the airport. Reports later indicated that his death was due to a case of mistaken identity — he had been mistaken for a Frenchman,” according to Today In History and the PBS Vietnam War Timeline.
In other words, it has been more than 60 years. How time does fly. Will Americans be remembering the first U.S. serviceman killed in Iraq in 2040, some 60 years after the first Persian Gulf War began … or will the U.S. still be fighting there?
HERE ARE A FEW good quotes left over from last Tuesday’s column:
Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint. — Mark Twain
My wife has a slight impediment in her speech. Every now and then she stops to breathe. — Jimmy Durante
I have never hated a man enough to give his diamonds back. — Zsa Zsa Gabor
My luck is so bad that if I bought a cemetery, people would stop dying. — Rodney Dangerfield
Don’t worry about avoiding temptation … as you grow older, it will avoid you. — Winston Churchill
Maybe it’s true that life begins at 50 ... but everything else starts to wear out, fall out, or spread out. — Phyllis Diller
HAVE A SUPER SUNDAY and a wonderful week!
Bill Salter is Publisher Emeritus of the Odessa American. His columns appear Sundays.
Monday, October 09, 2006
Protesting at funerals is the lowest of the low
WHAT KIND OF IDIOTS would run a protest against President Bush, the governor of Pennsylvania and who knows what else at the funeral of little girls killed by a nutcase? Only in America today, perhaps, do such ridiculous displays occur and it is getting worse, it seems.
Poor William never would even think of interrupting the grief of parents at the funeral of their children, just to get on TV. These people doing the protesting claim to be “church members” for heaven’s sake!
PW does not presume to speak for God, but it doesn’t take much of a brain to know that there is no way any person’s God would be pleased at such an activity. Why don’t these nuts from Kansas just trot over to Crawford and do their protesting in front of President Bush’s ranch; this at least would be more honorable than getting in the way of grieving parents.
And, while PW is on his high horse over this, he might as well point out that he doesn’t believe anyone’s God would approve of killing innocent men and women who worship another God. This “my God is better than your God” is insane and people who kill innocent human beings by blowing themselves up in cafes and the like are absolutely crazy.
But don’t take the word of a lightweight (mentally, not physically) like Poor William. Consider what Sir Winston Churchill wrote back in 1899: “Besides the fanatical frenzy — which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog — there is this fearful fatalistic apathy.”
In “The River War,” the savior of Britain during WWII was speaking of the followers of Mohammad, but PW believes it could also be applied to the followers of any God who is perceived to be ordering followers to kill or behave abominably.
“Apathy” also is defined as “indifference,” and those who would protest at the funeral of Amish children killed by a maniac (and at the funerals of troops killed in Iraq) are showing an indifference when it comes to sensibility and concern for the feelings of the parents. In the same manner, Palestinians who blow up themselves to kill “infidels” are showing an indifference to basic humanity.
These murderers are inhumane to the nth degree and this is what Churchill was saying when, at the age of about 25, he wrote “The River War.” Everyone has the right to disagree, as always …
SOME OF THE THINGS “talking heads” say on television just blow PW’s mind. Today it was the allegation that “Rep. Foley engaged in ‘Internet sex’ while Congress was in session.”
Does this comment strike you as being stupid? “Internet sex” would be copulating with a computer; has the English language really sunk this low?
For that matter, why not consider all of the other things congressmen do while in session. “Theft of the constitutionally guaranteed rights of U.S. citizens” would be prime among things that PW could list.
“Internet sex?” Get real; there is no such thing although PW readily will agree that “pornographic behavior” could be committed in cyberspace.
POP QUIZ: When did the first U.S. serviceman die in Vietnam? No, it wasn’t in 1954 when the U.S. Military Assistance Advisor Group (MAAG) assumed responsibility from the French (yet another bailout by France) for training South Vietnamese forces.
No, it wasn’t in 1959 when then Vice President Lyndon Johnson toured Asia and visited Ngo Dinh Diem in Saigon, assuring Diem that he was crucial to U.S. objectives in Vietnam, calling the South Vietnamese leader the “Churchill of Asia.”
Instead, it was on Oct. 3, 1945, when U.S. Army Lt. Col. Peter Dewey, head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS, which became the CIA) in Vietnam was killed by North Vietnam (Vietminh) troops “while driving a jeep to the airport. Reports later indicated that his death was due to a case of mistaken identity — he had been mistaken for a Frenchman,” according to Today In History and the PBS Vietnam War Timeline.
In other words, it has been more than 60 years. How time does fly. Will Americans be remembering the first U.S. serviceman killed in Iraq in 2040, some 60 years after the first Persian Gulf War began … or will the U.S. still be fighting there?
HERE ARE A FEW good quotes left over from last Tuesday’s column:
Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint. — Mark Twain
My wife has a slight impediment in her speech. Every now and then she stops to breathe. — Jimmy Durante
I have never hated a man enough to give his diamonds back. — Zsa Zsa Gabor
My luck is so bad that if I bought a cemetery, people would stop dying. — Rodney Dangerfield
Don’t worry about avoiding temptation … as you grow older, it will avoid you. — Winston Churchill
Maybe it’s true that life begins at 50 ... but everything else starts to wear out, fall out, or spread out. — Phyllis Diller
HAVE A SUPER SUNDAY and a wonderful week!
Bill Salter is Publisher Emeritus of the Odessa American. His columns appear Sundays.