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mojede
Trad climber
Butte, America
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Mar 23, 2008 - 03:51pm PT
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And they (the adults) are WHERE ?
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mojede
Trad climber
Butte, America
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Mar 23, 2008 - 04:07pm PT
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Maybe just "over the top" of conservative Republican heads is all.
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philo
Trad climber
boulder, co.
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Mar 23, 2008 - 04:26pm PT
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A classless retort by LEB how unexpected.
And way to go WoodChip fine use of mirroring there.
What adults, where?
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WoodySt
Trad climber
Riverside
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 23, 2008 - 04:37pm PT
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Lois,
The emotionalism is what gets in their way when they want to make a point. If they'd get control of it and push it aside, they'd discover they'd be able to make a reasonable and coherent point. This emotionalism is why I find many of these people troubling. I'm not reflecting negatively in any way on Obama here. It's a sense I get that many of these people aren't carefully analyzing Obama as a candidate. It's more like a church revival. If someone in a pew stood up and said, Pastor, I'm not comfortable with what you just said."; I get the impression the congregation would tear him limb from limb. And, this is the way many Obama supporters react; and it's a poor approach.
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WoodySt
Trad climber
Riverside
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 23, 2008 - 04:39pm PT
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Right here Philo. You, however, probably see adults as a threat. But don't concern yourself; even you may grow up someday. Keep your fingers crossed.
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philo
Trad climber
boulder, co.
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Mar 23, 2008 - 05:00pm PT
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Don't wanna grow up, can't make me, can't make me. WAAAAAH!
I find interest in the realization that the very folks making childish condemnations of those who would praise Obama's words are the very same folk who made childish condemnations of those who did not have praise for Bush's lies.
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! can I have a tax cut?
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philo
Trad climber
boulder, co.
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Mar 23, 2008 - 07:18pm PT
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Actually I think his speech did "cut it".
It was certainly better than Dubya's absurd
"Mission Accomplished" speech-ete.
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jstan
climber
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Mar 24, 2008 - 10:20am PT
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Woody:
Another take on it from the NYT today. Kind of unusual for a candidate to try and get people thinking. Very risky.
March 23, 2008
Obama’s Talk Fuels Easter Sermons
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN and NEELA BANERJEE
This Easter Sunday, the holiest day of the Christian calendar, many pastors will start their sermons about the Resurrection of Jesus and weave in a pointed message about racism and bigotry, and the need to rise above them.
Some pastors began to rethink their sermons on Tuesday, when Senator Barack Obama gave a speech about race, seeking to calm a furor that had erupted over explosive excerpts of sermons by his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.
The controversy drove the nation to the unpatrolled intersection of race and religion, and as many pastors prepared for their Easter message they said they felt compelled to talk about it. Their congregants were writing and e-mailing them: some wanted to share their emotional reactions to Mr. Obama’s speech; others asked how Mr. Wright, the minister, could utter such inflammatory things from the pulpit.
Some ministers interviewed over the last several days said they would wait until after Easter to preach on it all, because Easter and headlines do not mix. But others said there was no better moment than Easter, when sanctuaries swelled with their biggest crowds of the year, and redemption was the dominant theme.
At Mount Ararat Baptist Church in Pittsburgh, the Rev. William H. Curtis said: “At the end of the day, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ makes it possible for even an African-American and a female to articulate the hopes and dreams of America, and do so with the hope of becoming president. Isn’t that wonderful?
“It’s possible because we do believe that humanity has redeeming qualities, and the resurrection of Christ gives us that faith,” said Mr. Curtis, who is president of the Hampton Ministers Conference, a national association of black ministers.
Philip L. Blackwell, senior pastor at the First United Methodist Church at the Chicago Temple, said he would weave an anecdote into his sermon about a black friend of his who had been stopped by the police, who were suspicious because he was driving an expensive car, which he owned.
“The church needs to be a community within which the pain can be shared,” said Mr. Blackwell, who is white and leads an urban, racially mixed congregation. “The grievances can be aired, and the power of that can be directed toward the ‘new creation’ that is portrayed in the Resurrection.”
The whole controversy started, after all, with a minister, preaching, in a church.
Television programs showed recorded parts of sermons by Mr. Wright, who is nationally known for his work in creating economic development programs in the inner city, inspiring many other black pastors to do the same, and for his fiery, prophetic preaching style. In the excerpts, Mr. Wright thunders that the government has inflicted AIDS on black people, and that the United States deserved the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.
Mr. Obama responded with a major address that examined race relations through the eyes of blacks and whites, and called for Americans to open up an honest dialogue about race.
Many ministers said they would preach without explicitly mentioning Mr. Obama because they wanted to avoid alienating politically diverse congregations. They are also aware that some churches accused of making political endorsements have seen their tax-exempt status investigated by the Internal Revenue Service.
The response to the controversy from the pulpit will vary, of course, depending on a church’s denomination, racial composition and political and theological leanings, as well the predilections of the pastor. The Wright controversy is a natural topic for those in the United Church of Christ, a predominantly white denomination that includes Mr. Obama’s and Mr. Wright’s church, Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago (the largest church in the denomination).
Clergy members from Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and white evangelical churches are, very generally, less likely to incorporate the Wright controversy into their sermons than are those at black and mainline Protestant churches.
The Rev. Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals and lead pastor of Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie, Minn., said he would not be preaching about the racial issues raised by Mr. Obama’s speech and expected few other evangelical pastors to, either.
“Easter is about Easter and the Resurrection of Jesus, and it’s pretty unlikely that any other topic would eclipse that,” Mr. Anderson said. “That’s not to say those other topics aren’t important, but this is the most important.”
Most evangelical churches, he said, “are Bible-driven, not current-events-driven.”
In some churches, the evils of racism have long been common fare. In others, it is barely ever mentioned. But with immigration changing the nation’s ethnic balance, many congregations are struggling with the kinds of resentments that Mr. Obama touched on in his speech.
Monsignor Patrick Bishop, of Transfiguration Catholic Church in Marietta, Ga., said his parish had recently transformed from being almost all white to including blacks, Hispanics and Filipinos.
He said that next week, on the second Sunday of Easter, he would say in his homily: “Christ says in Him there is no east or west, north or south, slave or free, male or female. If a person cannot look beyond the color of their skin then they don’t really understand the Gospel.”
The Very Rev. Tracey Lind, dean of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Cleveland, said she would preach about when Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary” went to Jesus’ tomb and were met by an angel who rolled away the stone before the cave to reveal that Christ had risen from the dead.
“I’m going to talk about the stones that need to be rolled away from the tombs of lives, that are holding us in places of death and away from God,” Ms. Lind said. “One of the main stones in our churches, synagogues, mosques, communities, countries, world is the pervasive stone of racism. What Obama has done is moved the stone a little bit.
“I will ask our congregation to look at the stones in our lives,” she said.
Some ministers said their congregants were focused not on white racism, but on Mr. Wright’s remarks. The Rev. Dean Snyder, pastor of Foundry United Methodist church, which was the Clintons’ home church during President Bill Clinton’s tenure, said some of his congregants were aghast at Mr. Wright’s remarks.
During staff meetings this week at his church, Mr. Snyder said he noticed the rising awareness among some African-Americans of white Americans, he said, “who don’t understand the history of black people in this country and the role of the black church as a prophetic voice, and that in church you can say things that you couldn’t in larger society.”
The Rev. Kent Millard of St. Luke’s United Methodist Church in Indianapolis said he felt Mr. Obama had explained the reality of the relationship between a pastor and his congregants.
“Senator Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is member of our congregation, and I would hope he would never be held accountable for everything I have said in the last 15 years,” said Dr. Millard, who is white. “Why is there any assumption that a person in church is expected to agree with everything a pastor says?”
Some black ministers said that their sermons might address how the reputation of a man many of them revere was reduced to sound bites. They pointed out that sermons in black churches covered a long and circuitous path from crisis to resolution, and it was unfair to judge the entire message on one or two sentences.
“I may not use his exact language,” said the Rev. Kenneth L. Samuel, pastor of Victory Church in Stone Mountain, Ga., “but I can tell you that the basic thrust of much of my preaching resonates with Dr. Wright. I don’t think I’m necessarily trying to preach people into anger, but I am trying to help people become conscious, become aware, to realize our power to make change in society.”
Mr. Samuel said his Easter sermon would be titled “Dangerous Proclamations,” and would focus on the Apostle Paul, “who was also under attack for his faith in Jesus, and for preaching the Resurrection.”
The Rev. Floyd Flake, senior pastor of Greater Allen African Methodist Episcopal Cathedral of New York in Queens, said, “The black preacher’s role is to present a prophetic word that represents a challenge, but also to give a priestly response that enables people to resolve the problem.” (Mr. Flake, a former member of Congress, has publicly endorsed Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.)
On Easter, one of the nation’s foremost preachers, the Rev. James A. Forbes, senior minister emeritus at the Riverside Church in New York, said he would take Mr. Wright’s place preaching the 6 p.m. service at Trinity in Chicago. Dr. Forbes plans to preach about how the nation is in a “night season,” a dark, destabilizing time, given the war, the economy and the vitriol over race and gender in the political primary.
“It is nighttime in America,” Dr. Forbes said, “and I want to bring a word of encouragement.”
Reporting was contributed by Rebecca Cathcart, Catrin Einhorn, Brenda Goodman and Christopher Maag.
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
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Mtnmun
Trad climber
Top of the Mountain Mun
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Mar 24, 2008 - 11:54am PT
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Obamas Larry King interview was something to behold. Barrack is coming across as the leader we have been longing for since Kennedy. He is smart and so well balanced on the issues it is amazing.
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rockermike
Mountain climber
Berkeley
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Mar 24, 2008 - 12:08pm PT
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Which Kennedy? And in any case the analogy doesn't bode well for his future. And I say that seriously but sadly.
But I basically agree. He sees the issues through the third derivative while everyone else is still throwing ill-thought out rhetorical bombs that only address at best the superficial problems. The guy not only can see what's going on but has a vision of how to get out of the trap we've gotten ourselves into.
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philo
Trad climber
boulder, co.
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Mar 24, 2008 - 12:31pm PT
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It's time to join Team McCain, a pragmatic, heoric American.
Disclaimer: This was not an opinion of the McCain campaign.
Jody's evil twin.
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dirtbag
climber
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Mar 24, 2008 - 01:29pm PT
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I will never convert to the Dark Side, fatty.
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philo
Trad climber
boulder, co.
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Mar 24, 2008 - 01:50pm PT
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DaftRat are we really supposed to be concerned for Barak Obama's presidential chances based on the opinion of your mom? Really? Considering that all your previous geo-political prognostications have proven to be predictably wrong I say you should keep spining the spew baby.
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John Moosie
climber
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Mar 24, 2008 - 03:29pm PT
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Fatty....
Which person, Hillary or Barack, do you think McCain would have an easier time beating and why?
Thanks in advance for answering.
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dirtbag
climber
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Mar 24, 2008 - 03:32pm PT
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"I do believe Ron Paul was the same age only for some reason age was/is not an issue for him. "
If he had a chance of winning, you'd have heard more.
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WoodySt
Trad climber
Riverside
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 24, 2008 - 04:11pm PT
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I now believe that if McCain doesn't screw-up somehow, he would beat Hillary with little difficulty and against Obama would have a 75% chance of winning. Across the board, the pastor issue has turned many voters against Obama. He may recoup; that's an unknown at this time. The church issue may be a tipping point for his campaign. The term "pastorgate" is now in play. God, I love it. I haven't had so much fun since I rolled an orange with a firecracker stuffed in it into the girls bathroom in Junior High.
I'm enjoying this campaign like no other; nothing like a wild and
woolly political fray. Come on, a cranky, old war hero; a vicious, power mad harpy; a Messiah wanna be. You couldn't ask for a better set of eccentrics. Hell, it's like picking our presidential prospects from the sideshow at the circus.
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dirtbag
climber
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Mar 24, 2008 - 04:30pm PT
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Yes they have Fatty. The haters are the Republican Base.
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dirtbag
climber
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Mar 24, 2008 - 04:36pm PT
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Well, as long as he doesn't believe his bullshit he's probably okay.
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dirtbag
climber
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Mar 24, 2008 - 06:37pm PT
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"dirtbag,
What haters? You mean Fallwell et al.? I am not getting your point"
What do you think Lois?
You think Falwell, Hagee, Robertson, Bob Jones, don't have a following or a voice in the Republican-controlled government? They are the Republican base. As a Republican, you are in bed with them.
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